it it, if indifference signifies as
much as 'contingency'; for I have already said here that freedom must
exclude an absolute and metaphysical or logical necessity. But, as I have
declared more than once, this indifference, this contingency, this
non-necessity, if I may venture so to speak, which is a characteristic
attribute of freedom, does not prevent one from having stronger
inclinations towards the course one chooses; nor does it by any means
require that one be absolutely and equally indifferent towards the two
opposing courses.

303. I therefore admit indifference only in the one sense, implying the
same as contingency, or non-necessity. But, as I have declared more than
once, I do not admit an indifference of equipoise, and I do not think that
one ever chooses when one is absolutely indifferent. Such a choice would
be, as it were, mere chance, without determining reason, whether apparent
or hidden. But such a chance, such an absolute and actual fortuity, is a
chimera which never occurs in nature. All wise men are agreed that chance
is only an apparent thing, like fortune: only ignorance of causes gives
rise to it. But if there were such a vague indifference, or rather if we
were to choose without having anything to prompt us to the choice, chance
would then be something actual, resembling what, according to Epicurus,
took place in that little deviation of the atoms, occurring without cause
or reason. Epicurus had introduced it in order to evade necessity, and[311]
Cicero with good reason ridiculed it.

304. This deviation had a final cause in the mind of Epicurus, his aim
being to free us from fate; but it can have no efficient cause in the
nature of things, it is one of the most impossible of chimeras. M. Bayle
himself refutes it admirably, as we shall see presently. And yet it is
surprising that he appears to admit elsewhere himself something of like
nature with this supposed deviation: here is what he says, when speaking of
Buridan's ass (_Dictionary_, art. 'Buridan', lit. 13): 'Those who advocate
free will properly so called admit in man a power of determining, either to
the right hand or the left, even when the motives are perfectly uniform on
the side of each of the two opposing objects. For they maintain that our
soul can say, without having any reason other than that of using its
freedom: "I prefer this to that, although I see nothing more worthy of my
choice in the one than the other".'

305. All thos