The ground-idea of the "Theodicee" is expressed in the phrase,
"Best-possible world." Evil is a necessary condition of finite being,
but the end of creation is the realization of the greatest possible
perfection within the limits of the finite. The existing universe is
one of innumerable possible universes, each of which, if actualized,
would have had a different measure of good and evil. The present,
rather than any other, was made actual, as presenting to Divine
Intelligence the smallest measure of evil and the greatest amount of
good. This idea is happily embodied in the closing apologue, designed
to supplement one of Laurentius Valla, a writer of the fifteenth
century. Theodorus, priest of Zeus at Dodona, demands why that god
has permitted to Sextus the evil will which was destined to bring so
much misery on himself and others. Zeus refers him to his daughter
Athene. He goes to Athens, is commanded to lie down in the temple of
Pallas, and is there visited with a dream. The vision takes him to
the Palace of Destinies, which contains the plans of all possible
worlds. He examines one plan after another; in each the same Sextus
plays a different part and experiences a different fate. The plans
improve as he advances, till at last he comes upon one whose
superior excellence enchants him with delight. After revelling awhile
in the contemplation of this perfect world, he is told that this is
the actual world in which he lives. But in this the crime of Sextus
is a necessary constituent; it could not be what it is as a whole,
were it other than it is in its single parts.

Whatever may be thought of Leibnitz's success in demonstrating his
favorite doctrine, the theory of Optimism commends itself to piety
and reason as that view of human and divine things which most
redounds to the glory of God and best expresses the hope of man,--as
the noblest and _therefore_ the truest theory of Divine rule and