In his Theodicy Leibnitz argues, like not a few predecessors, that this universe must be regarded as the best of all possible universes.
The more celebrated and central thesis of the book - this finite universe, the best of all such that are possible - also restates positions of Augustine and Aquinas.
He must then go towards the interior of France to a provincial capital, best of all to Rouen, and there he must appeal to the people and summon a great convention.
This latter is absolute misery, and to cure it the Unconscious evokes its Reason and with its aid creates the best of all possible worlds, which contains the promise of its redemption from actual existence by the emancipation of the Reason from its subjugation to the Will in the conscious reason of the enlightened pessimist.
This has been translated into English under the title of The testament of Ignatius Loyola, being sundry acts of our Father Ignatius, under God, the first founder of the Society of Jesus, taken down from the Saint's own lips by Luis Gonzales (London, 1900); and the above account of Ignatius is taken in most places directly from this, which is not only the best of all sources but also a valuable corrective of the later and more imaginative works.
