  Before turning to Clarke's attempt to solve the problem of divine perfection and freedom, we should note that Leibniz often insists that the act of will must be free in the sense of not being necessitated by the motives that give rise to it. His often repeated remark on this matter is that motives “incline without necessitating” (L-C, 57). This view appears to conflict with the view I have ascribed to him: that the strongest motive in the agent determines the agent to choose as he does. It suggests instead that the agent had the power to will otherwise even though the motive and circumstances be unchanged. For, as he says, the motives don't necessitate but only incline the agent to will as he does. But this seems not to be what he means by his phrase “motives incline without necessitating”. On his view, motives and circumstances necessitate the act of will in the sense that it is logically or causally impossible that those motives and circumstances should obtain and the act of will not occur. Leibniz's claim that they don't necessitate the act of will means only that the act of will itself is not thereby rendered something that is absolutely necessary. [For a more extended account of this interpretation of Leibniz's dictum, “motives incline but do not necessitate,” see Parkinson, 1970, 50-53.] That is, he is simply noting that even though there be a necessary connection between the motive and the act of will, this does not mean that the act of will cannot itself be contingent. As we saw above, God's being omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good necessitates God's choice of the best. However, the fact that there is a necessary connection between his being perfect and his choice of the best does not imply that his choice of the best is itself absolutely necessary. Leibniz registers this point (in a somewhat misleading fashion) by saying that God's motives “incline without necessitating” his choice of the best. We should not be misled by this phrase into thinking that he holds that the connection between his being perfect and his choice of the best is anything less than absolutely necessary. And when we then note that God's being perfect is absolutely necessary, the logical rule dictates the conclusion that his choice of the best is itself absolutely necessary. This being so, we can conclude that God's choice to create the best is not free; it is absolutely necessary.