ced in the same
class with Mr. Hobbes and Spinoza, and with some other discredited authors,
whose doctrine is considered odious and insupportable. As for me, I do not
require the will always to follow the judgement of the understanding,
because I distinguish this judgement from the motives that spring from
insensible perceptions and inclinations. But I hold that the will always
follows the most advantageous representation, whether distinct or confused,
of the good or the evil resulting from reasons, passions and inclinations,
although it may also find motives for suspending its judgement. But it is
always upon motives that it acts.

14. It will be necessary to answer these objections to my opinion before
proceeding to establish that of our author. The misapprehension of my
opponents originates in their confusing a consequence which is necessary
absolutely, whose contrary implies contradiction, with a consequence which
is founded only upon truths of fitness, and nevertheless has its effect. To
put it otherwise, there is a confusion between what depends upon the
principle of contradiction, which makes necessary and indispensable truths,
and what depends upon the principle of the sufficient reason, which [419]
applies also to contingent truths. I have already elsewhere stated this
proposition, which is one of the most important in philosophy, pointing out
that there are two great principles, namely, _that of identicals or of
contradiction_, which states that of two contradictory enunciations the one
is true and the other false, and _that of the sufficient reason_, which
states that there is no true enunciation whose reason could not be seen by
one possessing all the knowledge necessary for its complete understanding.
Both principles must hold not only in necessary but also in contingent
truths; and it is even necessary that that which has no sufficient reason
should not exist. For one may say in a sense that these two principles are
contained in the definition of the true and the false. Nevertheless, when
in making the analysis of the truth submitted one sees it depending upon
truths whose contrary implies contradiction, one may say that it is
absolutely necessary. But when, while pressing the analysis to the furthest
extent, one can never attain to such elements of the given truth, one must
say that it is contingent, and that it originates from a prevailing reason
which inclines without necessitating. Once that is granted