r thing: and especially might this concern its inward
operation, as in the case of a thought or a volition, things really
distinct from the substance.

392. But there I am once more at grips with M. Bayle. He maintains that
there are no such accidents distinct from the substance. 'The reasons', he
says, 'which our modern philosophers have employed to demonstrate that the
accidents are not beings in reality distinct from the substance are not
mere difficulties; they are arguments which overwhelm one, and which cannot
be refuted. Take the trouble', he adds, 'to look for them in the writings
of Father Maignan, or Father Malebranche or M. Calli' (Professor of
Philosophy at Caen) 'or in the _Accidentia profligata_ of Father Saguens,
disciple of Father Maignan, the extract from which is to be found in the
_Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres_, June 1702. Or if you wish one
author only to suffice you, choose Dom Francois Lami, a Benedictine monk,
and one of the strongest Cartesians to be found in France. You will find
among his _Philosophical Letters_, printed at Trevoux in 1703, that one
wherein by the geometricians' method he demonstrates "that God is the sole
true cause of all that which is real." I would wish to see all these books;
and as for this last proposition, it may be true in a very good sense: God
is the one principal cause of pure and absolute realities, or of
perfections. _Causae secundae agunt in virtute primae._ But when one
comprises limitations and privations under the term realities one may say
that the second causes co-operate in the production of that which is
limited; otherwise God would be the cause of sin, and even the sole cause.

393. It is well to beware, moreover, lest in confusing substances with
accidents, in depriving created substances of action, one fall into
Spinozism, which is an exaggerated Cartesianism. That which does not act
does not merit the name of substance. If the accidents are not distinct
from the substances; if the created substance is a successive being, like
movement; if it does not endure beyond a moment, and does not remain the
same (during some stated portion of time) any more than its accidents; if
it does not operate any more than a mathematical figure or a number: why
shall one not say, with Spinoza, that God is the only substance, and [360]
that creatures are only accidents or modifications? Hitherto it has been
supposed that the substance remains, and that the accide