Therefore, as was later on to be maintained by Schopenhauer, everything is full of souls, and of souls which are forces as well as intelligences. The human soul is a force too, like the body. Between these two forces, which seem to act on one another and which certainly act in concert in such fashion that the movement desired by the soul is executed by the body or that the soul obviously assents to a movement desired by the body, what can be the affinity and the relation, in what consists their concurrence and concord? Leibnitz (and there was already something of the same nature suggested by Descartes) believes that all the forces of the world act, each spontaneously; but that among all the actions they perform there exists an agreement imposed by God, a concord establishing universal order, a "preestablished harmony" causing them all to co-operate in the same design. Well, then, between the soul, this force, and the body, this force also, this harmony reigns as between any force whatever in nature and one and all of the others; and that is the explanation of the union and concord between the soul and the body. Imagine two well-constructed clocks wound up by the same maker; they indicate the same hour, and it might appear that this one directs the other, or that the other directs the first. All the forces of the world are clocks which agree with each other, because they have been regulated in advance by the divine clockmaker, and they all indicate the eternal hour. THE RADICAL OPTIMISM OF LEIBNITZ.--From all these general views on matter, on mind and on the mind, Leibnitz arrived at a radical optimism which is the thing for which he has since been most ridiculed, and by which, at any rate, he has remained famous. He believes that all is good, despite the evil of which no one can dispute the existence; and he believes that all is the best _possible_ in the best of _possible_ worlds. In fact, God is supreme wisdom and supreme goodness; that was quite evident to Descartes, who in the matter of evidence was not easily satisfied. This perfect wisdom and perfect goodness could choose only what is best.--But yet evil exists! Diminish it as much as you choose, it still exists.--It exists by a necessity inherent in what is created. Everything created is imperfect. God alone is perfect; what is imperfect is by its definition evil mingled with good. Evil is only the boundary of good, where God was compelled to stop in creating beings and things other than Himself, and if He had created only according to absolute goodness, He could have created only Himself. And that is the precise meaning of this phrase "the best of possible worlds"; the world is perfect so far as that which is created, and therefore imperfect, can be perfect; so far as what is not God can be divine; the world is God Himself as far as He can remain Himself whilst being anything else than Himself. THE THREE EVILS.--Let us distinguish in order to comprehend better.