of things to infinity may be the best possible,
although what exists all through the universe in each portion of time be
not the best. It might be therefore that the universe became even [254]
better and better, if the nature of things were such that it was not
permitted to attain to the best all at once. But these are problems of
which it is hard for us to judge.

203. M. Bayle says (p. 1064) that the question whether God could have made
things more perfect than he made them is also very difficult, and that the
reasons for and against are very strong. But it is, so it seems to me, as
if one were to question whether God's actions are consistent with the most
perfect wisdom and the greatest goodness. It is a very strange thing, that
by changing the terms a little one throws doubt upon what is, if properly
understood, as clear as anything can be. The reasons to the contrary have
no force, being founded only on the semblance of defects; and M. Bayle's
objection, which tends to prove that the law of the best would impose upon
God a true metaphysical necessity, is only an illusion that springs from
the misuse of terms. M. Bayle formerly held a different opinion, when he
commended that of Father Malebranche, which was akin to mine on this
subject. But M. Arnauld having written in opposition to Father Malebranche,
M. Bayle altered his opinion; and I suppose that his tendency towards
doubt, which increased in him with the years, was conducive to that result.
M. Arnauld was doubtless a great man, and his authority has great weight:
he made sundry good observations in his writings against Father
Malebranche, but he was not justified in contesting those of his statements
that were akin to mine on the rule of the best.

204. The excellent author of _The Search for Truth_, having passed from
philosophy to theology, published finally an admirable treatise on Nature
and Grace. Here he showed in his way (as M. Bayle explained in his _Divers
Thoughts on the Comet_, ch. 234) that the events which spring from the
enforcement of general laws are not the object of a particular will of God.
It is true that when one wills a thing one wills also in a sense everything
that is necessarily attached to it, and in consequence God cannot will
general laws without also willing in a sense all the particular effects
that must of necessity be derived from them. But it is always true that
these particular events are not willed for their own sake, and