In my opinion each individual substance always contains the traces of what has ever happened to it and marks of that which will ever happen to it. What I have just said, however, may suffice to justify my line of thought.

Now, M. Arnaud declares that in taking the individual concept of a person in relation to the knowledge which God had of it when he resolved to create it, what I have said regarding this concept is very true, and he grants also that the will to create Adam was not at all detached from God's will in regard to whatever has happened both to him and to his posterity. He now asks if the connection between Adam and the events occurring to his posterity is dependent or independent of the free decrees of God. "That is to say," as he explains, "whether it is only in consequence of the free decrees by which God has ordained all that will happen to Adam and to his posterity that God has known what will happen to them, or whether, independently of these decrees there is between Adam and the events aforesaid, an intrinsic and necessary connection."

He does not doubt that I would take the second alternative and, in fact, I am unable to take the first in the manner in which he has just explained it. But there seems to me to be a mean position. He proves that I ought to choose the latter because I consider the individual concept of Adam as possible when I maintain that among an infinity of possible concepts God has selected a certain Adam, while the possible concepts in themselves do not at all depend upon the free decrees of God.

But here I must needs explain myself a little better. I say, therefore, that the connection between Adam and human events is not independent of all the free decrees of God, but also, that it does not depend upon them in such a way that each event could happen or be foreseen only because of a particular primitive decree made about it. I think that there are only a few primitive free decrees regulating the sequence of things which could be called the laws of the universe and which, being joined to the free decree to create Adam, bring about the consequences. In very much the same way as but few hypotheses are called for to explain phenomenon. I will make this clearer in what follows.

As regards the objection that possibles are independent of the decrees of God I grant it of actual decrees (although the Cartesians do not at all agree to this), but I maintain that the possible individual concepts involve certain possible free decrees; for example, if this world was only possible, the individual concept of a particular body in this world would involve certain movements as possible, it would also involve the laws of motion, which are the free decrees of God; but these, also, only as possibilities. Because, as there are an infinity of possible worlds, there are also an infinity of laws, certain ones appropriate to one; others, to another, and each possible individual of any world involves in its concept the laws of its world.

The same can be said of miracles, or of the extraordinary operations of God. These are a part of the general order and conform to the principal purposes of God and consequently, are involved in the concept of this universe, which is a result of these designs. Just as the idea of a building results from the purposes or plans of him who undertakes it, so the idea or concept of this world is a result of the designs of God considered as possible. For everything should be explained by its cause and of the universe the cause is found in the purposes of God. Now, each individual substance, in my opinion, expresses the whole universe, according to a certain aspect and consequently it also expresses the so-called miracles. All this ought to be understood in regard to the general order, in regard to the plans of God, in regard to the sequences of this universe, in regard to the individual substance and in regard to miracles, whether they are taken in the actual condition or whether they are considered sub ratione possibilitatis. For another possible world would have all such orderings, according to its own manner, although the plans of ours were preferred.

It can be seen also from what I have just said concerning the plans of God and concerning the primitive laws, that this universe has a certain primary or primitive concept, from which the particular events are only the consequences- with the exception of liberty and contingencies, whose certitude, however, is not affected, because the certitude of events is based in part upon free acts. Now every individual substance of this universe expresses in its concept the universe into which it has entered. Not only the supposition that God has resolved to create this Adam but also any other individual substance that may be, involves the resolves for all the rest, because this is the nature of an individual substance, namely, to have so complete a concept that from it may be deduced all that can be attributed to it, and even the whole universe, because of the inter-connection between things; nevertheless, to speak more strictly, it must be said that it is not so much because God has resolved to create this Adam that he made all his other resolutions, but because the resolution which he made in regard to Adam, as also that which he made in regard to other particular things, are consequences of the resolve which he made in regard to the whole universe and to the principal designs which determine its primary concept; these resolves have established this general and unchangeable order to which everything conforms without even excepting the miracles which are doubtless conformable to the principal designs of God, although the particular regulations which are called the laws of Nature are not always observed.