ffect were assumed to be greater, but the process less simple,
I think one might say that, when all is said and done, the effect itself
would be less great, taking into account not only the final effect but also
the mediate effect. For the wisest mind so acts, as far as it is possible,
that the _means_ are also in a sense _ends_, that is, they are desirable
not only on account of what they do, but on account of what they are. The
more intricate processes take up too much ground, too much space, too much
place, too much time that might have been better employed.

[258]
209. Now since everything resolves itself into this greatest perfection, we
return to my law of the best. For perfection includes not only the _moral
good_ and the _physical good_ of intelligent creatures, but also the good
which is purely _metaphysical_, and concerns also creatures devoid of
reason. It follows that the evil that is in rational creatures happens only
by concomitance, not by antecedent will but by a consequent will, as being
involved in the best possible plan; and the metaphysical good which
includes everything makes it necessary sometimes to admit physical evil and
moral evil, as I have already explained more than once. It so happens that
the ancient Stoics were not far removed from this system. M. Bayle remarked
upon this himself in his _Dictionary_ in the article on 'Chrysippus', rem.
T. It is of importance to give his own words, in order sometimes to face
him with his own objections and to bring him back to the fine sentiments
that he had formerly pronounced: 'Chrysippus', he says (p. 930), 'in his
work on Providence examined amongst other questions this one: Did the
nature of things, or the providence that made the world and the human kind,
make also the diseases to which men are subject? He answers that the chief
design of Nature was not to make them sickly, that would not be in keeping
with the cause of all good; but Nature, in preparing and producing many
great things excellently ordered and of great usefulness, found that some
drawbacks came as a result, and thus these were not in conformity with the
original design and purpose; they came about as a sequel to the work, they
existed only as consequences. For the formation of the human body,
Chrysippus said, the finest idea as well as the very utility of the work
demanded that the head should be composed of a tissue o