"This... is the old objection against Providence, so acutely handled by Cicero, in his Book of Divination, and so often anxiously enquired into by yourself; of which neither of you, nor any person... has been able to give a satisfying solution. The cause of this mystery is, that the human understanding cannot conceive the simplicity of the prescience of God; for if it were possible to comprehend this, every difficulty would immediately vanish. I shall therefore first consider the matters that give you uneasiness, and shall then try to explain and solve this perplexing question. I ask you then, Wherefore you do not approve the reasoning of such as think, "That prescience does not obstruct the liberty of the will, because it is not the necessitating cause of future events?" Do you draw any argument of the necessity of what shall happen in future, but from this proposition, "That those things which are foreseen must necessarily befal?" But if the prescience of God imposes no necessity upon events that are to befal... must not the issue of things be voluntary, and man's will free and unconstrained? To render the sequel of my reasoning the more perspicuous, let us suppose there is no prescience: Would then the events which proceed from free-will alone, and from no other source, be under the power of necessity?"