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after having continually diminished, and likewise equality as an inequality
that vanishes also, as would happen through the continual diminution of the
greater of two unequal bodies, while the smaller retains its size. As a
consequence of this consideration, the general rule for unequal bodies, or
bodies in motion, must apply also to equal bodies or to bodies one of which
is at rest, as to a particular case of the rule. This does result in the
true laws of motion, and does not result in certain laws invented by M.
Descartes and by some other men of talent, which already on that score
alone prove to be ill-concerted, so that one may predict that experiment
will not favour them.

349. These considerations make it plain that the laws of Nature regulating
movements are neither entirely necessary nor entirely arbitrary. The middle
course to be taken is that they are a choice of the most perfect wisdom.
And this great example of the laws of motion shows with the utmost clarity
how much difference there is between these three cases, to wit, firstly _an
absolute necessity_, metaphysical or geometrical, which may be called
blind, and which does not depend upon any but efficient causes; in the
second place, _a moral necessity_, which comes from the free choice of
wisdom in relation to final causes; and finally in the third place,
_something absolutely arbitrary_, depending upon an indifference of
equipoise, which is imagined, but which cannot exist, where there is no
sufficient reason either in the efficient or in the final cause.
Consequently one must conclude how mistaken it is to confuse either that
which is absolutely necessary with that which is determined by the reason
of the best, or the freedom that is determined by reason with a vague
indifference.

350. This also settles M. Bayle's difficulty, for he fears that, if God is
always determinate, Nature could dispense with him and bring about that
same effect which is attributed to him, through the necessity of the order
of things. That would be true if the laws of motion for instance, and all
the rest, had their source in a geometrical necessity of efficient causes;
but in the last analysis one is obliged to resort to something depending
upon final causes and upon what is fitting. This also utterly destroys the
most plausible reasoning of the Naturalists. Dr. Johann Joachim Becher, a
German physician, well known for his books on chemistry, had composed a
prayer which loo