produced by a certain _instinct_ that God has placed there,
that is by virtue of _divine preformation_, which has made these admirable
automata, adapted to produce mechanically such beautiful effects. Even so
it is easy to believe that the soul is a spiritual automaton still more
admirable, and that it is through divine preformation that it produces
these beautiful ideas, wherein our will has no part and to which our [365]
art cannot attain. The operation of spiritual automata, that is of souls,
is not mechanical, but it contains in the highest degree all that is
beautiful in mechanism. The movements which are developed in bodies are
concentrated in the soul by representation as in an ideal world, which
expresses the laws of the actual world and their consequences, but with
this difference from the perfect ideal world which is in God, that most of
the perceptions in the other substances are only confused. For it is plain
that every simple substance embraces the whole universe in its confused
perceptions or sensations, and that the succession of these perceptions is
regulated by the particular nature of this substance, but in a manner which
always expresses all the nature in the universe; and every present
perception leads to a new perception, just as every movement that it
represents leads to another movement. But it is impossible that the soul
can know clearly its whole nature, and perceive how this innumerable number
of small perceptions, piled up or rather concentrated together, shapes
itself there: to that end it must needs know completely the whole universe
which is embraced by them, that is, it must needs be a God.

404. As regards _velleities_, they are only a very imperfect kind of
conditional will. I would, if I could: _liberet si liceret_; and in the
case of a velleity, we do not will, properly speaking, to will, but to be
able. That explains why there are none in God; and they must not be
confused with antecedent will. I have explained sufficiently elsewhere that
our control over volitions can be exercised only indirectly, and that one
would be unhappy if one were sufficiently master in one's own domain to be
able to will without cause, without rhyme or reason. To complain of not
having such a control would be to argue like Pliny, who carps at the power
of God because God cannot destroy himself.

405. I intended to finish here after having met (as it seems to me) all the
objections of M. Bayle on this matter