]
I have found the means, so it seems to me, of demonstrating the contrary in
a way that gives one a clear insight into the inward essence of the matter.
For having made new discoveries on the nature of active force and the laws
of motion, I have shown that they have no geometrical necessity, as Spinoza
appears to have believed they had. Neither, as I have made plain, are they
purely arbitrary, even though this be the opinion of M. Bayle and of some
modern philosophers: but they are dependent upon the fitness of things as I
have already pointed out above, or upon that which I call the 'principle of
the best'. Moreover one recognizes therein, as in every other thing, the
marks of the first substance, whose productions bear the stamp of a supreme
wisdom and make the most perfect of harmonies. I have shown also that this
harmony connects both the future with the past and the present with the
absent. The first kind of connexion unites times, and the other places.
This second connexion is displayed in the union of the soul with the body,
and in general in the communication of true substances with one another and
with material phenomena. But the first takes place in the preformation of
organic bodies, or rather of all bodies, since there is organism
everywhere, although all masses do not compose organic bodies. So a pond
may very well be full of fish or of other organic bodies, although it is
not itself an animal or organic body, but only a mass that contains them.
Thus I had endeavoured to build upon such foundations, established in a
conclusive manner, a complete body of the main articles of knowledge that
reason pure and simple can impart to us, a body whereof all the parts were
properly connected and capable of meeting the most important difficulties
of the ancients and the moderns. I had also in consequence formed for
myself a certain system concerning the freedom of man and the cooperation
of God. This system appeared to me to be such as would in no wise offend
reason and faith; and I desired to submit it to the scrutiny of M. Bayle,
as well as of those who are in controversy with him. Now he has departed
from us, and such a loss is no small one, a writer whose learning and
acumen few have equalled. But since the subject is under consideration and
men of talent are still occupied with it, while the public also follows it
attentively, I take this to be a fitting moment for the publication of
certain of my ideas.

It will