It follows, also, that if he had had other circumstances, this would not have been our Adam, but another, because nothing prevents us from saying that this would be another. He is, therefore, another. It indeed appears to us that this block of marble brought from Genoa would be wholly the same if it had been left there, because our senses cause us to judge only superficially, but in reality, because of the inter-connection of things, the universe, with all its parts, would be wholly different and would have been wholly different from the very commencement if the least thing in it happened otherwise than it has. It is not because of their inter-connection that events are necessary, but it is because they are certain after the choice which God made of this possible universe whose concept contains this sequence of things. I hope that what I am about say will enable M. Arnaud himself to agree to this.

Let a certain straight line, A B C, represent a certain time, and let there be a certain individual substance, for example, myself, which lasts or exists during this period. Let us take then, first, the me which exists during the time A B, and again the me which exists during the time B C. Now, since people suppose that it is the same individual substance which perdures, or that it is the me which exists in the time A B while at Paris and which continues to exist in the time B C while in Germany, it must needs be that there should be some reason why we can veritably say that I perdure, or, to say, that the me which was at Paris is now in Germany, for, if there were no reason, it would be quite right to say that it was another. To be sure, my inner experience convinces me a posteriori of this identity but there must be also some reason a priori. It is not possible to find any other reason, excepting that my attributes of the preceding time and state, as well as the attributes of the succeeding time and state are predicates of the same subject; insunt eidem subjecto. Now, what is it to say that the predicate is in the subject if not that the concept of the predicate is found in some sort involved in the concept of the subject? Since from the very time that I began to exist it could be said of me truly that this or that would happen to me, we must grant that these predicates were principles involved in the subject or in my complete concept, which constitutes the so- called me, and which is the basis of the inter-connection of all my different states. These, God has known perfectly from all eternity. After this I think that all doubts ought to disappear, for when I say that the individual concept of Adam involves all that will ever happen to him I mean nothing else than what the philosophers understand when they say that the predicate is contained in the subject of true propositions. It is true that the consequences of so clear a teaching are paradoxical, but it is the fault of the philosophers who have not sufficiently followed out perfectly clear notions.

Now I think that M. Arnaud, discerning and fair as he is, will not find my proposition so strange and, although he may not be able to approve of it entirely, yet I almost flatter myself with having his approbation. I agree with what he judiciously has added, in regard to the care that must be employed in having recourse to knowledge of divine things for the determination of what we should decide concerning the concepts of mundane things. But if properly understood, what I have just said must be said even when we speak of God only as much as is necessary. For, even if we should not say that God, in considering Adam, whom he resolved to create, saw all the events which will happen to him, it is enough that we can always prove that he had a complete concept of this Adam which involved these events. Because all the predicates of Adam, either depend upon the other predicates of the same Adam, or they do not. Putting one side those which depend upon others, we have only to gather together all the primitive predicates in order to form a concept of Adam sufficiently complete to deduce whatever will happen to him in so far as a reason is needed. It is evident that God can discover, and indeed effectively conceive such a concept sufficient to assign a reason to all the phenomena pertaining to Adam; but not less clear is it, however, that this concept is possible in itself. Truly, we must not submerge ourselves more than necessary, when we investigate, in divine knowledge and will, because of the great difficulties which there are there. Nevertheless, we may explain what we have derived for our question from such a source without entering into those difficulties which M. Arnaud mentions; for instance, the difficulty of understanding how the simplicity of God is reconcilable with certain things which we are obliged to distinguish from it. It is also very difficult to explain perfectly how God has knowledge which he was able not to have, that is, the knowledge of prevision, for, if future contingencies did not exist, God would have no vision of them. It is true that he might have simple knowledge of future contingencies which would become prevision when joined to his will so that the difficulty above would be reduced to the difficulties present in conceiving of the will of God. That is to say, the question how God is free to will. This, without doubt, passes our ken, but it is not essential to understand it in order to solve our question.