I think, Monsieur, that I have sufficiently met the difficulties regarding the principal proposition, but, as you have made in addition some important remarks in regard to certain incidental expressions, which I used, I will attempt to explain them also. I said that the presupposition from which all human events could be deduced, was not that of the creation of an undetermined Adam but of the creation of a certain Adam determined in all circumstances, selected out of an infinity of possible Adams. In regard to this you make two important remarks, the one against the plurality of Adams and the other against the reality of substances which are merely possible. In regard to the first point, you say with good reason that it is as little possible to think of several possible Adams, taking Adam for a particular nature, as to conceive of several me's. I agree, but in speaking of several Adams I do not take Adam for a determined individual but for a certain person conceived sub ratione generalitatis under the circumstances which appear to us to determine Adam as an individual but which do not actually determine him sufficiently. As if we should mean by Adam the first man, whom God set in a garden of pleasure whence he went out because of sin, and from whose side God fashioned a woman. All this would not sufficiently determine him and there might have been several Adams separately possible or several individuals to whom all that would apply. This is true, whatever finite number of predicates incapable of determining all the rest might be taken, but that which determines a certain Adam ought to involve absolutely all his predicates. And it is this complete concept which determines the particular individual. Besides, I am so far removed from a pluralistic conception of the same individual that I agree heartily with what St. Thomas has already taught with regard to intelligences and which I hold to be very general, namely, that it is not possible for two individuals to exist entirely alike or differing solo numero.

As regards the reality of substances merely possible, that is to say, which God will never create, you say, Monsieur, that you are very much inclined to believe that they are chimeras. To which I make no objection, if you mean, as I think, that they have no other reality than what comes to them in the divine understanding and in the active power of God. Nevertheless, you see by this, Monsieur, that we are obliged to have recourse to the divine knowledge and divine power in order to explain them well. I find very well founded that which you say afterwards, "That we never conceive of any substance merely as possible except under the idea of a particular one (or through the ideas understood in a particular one) of those which God has created." You say also, "We imagine that, before creating the world, God looked over an infinity of possible things out of which he chose certain ones and rejected the others, certain possible Adams (first men), each with a great sequence of personages with whom he has an intrinsic connection; and we suppose that the connection of all these other things with one of these possible Adams (first men) is wholly similar to that which the actually created Adam had with all his posterity. This makes us think that it is this one of all the possible Adams which God has chosen and that he did not wish any of the others." In this you seem to recognize that those ideas, which I acknowledge to be mine (provided that the plurality of Adams and their possibilities is understood according to the explanation which I have given and that all this is understood according to our manner of conceiving any order in the thoughts or the operations which we attribute to God), enter naturally enough into the mind when we think a little about this matter, and indeed cannot be avoided; and perhaps they have been displeasing to you, only because you supposed that it was impossible to reconcile the intrinsic connection which there would be, with the free decrees of God. All that is actual can be conceived as possible and if the actual Adam will have in time a certain posterity we cannot deny this same predicate to this Adam conceived as possible, inasmuch as you grant that God sees in him all these predicates when he determines to create him. They therefore pertain to him. And I do not see how what you say regarding the reality of possibles could be contrary to it. In order to call anything possible it is enough that we are able to form a notion of it when it is only in the divine understanding, which is, so to speak, the region of possible realities. Thus, in speaking of possibles, I am satisfied if veritable propositions can be formed concerning them. Just as we might judge, for example, that a perfect square does not imply contradiction, although there has never been a perfect square in the world, and if one tried to reject absolutely these pure possibles he would destroy contingency and liberty. For if there was nothing possible except what God has actually created, whatever God created would be necessary and God, desiring to create anything would be able to create that alone without having any freedom of choice.

All this makes me hope (after the explanations which I have given and for which I have always added reasons so that you might see that these were not evasions contrived to elude your objections), that at the end your thoughts will not be so far removed from mine as they appeared to be at first. You approve the inter-connection of God's resolutions; you recognize that my principal proposition is certain in the sense which I have given to it in my reply; you have doubted only whether I made the connection independent of the free decrees of God, and this with good reason you found hard to understand. But I have shown that the connection does depend in my opinion upon the decree and that it is not necessary, although it is intrinsic. You have insisted upon the difficulties which there would be in saying, "If I do not make the journey, which I am about to make, I will not be myself," and I have explained how one might either say it or not. Finally, I have given a decisive reason which, in my opinion, takes the place of a demonstration; this is, that always in every affirmative proposition whether veritable, necessary or contingent, universal or singular, the concept of the predicate is comprised in some sort in that of the subject. Either the predicate is in the subject or else I do not know what truth is.