“And that of sufficient reason, in virtue of which we hold that there can be no fact real or existing, no statement true, unless there be a sufficient reason why it should be so and not otherwise, although these reasons usually cannot be known by us.”
“Why does something exist rather than nothing? For 'nothing' is simpler and easier than 'something.'”
“Now this sufficient reason of the existence of the universe cannot be found in the sequence of contingent things … Thus the sufficient reason, which has no need of any other reason, must needs be outside of this sequence of contingent things and must be in a substance which is the cause of this sequence, or which is a necessary being, bearing in itself the reason of its own existence, otherwise we should not yet have a sufficient reason with which we could stop. And this ultimate reason of things is called God.”
“From this it is manifest that even by supposing the eternity of the world, we cannot escape the ultimate extramundane reason of things, that is to say, God. Accordingly the reasons of the world lie hid in something extramundane, different from the concatenation of states or the series of things, the aggregate of which constitutes the world.”
“The soul follows its own laws, and the body likewise follows its own laws; and they agree … the pre-established harmony between all substances, since they are all representations of one and the same universe. … Souls act according to the laws of final causes through appetitions, ends, and means. Bodies act according to the laws of efficient causes or motions. And the two realms, that of efficient causes and that of final causes, are in harmony with one another.”