Theodicy Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil · Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
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Here is the way to see plainly that this hypothesis cannot harmonize with what has just been said. The first question will be: Will God create something or not, and wherefore? The author has answered that he will create something in order to communicate his goodness. It is therefore no matter of indifference to him whether he shall create or not. Next the question is asked: Will God create such and such a thing, and wherefore? One must needs answer (to speak consistently) that the same goodness makes him choose the best, and indeed the author falls back on that subsequently. But, following his own hypothesis, he answers that God will create such a thing, but that there is no _wherefore_, because God is absolutely indifferent towards creatures, who have their goodness only from his choice. It is true that our author varies somewhat on this point, for he says here (ch. 5, sect. 5, sub-sect. 4, § 12) that God is indifferent to the choice between men of equal perfection, or between equally perfect kinds of rational creatures.
Thus, according to this form of expression, he would choose rather the more perfect kind: and as kinds that are of equal perfection harmonize more or less with others, God will choose those that agree best together; there will therefore be no pure and absolute indifference, and the author thus comes back to my principles. But let us speak, as he speaks, in accordance with his hypothesis, and let us assume with him that God chooses certain creatures even though he be absolutely indifferent towards them. He will then just as soon choose creatures that are irregular, ill-shapen, mischievous, unhappy, chaos everlasting, monsters everywhere, [431] scoundrels as sole inhabitants of the earth, devils filling the whole universe, all this rather than excellent systems, shapely forms, upright persons, good angels! No, the author will say, God, when once he had resolved to create men, resolved at the same time to give them all the advantages possible in the world, and it is the same with regard to creatures of other kinds. I answer, that if this advantage were connected of necessity with their nature, the author would be speaking in accordance with his hypothesis.
That not being so, however, he must admit that God's resolve to give every possible advantage to men arises from a new election independent of that one which prompted God to make men. But whence comes this new election? Does it also come from mere indifference? If such is the case, nothing prompts God to seek the good of men, and if he sometimes comes to do it, it will be merely by accident. But the author maintains that God was prompted to the choice by his goodness; therefore the good and ill of creatures is no matter of indifference to him, and there are in him primary choices to which the goodness of the object prompts him. He chooses not only to create men, but also to create men as happy as it is possible to be in this system. After that not the least vestige of mere indifference will be left, for we can reason concerning the entire world just as we have reasoned concerning the human race. God resolved to create a world, but he was bound by his goodness at the same time to make choice of such a world as should contain the greatest possible amount of order, regularity, virtue, happiness. For I can see no excuse for saying that whereas God was prompted by his goodness to make the men he has resolved to create as perfect as is possible within this system, he had not the same good intention towards the whole universe. There we have come back again to the goodness of the objects; and pure indifference, where God would act without cause, is altogether destroyed by the very procedure of our gifted author, with whom the force of truth, once the heart of the matter was reached, prevailed over a speculative hypothesis, which cannot admit of any application to the reality of things.
23. Since, therefore, nothing is altogether indifferent to God, who knows all degrees, all effects, all relations of things, and who penetrates at one and the same time all their possible connexions, let us see whether at least the ignorance and insensibility of man can make him absolutely indifferent in his choice. The author regales us with this pure [432] indifference as with a handsome present. Here are the proofs of it which he gives: (1) We feel it within us. (2) We have experience within ourselves of its marks and its properties. (3) We can show that other causes which might determine our will are insufficient. As for the first point, he asserts that in feeling freedom within us we feel within us at the same time pure indifference. But I do not agree that we feel such indifference, or that this alleged feeling follows upon that of freedom. We feel usually within us something which inclines us to our choice. At times it happens, however, that we cannot account for all our dispositions.
If we give our mind to the question, we shall recognize that the constitution of our body and of bodies in our environment, the present or previous temper of our soul, together with countless small things included under these comprehensive headings, may contribute towards our greater or lesser predilection for certain objects, and the variation of our opinions from one time to another. At the same time we shall recognize that none would attribute this to mere indifference, or to some indefinable force of the soul which has the same effect upon objects as colours are said to have upon the chameleon. Thus the author has no cause here to appeal to the judgement of the people: he does so, saying that in many things the people reason better than the philosophers. It is true that certain philosophers have been misled by chimeras, and it would seem that mere indifference is numbered among chimerical notions. But when someone maintains that a thing does not exist because the common herd does not perceive it, here the populace cannot be regarded as a good judge, being, as it is, only guided by the senses. Many people think that air is nothing when it is not stirred by the wind.
