. Bayle himself deems with reason that there is more
artifice in the organism of animals than in the most beautiful poem in the
world or in the most admirable invention whereof the human mind is capable,
it follows that my system of the connexion between the body and the soul is
as intelligible as the general opinion on the formation of animals. For
this opinion (which appears to me true) states in effect that the wisdom of
God has so made Nature that it is competent in virtue of its laws to form
animals; I explain this opinion and throw more light upon the possibility
of it through the system of preformation. Whereafter there will be no cause
for surprise that God has so made the body that by virtue of its own laws
it can carry out the intentions of the reasoning soul: for all that the
reasoning soul can demand of the body is less difficult than the
organization which God has demanded of the seeds. M. Bayle says (_Reply to
the Questions of a Provincial_, ch. 182, p. 1294) that it is only very
recently there have been people who have understood that the formation of
living bodies cannot be a natural process. This he could say also (in
accordance with his principles) of the communication between the soul and
the body, since God effects this whole communication in the system of
occasional causes to which this author subscribes. But I admit the
supernatural here only in the beginning of things, in respect of the first
formation of animals or in respect of the original constitution of
pre-established harmony between the soul and the body. Once that has come
to pass, I hold that the formation of animals and the relation between the
soul and the body are something as natural now as the other most ordinary
operations of Nature. A close parallel is afforded by people's ordinary
thinking about the instinct and the marvellous behaviour of brutes. One
recognizes reason there not in the brutes but in him who created them. I
am, then, of the general opinion in this respect; but I hope that my
explanation will have added clearness and lucidity, and even a more ample
range, to that opinion.

Now when preparing to justify my system in face of the new difficulties of
M. Bayle, I purposed at the same time to communicate to him the ideas which
I had had for some time already, on the difficulties put forward by him[67]
in opposition to those who endeavour to reconcile reason with faith in
regard to the existence of evil. Indeed, there are pe