no choice. When, however, we think freely or perform deliberate acts, there
is not only force but choice in our activity. Choice between what? Between
alternative possibilities arising out of our situation. And choice in
virtue of what? In virtue of the appeal exercised by one alternative as
seemingly better.

Can we adapt our scheme of choice to the description of God's creative
decrees? We will take the second point in it first: our choice is in virtue
of the appeal of the seeming best. Surely the only corrective necessary in
applying this to God is the omission of the word 'seeming'. His choice is
in virtue of the appeal of the simply best. The other point causes more
trouble. We choose between possibilities which arise for us out of our
situation in the system of the existing world. But as the world does not
exist before God's creative choices, he is in no world-situation, and no
alternative possibilities can arise out of it, between which he should have
to choose. But if God does not choose between intrinsic possibilities of
some kind, his choice becomes something absolutely meaningless to us--it is
not a choice at all, it is an arbitrary and unintelligible _fiat_.

Leibniz's solution is this: what are mere possibilities of thought for us
are possibilities of action for God. For a human subject, possibilities of
action are limited to what arises out of his actual situation, but
possibilities for thought are not so limited. I can conceive a world
different in many respects from this world, in which, for example,
vegetables should be gifted with thought and speech; but I can do nothing
towards bringing it about. My imaginary world is practically impossible but
speculatively possible, in the sense that it contradicts no single
principle of necessary and immutable reason. I, indeed, can explore only a
very little way into the region of sheer speculative possibility; God does
not explore it, he simply possesses it all: the whole region of the