From his work innumerable passages are quoted for and against this opinion, as Father Annat has himself shown in the work that has just been mentioned, De Incoacta Libertate. So easy is it to render this subject obscure, as M. Bayle says at the conclusion of this discourse. As for Father Gibieuf, it must be admitted that he often alters the meaning of his terms, and that consequently he does not answer the question in the main, albeit he often writes with good sense.

367. Indeed, confusion springs, more often than not, from ambiguity in terms, and from one's failure to take trouble over gaining clear ideas about them. That gives rise to these eternal, and usually mistaken, contentions on necessity and contingency, on the possible and the impossible. But provided that it is understood that necessity and possibility, taken metaphysically and strictly, depend solely upon this question, whether the object in itself or that which is opposed to it implies contradiction or not; and that one takes into account that contingency is consistent with the inclinations, or reasons which contribute towards causing determination by the will; provided also that one knows how to distinguish clearly between necessity and determination or certainty, between metaphysical necessity, which admits of no choice, presenting only one single object as possible, and moral necessity, which constrains the wisest to choose the best; finally, provided that one is rid of the chimera of complete indifference, which can only be found in the books of philosophers, and on paper (for they cannot even conceive the notion in their heads, or prove its reality by an example in things) one will easily escape from a labyrinth whose unhappy Daedalus was the human mind. That labyrinth has caused infinite confusion, as much with the ancients as with those of later times, even so far as to lead men into the absurd error of the Lazy Sophism, which closely resembles fate after the Turkish fashion. I do not wonder if in reality the Thomists and the Jesuits, and even the Molinists and the Jansenists, agree together on this matter more than is supposed. A Thomist and even a wise Jansenist will content himself with certain determination, without going on to necessity: and if someone goes so far, the error mayhap will lie only in the word. A wise Molinist will be content with an indifference opposed to necessity, but such as shall not exclude prevalent inclinations.

368. These difficulties, however, have greatly impressed M. Bayle,

who was more inclined to dwell on them than to solve them, although he might perhaps have had better success than anyone if he had thought fit to turn his mind in that direction. Here is what he says of them in his Dictionary, art. 'Jansenius', lit. G, p. 1626: 'Someone has said that the subject of Grace is an ocean which has neither shore nor bottom. Perhaps he would have spoken more correctly if he had compared it to the Strait of Messina, where one is always in danger of striking one reef while endeavouring to avoid another.

Dextrum Scylla latus, laevum implacata Charybdis

Obsidet.

Everything comes back in the end to this: Did Adam sin freely? If you answer yes, then you will be told, his fall was not foreseen. If you answer no, then you will be told, he is not guilty. You may write a hundred volumes against the one or the other of these conclusions, and yet you will confess, either that the infallible prevision of a contingent event is a mystery impossible to conceive, or that the way in which a creature which acts without freedom sins nevertheless is altogether incomprehensible.'

369. Either I am greatly mistaken or these two alleged incomprehensibilities are ended altogether by my solutions. Would to God it were as easy to answer the question how to cure fevers, and how to avoid the perils of two chronic sicknesses that may originate, the one from not curing the fever, the other from curing it wrongly. When one asserts that a free event cannot be foreseen, one is confusing freedom with indetermination, or with indifference that is complete and in equipoise; and when one maintains that the lack of freedom would prevent man from being guilty, one means a freedom exempt, not from determination or from certainty, but from necessity and from constraint. This shows that the dilemma is not well expressed, and that there is a wide passage between the two perilous reefs. One will reply, therefore, that Adam sinned freely, and that God saw him sinning in the possible state of Adam, which became actual in accordance with the decree of the divine permission. It is true that Adam was determined to sin in consequence of certain prevailing inclinations: but this determination destroys neither contingency nor freedom. Moreover, the certain determination to sin which exists in man does not deprive him of the power to avoid sinning (speaking generally) or,

since he does sin, prevent him from being guilty and deserving punishment. This is more especially so since the punishment may be of service to him or others, to contribute towards determining them another time not to sin. There is besides punitive justice, which goes beyond compensation and amendment, and wherein also there is nothing liable to be shaken by the certain determination of the contingent resolutions of the will. It may be said, on the contrary, that the penalties and rewards would be to some extent unavailing, and would fail in one of their aims, that of amendment, if they could not contribute towards determining the will to do better another time.

370. M. Bayle continues: 'Where freedom is concerned there are only two courses to take: one is to say that all the causes distinct from the soul, and co-operating with it, leave it the power to act or not to act; the other is to say that they so determine it to act that it cannot forbear to do so. The first course is that taken by the Molinists, the other is that of the Thomists and Jansenists and the Protestants of the Geneva Confession. Yet the Thomists have clamorously maintained that they were not Jansenists; and the latter have maintained with equal warmth that where freedom was concerned they were not Calvinists. On the other hand, the Molinists have maintained that St. Augustine did not teach Jansenism. Thus the one side not wishing to admit that they were in conformity with people who were considered heretics, and the other side not wishing to admit that they were in opposition to a learned saint whose opinions were always considered orthodox, have both performed a hundred feats of contortion, etc.'