be born, and could not be born at
another moment; he could not die otherwise than before Troy; he could
not be buried elsewhere than in Lycia; had at the appointed time to
produce vegetables which had to be changed into the substance of a few
Lycians; his heirs had to establish a new order in his states; this new
order had to exert an influence over the neighbouring kingdoms; from it
resulted a new arrangement of war and peace with the neighbours of the
neighbours of Lycia: thus, step by step, the destiny of the whole world
has been dependent on Sarpedon's death, which depended on Helen being
carried off; and this carrying off was necessarily linked to Hecuba's
marriage, which by tracing back to other events was linked to the origin
of things.

If only one of these facts had been arranged differently, another
universe would have resulted: but it was not possible for the present
universe not to exist; therefore it was not possible for Jupiter to save
his son's life, for all that he was Jupiter.

This system of necessity and fatality has been invented in our time by
Leibnitz, according to what people say, under the name of
_self-sufficient reason_; it is, however, very ancient: that there is no
effect without a cause and that often the smallest cause produces the
greatest effects, does not date from to-day.

Lord Bolingbroke avows that the little quarrels of Madame Marlborough
and Madame Masham gave birth to his chance of making Queen Anne's
private treaty with Louis XIV.; this treaty led to the Peace of Utrecht;
this Peace of Utrecht established Philip V. on the throne of Spain.
Philip V. took Naples and Sicily from the house of Austria; the Spanish
prince who is to-day King of Naples clearly owes his kingdom to my lady
Masham: and he would not have had it, he would not perhaps even have
been born, if the Duchess of Marlborough had been more complaisant
towards the Queen of England. His existence at Naples depended on one
foolishness more or less at the court of London.

Examine the position of all the peoples of the universe; they are
established like this on a sequence of facts which appear to be
connected with nothing and which are connected with everything.
Everything is cog, pulley, cord, spring, in this vast machine.

It is likewise in the physical sphere. A wind which blows from the
depths of Africa and the austral seas, brings a portion of the African
atmosphere, which falls in rain in the valleys of the Alp