The majority do not know of imperceptible bodies, the fluid which causes weight or elasticity, magnetic matter, to say nothing of atoms and other indivisible substances. Do we say then that these things are not because the common herd does not know of them? If so, we shall be able to say also that the soul acts sometimes without any disposition or inclination contributing towards the production of its act, because there are many dispositions and inclinations which are not sufficiently perceived by the common herd, for lack of attention and thought. Secondly, as to the marks of the power in question, I have already refuted the claim advanced for it, that it possesses the advantage of making one active, the real cause of one's action, and subject to responsibility and morality: [433] these are not genuine marks of its existence. Here is one the author adduces, which is not genuine either, namely, that we have within us a power of resisting natural appetites, that is to say of resisting not only the senses, but also the reason. But I have already stated this fact: one resists natural appetites through other natural appetites.
One sometimes endures inconveniences, and is happy to do so; but that is on account of some hope or of some satisfaction which is combined with the ill and exceeds it: either one anticipates good from it, or one finds good in it. The author asserts that it is through that power to transform appearances which he has introduced on the scene, that we render agreeable what at first displeased us. But who cannot see that the true reason is, that application and attention to the object and custom change our disposition and consequently our natural appetites? Once we become used to a rather high degree of cold or heat, it no longer incommodes us as it formerly did, and yet no one would ascribe this effect to our power of choice. Time is needed, for instance, to bring about that hardening, or rather that callosity, which enables the hands of certain workmen to resist a degree of heat that would burn our hands. The populace, whom the author invokes, guess correctly the cause of this effect, although they sometimes apply it in a laughable manner. Two serving-maids being close to the fire in the kitchen, one who has burnt herself says to the other: Oh, my dear, who will be able to endure the fire of purgatory? The other answers: Don't be absurd, my good woman, one grows used to everything.
_Et levis est cespes qui probet esse Deum._ But since the Attorney General to the Parliament of Toulouse desired to cause annoyance to the First President (so it is said), to whom Vanini was granted considerable access, teaching his children philosophy, if indeed he was not altogether in the service of that magistrate, the inquisition was carried through rigorously. Vanini, seeing that there was no chance of pardon, declared himself, when at the point of death, for what he was, an atheist; and there was nothing very extraordinary in that. But supposing there were an atheist who gave himself up for torture, vanity might be in his case a strong enough motive, as in that of the Gymnosophist, Calanus, and of the Sophist who, according to Lucian's account, was burnt to death of his own will. But the author thinks that that very vanity, that stubbornness, those other wild intentions of persons who otherwise seem to have quite good sense, cannot be explained by the appetites that arise from the representation of good and evil, and that they compel us to have recourse to that transcendent power which transforms good into evil, and evil into good, and the indifferent into good or into evil. But we do not need to go so far, and the causes of our errors are only too visible.
Indeed, we can make these transformations, but it is not as with the Fairies, by a mere act of this magic power, but by obscuring and suppressing in one's mind the representations of good or bad qualities which are naturally attached to certain objects, and by contemplating only such representations as conform to our taste or our prejudices; or [435] again, because one attaches to the objects, by dint of thinking of them, certain qualities which are connected with them only accidentally or through our habitual contemplation of them. For example, all my life long I detest a certain kind of good food, because in my childhood I found in it something distasteful, which made a strong impression upon me. On the other hand, a certain natural defect will be pleasing to me, because it will revive within me to some extent the thought of a person I used to esteem or love. A young man will have been delighted by the applause which has been showered upon him after some successful public action; the impression of this great pleasure will have made him remarkably sensitive to reputation; he will think day and night of nothing save what nourishes this passion, and that will cause him to scorn death itself in order to attain his end.
