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  • I do not believe that a world without evil, preferable in order to ours, is possible; otherwise it would have been preferred. It is necessary to believe that the mixture of evil has produced the greatest possible good: otherwise the evil would not have been permitted. The combination of all the tendencies to the good has produced the best; but as there are goods that are incompatible together, this combination and this result can introduce the destruction of some good, and as a result some evil.

    Letter to Louis Bourguet in late 1712. "The Shorter Leibniz Texts: A Collection of New Translations" edited by Lloyd H. Strickland, p. 208, 2006.
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