appropriate could have been [336]
chosen to show the difference there is between the moral necessity that
accounts for the choice of wisdom and the brute necessity of Strato and the
adherents of Spinoza, who deny to God understanding and will, than a
consideration of the difference existing between the reason for the laws of
motion and the reason for the ternary number of the dimensions: for the
first lies in the choice of the best and the second in a geometrical and
blind necessity.

352. Having spoken of the laws of bodies, that is, of the rules of motion,
let us come to the laws of the union between body and soul, where M. Bayle
believes that he finds again some vague indifference, something absolutely
arbitrary. Here is the way he speaks of it in his _Reply_ (vol. II, ch. 84,
p. 163): 'It is a puzzling question whether bodies have some natural
property of doing harm or good to man's soul. If one answers yes, one
plunges into an insane labyrinth: for, as man's soul is an immaterial
substance, one will be bound to say that the local movement of certain
bodies is an efficient cause of the thoughts in a mind, a statement
contrary to the most obvious notions that philosophy imparts to us. If one
answers no, one will be constrained to admit that the influence of our
organs upon our thoughts depends neither upon the internal qualities of
matter, nor upon the laws of motion, but upon an _arbitrary institution_ of
the creator. One must then admit that it depended altogether upon God's
freedom to combine particular thoughts of our soul with particular
modifications of our body, even when he had once established all the laws
for the action of bodies one upon another. Whence it results that there is
in the universe no portion of matter which by its proximity can harm us,
save when God wills it; and consequently, that the earth is as capable as
any other place of being the abode of the happy man.... In short it is
evident that there is no need, in order to prevent the wrong choices of
freedom, to transport man outside the earth. God could do on earth with
regard to all the acts of the will what he does in respect of the good
works of the predestined when he settles their outcome, whether by
efficacious or by sufficient grace: and that grace, without in any way
impairing freedom, is always followed by the assent of the soul. It would
be as easy for him on earth as in heaven to bring about the determination
of our souls to a goo