"Do nothing without a sufficient reason:" such is the fundamental Law of Wisdom, the law which determines the end as well as the mode of all wise action.
This first law, when applied to the mode of action, produces a second, which we have called the Law of the Least Means.
This second law requires a principle of application; and we found that the principle of its application to the government of contingent beings may be thus expressed: "Govern these beings in such a manner that they may produce by their own aptitudes all the good which they can possibly yield."
The fecundity of this principle revealed itself to us when we passed on to consider it in the generation of sundry other laws which preside over the government of the universe, namely: the law of the Non-Intervention of God in nature without necessity; that of His Intervention when necessary; that of Excluded Superfluity; that of the Unity and Harmony of the Universe; that of the Gradation of Beings; the laws of Variety, of Excluded Equality, of the Unity of God's Action, of the Manifestation of God in Time, and of His Manifestation in Eternity, wherein all passing events become consistent and necessary, the means of the Divine Glory, the ultimate end of creation.
Antonio Rosmini, Theodicy, vol. 2, pp. 186-187.