For although he may know very well that he will not feel what is said of him after his death, the representation he makes of it for himself beforehand creates a strong impression on his mind. And there are always motives of the same kind in actions which appear most useless and absurd to those who do not enter into these motives. In a word, a strong or oft-repeated impression may alter considerably our organs, our imagination, our memory, and even our reasoning. It happens that a man, by dint of having often related something untrue, which he has perhaps invented, finally comes to believe in it himself. And as one often represents to oneself something pleasing, one makes it easy to imagine, and one thinks it also easy to put into effect, whence it comes that one persuades oneself easily of what one wishes. _Et qui amant ipsi sibi somnia fingunt._
25. Errors are therefore, absolutely speaking, never voluntary, although the will very often contributes towards them indirectly, owing to the pleasure one takes in giving oneself up to certain thoughts, or owing to the aversion one feels for others. Beautiful print in a book will help towards making it persuasive to the reader. The air and manner of a speaker will win the audience for him. One will be inclined to despise doctrines coming from a man one despises or hates, or from another who resembles him in some point that strikes us. I have already said why one is readily disposed to believe what is advantageous or agreeable, and I have known people who at first had changed their religion for worldly [436] considerations, but who have been persuaded (and well persuaded) afterwards that they had taken the right course. One sees also that stubbornness is not simply wrong choice persevering, but also a disposition to persevere therein, which is due to some good supposed to be inherent in the choice, or some evil imagined as arising from a change. The first choice has perchance been made in mere levity, but the intention to abide by it springs from certain stronger reasons or impressions.
There are even some writers on ethics who lay it down that one ought to abide by one's choice so as not to be inconstant or appear so. Yet perseverance is wrong when one despises the warnings of reason, especially when the subject is important enough to be examined carefully; but when the thought of change is unpleasant, one readily averts one's attention from it, and that is the way which most frequently leads one to stubbornness. The author wished to connect stubbornness with his so-called pure indifference. He might then have taken into account that to make us cling to a choice there would be need of more than the mere choice itself or a pure indifference, especially if this choice has been made lightly, and all the more lightly in proportion to the indifference shown. In such a case we shall be readily inclined to reverse the choice, unless vanity, habit, interest or some other motive makes us persevere therein. It must not be supposed either that vengeance pleases without cause. Persons of intense feeling ponder upon it day and night, and it is hard for them to efface the impression of the wrong or the affront they have sustained. They picture for themselves a very great pleasure in being freed from the thought of scorn which comes upon them every moment, and which causes some to find vengeance sweeter than life itself.
_Quis vindicta bonum vita jucundius ipsa._ The author would wish to persuade us that usually, when our desire or our aversion is for some object which does not sufficiently deserve it, we have given to it the surplus of good or evil which has affected us, through the alleged power of choice which makes things appear good or evil as we wish. One has had two degrees of natural evil, one gives oneself six degrees of artificial good through the power that can choose without cause. Thus one will have four degrees of net good (ch. 5, sect. 2, § 7). If that could be carried out it would take us far, as I have already said here. The [437] author even thinks that ambition, avarice, the gambling mania and other frivolous passions derive all their force from this power (ch. 5, sect. 5, sub-sect. 6). But there are besides so many false appearances in things, so many imaginations capable of enlarging or diminishing objects, so many unjustified connexions in our arguments, that there is no need of this little Fairy, that is, of this inward power operating as it were by enchantment, to whom the author attributes all these disorders.
Indeed, I have already said repeatedly that when we resolve upon some course contrary to acknowledged reason, we are prompted to it by another reason stronger to outward appearance, such as, for instance, is the pleasure of appearing independent and of performing an extraordinary action. There was in days past at the Court of Osnabrück a tutor to the pages, who, like a second Mucius Scaevola, held out his arm into the flame and looked like getting a gangrene, in order to show that the strength of his mind was greater than a very acute pain. Few people will follow his example; and I do not even know if a writer could easily be found who, having once affirmed the existence of a power capable of choosing without cause, or even contrary to reason, would be willing to prove his case by his own example, in renouncing some good benefice or some high office, simply in order to display this superiority of will over reason. But I am sure at the least that an intelligent man would not do so. He would be presently aware that someone would nullify his sacrifice by pointing out to him that he had simply imitated Heliodorus, Bishop of Larissa. That man (so it is said) held his book on Theagenes and Chariclea dearer than his bishopric; and such a thing may easily happen when a man has resources enabling him to dispense with his office and when he is sensitive to reputation. Thus every day people are found ready to sacrifice their advantages to their caprices, that is to say, actual goods to the mere semblance of them.
