itself comes only from privation;
the positive enters therein only by concomitance, as the active enters by
concomitance into cold. We see that water in freezing is capable of
breaking a gun-barrel wherein it is confined; and yet cold is a certain
privation of force, it only comes from the diminution of a movement which
separates the particles of fluids. When this separating motion becomes
weakened in the water by the cold, the particles of compressed air
concealed in the water collect; and, becoming larger, they become more
capable of acting outwards through their buoyancy. The resistance which the
surfaces of the proportions of air meet in the water, and which opposes the
force exerted by these portions towards dilation, is far less, and
consequently the effect of the air greater, in large air-bubbles than in
small, even though these small bubbles combined should form as great a mass
as the large. For the resistances, that is, the surfaces, increase by the
_square_, and the forces, that is, the contents or the volumes of the
spheres of compressed air, increase by the _cube_, of their diameters. Thus
it is _by accident_ that privation involves action and force. I have
already shown how privation is enough to cause error and malice, and [220]
how God is prompted to permit them, despite that there be no malignity in
him. Evil comes from privation; the positive and action spring from it by
accident, as force springs from cold.

154. The statement that M. Bayle attributes to the Paulicians, p. 2323, is
not conclusive, to wit, that free will must come from two principles, to
the end that it may have power to turn towards good and towards evil: for,
being simple in itself, it should rather have come from a neutral principle
if this argument held good. But free will tends towards good, and if it
meets with evil it is by accident, for the reason that this evil is
concealed beneath the good, and masked, as it were. These words which Ovid
ascribes to Medea,

_Video meliora proboque,_
_Deteriora sequor_,

imply that the morally good is mastered by the agreeably good, which makes
more impression on souls when they are disturbed by the passions.

155. Furthermore, M. Bayle himself supplies Melissus with a good answer;
but a little later he disputes it. Here are his words, p. 2025: 'If
Melissus consults the notions of order, he will answer that man was not
wicked when God made him; he will say that man received from God