it if it were to be extended to man; that is, if anyone were to assert that
God was able to form such bodies as would mechanically do whatever we see
other men do. By denying this we do not pretend to limit the power and
knowledge of God: we only mean that the nature of things does not permit
that the faculties imparted to a creature should not be necessarily
confined within certain bounds. The actions of creatures must be [41]
necessarily proportioned to their essential state, and performed according
to the character belonging to each machine; for according to the maxim of
the philosophers, whatever is received is proportionate to the capacity of
the subject that receives it. We may therefore reject M. Leibniz's
hypothesis as being impossible, since it is liable to greater difficulties
than that of the Cartesians, which makes beasts to be mere machines. It
puts a perpetual harmony between two beings, which do not act one upon
another; whereas if servants were mere machines, and should punctually obey
their masters' command, it could not be said that they do it without a real
action of their masters upon them; for their masters would speak words and
make signs which would really shake and move the organs of the servants.

'V. Now let us consider the soul of Julius Caesar, and we shall find the
thing more impossible still. That soul was in the world without being
exposed to the influence of any spirit. The power it received from God was
the only principle of the actions it produced at every moment: and if those
actions were different one from another, it was not because some of them
were produced by the united influence of some springs which did not
contribute to the production of others, for the soul of man is simple,
indivisible and immaterial. M. Leibniz owns it; and if he did not
acknowledge it, but if, on the contrary, he should suppose with most
philosophers and some of the most excellent metaphysicians of our age (Mr.
Locke, for instance) that a compound of several material parts placed and
disposed in a certain manner, is capable of thinking, his hypothesis would