t. Att._, lib. 6,
c. 2). Here it is in epitome. Fate is the inevitable and eternal connexion
of all events. Against this is urged in objection, that it follows that the
acts of the will would be necessary, and that criminals, being coerced into
evil, should not be punished. Chrysippus answers that evil springs from the
original constitution of souls, which forms part of the destined sequence;
that souls which are of a good natural disposition offer stronger
resistance to the impressions of external causes; but that those whose
natural defects had not been corrected by discipline allowed themselves to
be perverted. Next he distinguishes (according to Cicero) between principal
causes and accessary causes, and uses the comparison of a cylinder, whose
rotatory force and speed or ease in motion comes chiefly from its shape,
whereas it would be retarded by any roughness in formation. Nevertheless it
has need of impulsion, even as the soul needs to be acted upon by the
objects of the senses, and receives this impression according to its own
constitution.

333. Cicero considers that Chrysippus becomes so confused that, whether he
will or no, he confirms the necessity of fate. M. Bayle is almost of the
same opinion (_Dictionary_, art. 'Chrysippus', lit. H). He says that this
philosopher does not get out of the bog, since the cylinder is regular or
uneven according to what the craftsman has made it; and thus God,
providence, fate will be the causes of evil in such a way as to render it
necessary. Justus Lipsius answers that, according to the Stoics, evil came
from matter. That is (to my mind) as if he had said that the stone on which
the craftsman worked was sometimes too rough and too irregular to produce a
good cylinder. M. Bayle cites against Chrysippus the fragments of Onomaus
and Diogenianus that Eusebius has preserved for us in the _Praeparatio[326]
Evangelica_ (lib. 6, c. 7, 8); and above all he relies upon Plutarch's
refutation in his book against the Stoics, quoted art. 'Paulicians', lit.
G. But this refutation does not amount to very much. Plutarch maintains
that it would be better to deny power to God than to impute to him the
permission of evils; and he will not admit that evil may serve a greater
good. I have already shown, on the contrary, that God cannot but be
all-powerful, even though he can do no better than produce the best, which
includes the permission of evil. Moreover, I have pointed out repeatedly
that what