NEW ESSAYS 375 



of the author of the most excellent of Dictionaries 80 , 

 exalts the greatness of the Divine perfections beyond 

 what has ever been conceived. After this I should add 

 little, if I were to say that 81 it is these petites per- 

 ceptions which determine us on many occasions without 

 our thinking it, and which deceive people by the appear- 

 ance of an indifference of equilibrium, as if, for instance, 

 we were completely 82 indifferent whether to turn to the 

 right or to the left b3 . It is also unnecessary for me to 

 point out here, as I have done in the book itself, that 

 they cause that uneasiness which I show to consist in 

 something which differs from pain only as the small 

 from the great, and which nevertheless often constitutes 

 our desire and even our pleasure, giving to it a kind of 

 stimulating relish 84 . It is also due to these unconscious 

 [insensible] parts of our conscious [sensible] perceptions 

 that there is a relation between these perceptions of 

 colour, heat, and other sensible qualities, and the motions 

 in bodies which correspond to them ; while the Carte- 

 sians, along with our author, in spite of all his pene- 

 tration, regard the perceptions we have of these qualities 

 as arbitrary, that is to say, as if God had given them to 

 the soul according to His good pleasure, without regard 

 to any essential relation between the perceptions and 

 their objects ; an opinion which surprises me, and w^ich 

 seems to me not very worthy of the wisdom of the 

 Author of things, who does nothing without harmony 

 and without reason 85 . 



80 Pierre Bayle. See Monadology, 16, notes 28 and 29. The 

 reference is to the article Rorarius in Bayle's Dictionary, where he 

 says (note L, i) : ' It ' [the system of pre-established harmony] 

 ' exalts above all that can be conceived the power and intelligence 

 of Divine art.' Bayle, however, makes this remark by way of 

 objection to the system. 



8L E. reads ' after this I ought also to add that.' 



82 E. omits ' completely/ 



83 Cf. Introduction, Part iii. p. 141. 

 8 * Cf. Introduction, Part iii. p. 140. 



85 See Descartes, Principia, Part iv. 196-198 and 204. Descartes 



