true rejoinder to
the Buridan sophism: it is that the case of perfect equipoise is
impossible, since the universe can never be halved, so as to make all
impressions equivalent on both sides.

308. Let us see what M. Bayle himself says elsewhere against the chimerical
or absolutely undefined indifference. Cicero had said (in his book _De
Fato_) that Carneades had found something more subtle than the deviation of
atoms, attributing the cause of a so-called absolutely undefined
indifference to the voluntary motions of souls, because these motions have
no need of an external cause, coming as they do from our nature. But M.
Bayle (_Dictionary_, art. 'Epicurus', p. 1143) aptly replies that all that
which springs from the nature of a thing is determined: thus determination
always remains, and Carneades' evasion is of no avail.

309. He shows elsewhere (_Reply to the Questions of a Provincial_, ch. 90,
l. 2, p. 229) 'that a freedom far removed from this so-called equipoise is
incomparably more beneficial. I mean', he says, 'a freedom such as may
always follow the judgements of the mind, and such as cannot resist objects
clearly recognized as good. I know of no people who do not agree that truth
clearly recognized necessitates' (determines rather, unless one speak of a
moral necessity) 'the assent of the soul; experience teaches us that. In
the schools they teach constantly that as the true is the object of [313]
the understanding, so the good is the object of the will. So likewise they
teach that as the understanding can never affirm anything save that which
is shown to it under the semblance of truth, the will can never love
anything which to it does not appear to be good. One never believes the
false as such, and one never loves evil as evil. There is in the
understanding a natural determination towards the true in general, and
towards each individual truth clearly recognized. There is in the will a
natural determination towards good in general; whence many philosophers
conclude that from the moment when individual goods are clearly recognized
by us we are of necessity compelled to love them. The understanding
suspends its actions only when its objects show themselves obscurely, so
that there is cause for doubt as to whether they are false or true. That
leads many persons to the conclusion that the will remains in equipoise
only when the soul is uncertain whether the object presented to it is a
good with regard to it; but t