and how is there finitude in the Absolute and His decrees? And only then should there be deduced from the determination of finitude the evil which no doubt exists therein. It is true that Leibnitz has a reply to the above question: “God does not will what is evil; evil comes only indirectly into the results” (blind), “because oftentimes the greater good could not be achieved if evils were not present. Therefore they are means to a good end.” But why does not God employ other means? They are always external, not in and for themselves. “A moral evil may not be regarded as a means, nor must we, as the apostle says, do evil that good may come; yet it has often the relation of a _conditio sine qua non_ of the good. Evil is in God only the object of a permissive will (_voluntatis permissivæ_);” but everything that is wrong would be such. “God has therefore among the objects of His will the best possible as the ultimate object, but the good as a matter of choice (_qualemcunque_), also as subordinate; and things indifferent and evils often as means. Evil is, however, an object of His will only as the condition of something otherwise necessary (_rei alioqui debitæ_), which without it could not exist; in which sense Christ said it must needs be that offences come.”[265] In a general sense we are satisfied with the answer: “In accordance with the wisdom of God we must accept it as a fact that the laws of nature are the best possible,” but this answer does not suffice for a definite question. What one wishes to know is the goodness of this or that particular law; and to that no answer is given. If, for example, it is said that “The law of falling bodies, in which the relation of time and space is the square, is the best possible,” one might employ, as far as mathematics are concerned, any other power whatever. When Leibnitz answers: “God made it so,” this is no answer at all. We wish to know the definite reason of this law; such general determinations sound pious, but are not satisfying.