evident that I derive the far inferior degree of perfection from a
First Being? Can I imagine that God gives me the lesser good, and
that I give myself the greater without Him? How should I come by
that high degree of perfection in order to give it myself! Should I
have it from nothing, which is all my own stock? Shall I say that
other spirits, much like or equal to mine, give it me? But since
those limited and dependent beings like myself cannot give
themselves anything no more than I can, much less can they bestow
anything upon another. For as they do not exist by themselves, so
they have not by themselves any true power, either over me, or over
things that are imperfect in me, or over themselves. Wherefore,
without stopping with them, we must go up higher in order to find
out a first, teeming, and most powerful cause, that is able to
bestow on my soul the good will she has not.


SECT. LXV. As a Superior Being is the Cause of All the
Modifications of Creatures, so it is Impossible for Man's Will to
Will Good by Itself or of its own Accord.


Let us still add another reflection. That First Being is the cause
of all the modifications of His creatures. The operation follows
the Being, as the philosophers are used to speak. A being that is
dependent in the essence of his being cannot but be dependent in all
his operations, for the accessory follows the principal. Therefore,
the Author of the essence of the being is also the Author of all the
modifications or modes of being of creatures. Thus God is the real
and immediate cause of all the configurations, combinations, and
motions of all the bodies of the universe. It is by means or upon