eternity, is an infinity. Moreover, there is an infinite number of
creatures in the smallest particle of matter, because of the actual
division of the _continuum_ to infinity. And infinity, that is to say, the
accumulation of an infinite number of substances, is, properly speaking,
not a whole any more than the infinite number itself, whereof one cannot
say whether it is even or uneven. That is just what serves to confute those
who make of the world a God, or who think of God as the Soul of the world;
for the world or the universe cannot be regarded as an animal or as a
substance.

196. It is therefore not a question of a creature, but of the universe; and
the adversary will be obliged to maintain that one possible universe may be
better than the other, to infinity; but there he would be mistaken, and it
is that which he cannot prove. If this opinion were true, it would follow
that God had not produced any universe at all: for he is incapable of
acting without reason, and that would be even acting against reason. It is
as if one were to suppose that God had decreed to make a material sphere,
with no reason for making it of any particular size. This decree would be
useless, it would carry with it that which would prevent its effect. It
would be quite another matter if God decreed to draw from a given point one
straight line to another given straight line, without any determination of
the angle, either in the decree or in its circumstances. For in this case
the determination would spring from the nature of the thing, the line would
be perpendicular, and the angle would be right, since that is all that is
determined and distinguishable. It is thus one must think of the creation
of the best of all possible universes, all the more since God not only
decrees to create a universe, but decrees also to create the best of all.
For God decrees nothing without knowledge, and he makes no separate
decrees, which would be nothing but antecedent acts of will: and these we
have sufficiently explained, distinguishing them from genuine decrees.

197. M. Diroys, whom I knew in Rome, theologian to Cardinal d'Estrees,
wrote a book entitled _Proofs and Assumptions in Favour of_ _the [250]
Christian Religion_, published in Paris in the year 1683. M. Bayle (_Reply
to the Questions of a Provincial_, vol. III, ch. 165, p. 1058) recounts
this objection brought up by M. Diroys: 'There is one more difficulty', he
says, 'which it is no less impo