hat. By disentangling his
ideas one might indeed possibly find means of solving the difficulty, but
there is no development of the subject in his work.'

359. I suppose that the gifted author of this extract, when he thought the
difficulty could be solved, had in mind something akin to my principles on
this matter. If he had vouchsafed to declare himself in this passage, he
would to all appearance have replied, like M. Regis, that the laws God
established were the most excellent that could be established. He would
have acknowledged, at the same time, that God could not have refrained[341]
from establishing laws and following rules, because laws and rules are what
makes order and beauty; that to act without rules would be to act without
reason; and that because God _called into action all his goodness_ the
exercise of his omnipotence was consistent with the laws of wisdom, to
secure as much good as was possible of attainment. Finally, he would have
said, the existence of certain particular disadvantages which strike us is
a sure indication that the best plan did not permit of their avoidance, and
that they assist in the achievement of the total good, an argument
wherewith M. Bayle in more than one place expresses agreement.

360. Now that I have proved sufficiently that everything comes to pass
according to determinate reasons, there cannot be any more difficulty over
these principles of God's foreknowledge. Although these determinations do
not compel, they cannot but be certain, and they foreshadow what shall
happen. It is true that God sees all at once the whole sequence of this
universe, when he chooses it, and that thus he has no need of the connexion
of effects and causes in order to foresee these effects. But since his
wisdom causes him to choose a sequence in perfect connexion, he cannot but
see one part of the sequence in the other. It is one of the rules of my
system of general harmony, _that the present is big with the future_, and
that he who sees all sees in that which is that which shall be. What is
more, I have proved conclusively that God sees in each portion of the
universe the whole universe, owing to the perfect connexion of things. He
is infinitely more discerning than Pythagoras, who judged the height of
Hercules by the size of his footprint. There must therefore be no doubt
that effects follow their causes determinately, in spite of contingency and
even of freedom, which nevertheless exist together wi