Article I. Initial Presentation of the Controversy

357. Reason for the order. It seems worthwhile, in preparing the argument which for several centuries has been involved in so many controversies, to range more broadly than usual. Therefore:

a) We shall set forth the historical fortunes of the question, which seem to us often to have been considered and related with a mind insufficiently free;

b) We shall explain the intrinsic notions by which a very great occasion of confusion may be cut away;

c) We shall briefly refute beforehand the opinions which we judge foreign to the truth, so that the approach to the true solution may be easy.