26. If I wished to follow step by step the arguments of our gifted author, which often come back to matters previously considered in our inquiry, usually however with some elegant and well-phrased addition, I should be obliged to proceed too far; but I hope that I shall be able to avoid doing so, having, as I think, sufficiently met all his reasons. The best thing is that with him practice usually corrects and amends theory. After having advanced the hypothesis, in the second section of this fifth chapter, [438] that we approach God through the capacity to choose without reason, and that this power being of the noblest kind its exercise is the most capable of making one happy, things in the highest degree paradoxical, since it is reason which leads us to imitate God and our happiness lies in following reason: after that, I say, the author provides an excellent corrective, for he says rightly (§ 5) that in order to be happy we must adapt our choice to things, since things are scarcely prone to adapt themselves to us, and that this is in effect adapting oneself to the divine will.
Doubtless that is well said, but it implies besides that our will must be guided as far as possible by the reality of the objects, and by true representations of good and evil. Consequently also the motives of good and evil are not opposed to freedom, and the power of choosing without cause, far from ministering to our happiness, will be useless and even highly prejudicial. Thus it is happily the case that this power nowhere exists, and that it is 'a being of reasoning reason', as some Schoolmen call the fictions that are not even possible. As for me, I should have preferred to call them 'beings of non-reasoning reason'. Also I think that the third section (on wrong elections) may pass, since it says that one must not choose things that are impossible, inconsistent, harmful, contrary to the divine will, or already taken by others. Moreover, the author remarks appositely that by prejudicing the happiness of others needlessly one offends the divine will, which desires that all be happy as far as it is possible.
I will say as much of the fourth section, where there is mention of the source of wrong elections, which are error or ignorance, negligence, fickleness in changing too readily, stubbornness in not changing in time, and bad habits; finally there is the importunity of the appetites, which often drive us inopportunely towards external things. The fifth section is designed to reconcile evil elections or sins with the power and goodness of God; and this section, as it is diffuse, is divided into sub-sections. The author has cumbered himself needlessly with a great objection: for he asserts that without a power to choose that is altogether indifferent in the choice there would be no sin. Now it was very easy for God to refuse to creatures a power so irrational. It was sufficient for them to be actuated by the representations of goods and evils; it was therefore easy, according to the author's hypothesis, for God to prevent sin. To extricate himself from this difficulty, he has no other resource than to state that if this power [439] were removed from things the world would be nothing but a purely passive machine. But that is the very thing which I have disproved. If this power were missing in the world (as in fact it is), one would hardly complain of the fact. Souls will be well content with the representations of goods and evils for the making of their choice, and the world will remain as beautiful as it is. The author comes back to what he had already put forward here, that without this power there would be no happiness. But I have given a sufficient answer to that, and there is not the slightest probability in this assertion and in certain other paradoxes he puts forward here to support his principal paradox.
27. He makes a small digression on prayer (sub-sect. 4), saying that those who pray to God hope for some change in the order of nature; but it seems as though, according to his opinion, they are mistaken. In reality, men will be content if their prayers are heard, without troubling themselves as to whether the course of nature is changed in their favour, or not. Indeed, if they receive succour from good angels there will be no change in the general order of things. Also this opinion of our author is a very reasonable one, that there is a system of spiritual substances, just as there is of corporeal substances, and that the spiritual have communication with one another, even as bodies do. God employs the ministry of angels in his rule of mankind, without any detriment to the order of nature. Nevertheless, it is easier to put forward theories on these matters than to explain them, unless one have recourse to my system of Harmony. But the author goes somewhat further. He believes that the mission of the Holy Spirit was a great miracle in the beginning, but that now his operations within us are natural. I leave it to him to explain his opinion, and to settle the matter with other theologians.
Yet I observe that he finds the natural efficacy of prayer in the power it has of making the soul better, of overcoming the passions, and of winning for oneself a certain degree of new grace. I can say almost the same things on my hypothesis, which represents the will as acting only in accordance with motives; and I am immune from the difficulties in which the author has become involved over his power of choosing without cause. He is in great embarrassment also with regard to the foreknowledge of God. For if the soul is perfectly indifferent in its choice how is it possible to foresee this choice? and what sufficient reason will one be able to find for the knowledge of a[440] thing, if there is no reason for its existence? The author puts off to some other occasion the solution of this difficulty, which would require (according to him) an entire work. For the rest, he sometimes speaks pertinently, and in conformity with my principles, on the subject of moral evil. He says, for example (sub-sect.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
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