Full Idea
The cause of the world must be intelligent: for this existing world being contingent and an infinity of worlds being equally possible, with equal claim to existence, the cause of the world must have regarded all of these worlds to fix on one of them.
Gist of Idea
God must be intelligible, to select the actual world from the possibilities
Source
Gottfried Leibniz (The Theodicy [1710], p.127), quoted by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.II
Book Reference
Perkins,Franklin: 'Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed' [Continuum 2007], p.21
A Reaction
A wonderfully Leibnizian way of putting what looks like the design argument.
Related Idea
Idea 19327 The intelligent cause must be unique and all-perfect, to handle all the interconnected possibilities [Leibniz]