at a greater speed. So the limitation or original
imperfection of creatures brings it about that even the best plan of the
universe cannot admit more good, and cannot be exempted from certain evils,
these, however, being only of such a kind as may tend towards a greater
good. There are some disorders in the parts which wonderfully enhance the
beauty of the whole, just as certain dissonances, appropriately used,
render harmony more beautiful. But that depends upon the answer which I
have already given to the first objection.

OBJECTION VI

Whoever punishes those who have done as well as it was in their power to do
is unjust.

God does so.

Therefore, etc.

ANSWER

I deny the minor of this argument. And I believe that God always gives
sufficient aid and grace to those who have good will, that is to say, who
do not reject this grace by a fresh sin. Thus I do not admit the damnation
of children dying unbaptized or outside the Church, or the damnation of
adult persons who have acted according to the light that God has given
them. And I believe that, _if anyone has followed the light he had_, he
will undoubtedly receive thereof in greater measure as he has need, even as
the late Herr Hulsemann, who was celebrated as a profound theologian at
Leipzig, has somewhere observed; and if such a man had failed to receive
light during his life, he would receive it at least in the hour of death.

OBJECTION VII

Whoever gives only to some, and not to all, the means of producing
effectively in them good will and final saving faith has not enough
goodness.

God does so.

Therefore, etc.

ANSWER

I deny the major. It is true that God could overcome the greatest
resistance of the human heart, and indeed he sometimes does so, [386]
whether by an inward grace or by the outward circumstances that can greatly
influence souls; but he does not always do so. Whence comes this
distinction, someone will say, and wherefore does his goodness appear to be
restricted? The truth is that it would not have been in order always to act
in an extraordinary way and to derange the connexion of things, as I have
observed already in answering the first objection. The reasons for this
connexion, whereby the one is placed in more favourable circumstances than
the other, are hidden in the depths of God's wisdom: they depend upon the
universal harmony. The best plan of the universe, which God could not fail
to choose, required this. One conclud