the government of a God who is good, wise and powerful; if he be wise, he might have foreseen it; and if he be good, he would have prevented it: shew me which way to justify the eternal Wisdom: why has God created free beings, intelligences capable of evil? Why has he bestowed on them so fatal a gift.Liberty, answered Eleazar, is a necessary conse∣quence of our reasonable nature. To be free is to be able to choose; to choose is to prefer: every be∣ing capable of reasoning and comparing can prefer, and consequently choose. It is true, in every choice we necessarily choose what appears to us the best, but we can suspend our choice, till we have examined whether the good that presents itself be real good or only an apparent one: the soul is not free to see or not to see the objects she looks upon, to discern or not discern their differences when she sees them, or to choose without a reason for choosing; but she is free to look or not look, to consider objects on one side only or on several, to choose them for a good or bad reason; we are never invincibly captivated by any finite good, because we are able to think of a great∣er good, and so may discover a superior charm which will carry us away from the less attractive object; and it is on this activity natural to all rational beings, that liberty depends; spirits only are active and ca∣pable of self motion: God gives them activity as well as being; an activity different from his, as well as a substance dictinct from his. One of the essen∣tial differences between bodies and souls is this, the one are necessarily transported where ever the moving power carries them, the other suffer them∣selves to be moved only by the reason that enlightens them. God could not give us intelligence without giving us liberty.But could he not, replied Cyrus, have hindered us from abusing our liberty, by shewing us truth with so clear an evidence, that it would have been impos∣sible 0