d who make God the sole agent, are
needlessly becoming involved in expressions whence they will only with
difficulty extricate themselves without offence against religion; [363]
moreover, they unquestionably offend against reason.

401. Here is, however, the foundation of M. Bayle's argument. He says that
we do not do that of which we know not the way it is done. But it is a
principle which I do not concede to him. Let us listen to his dissertation
(p. 767 seqq.): 'It is an astonishing thing that almost all philosophers
(with the exception of those who expounded Aristotle, and who admitted a
universal intelligence distinct from our soul, and cause of our
perceptions: see in the _Historical and Critical Dictionary_, Note E of the
article "Averroes") have shared the popular belief that we form our ideas
actively. Yet where is the man who knows not on the one hand that he is in
absolute ignorance as to how ideas are made, and on the other hand, that he
could not sew two stitches if he were ignorant of how to sew? Is the sewing
of two stitches in itself a work more difficult than the painting in one's
mind of a rose, the very first time one's eyes rest upon it, and although
one has never learnt this kind of painting? Does it not appear on the
contrary that this mental portrait is in itself a work more difficult than
tracing on canvas the shape of a flower, a thing we cannot do without
having learnt it? We are all convinced that a key would be of no use to us
for opening a chest if we were ignorant as to how to use the key, and yet
we imagine that our soul is the efficient cause of the movement of our
arms, despite that it knows neither where the nerves are which must be used
for this movement, nor whence to obtain the animal spirits that are to flow
into these nerves. We have the experience every day that the ideas we would
fain recall do not come, and that they appear of themselves when we are no
longer thinking of them. If that does not prevent us from thinking that we
are their efficient cause, what reliance shall one place on the proof of
feeling, which to M. Jacquelot appears so conclusive? Does our authority
over our ideas more often fall short than our authority over our volitions?
If we were to count up carefully, we should find in the course of our life
more velleities than volitions, that is, more evidences of the servitude of
our will than of its dominion. How many times does one and the same man not
experience