A VINDICATION OF TRUE LIBERTY FROM ANTECEDENT AND EXTRINSICAL NECESSITY. (continued 7)

The Bishop’s reply.

J. D. (a) “If I did not know what deliberation was, I should be little relieved in my knowledge by this description. Sometimes he makes it to be a consideration, or an act of the understanding; sometimes an imagination, or an act of the fancy; sometimes he makes it to be an alternation of passions, hope and fear. Sometimes he makes it concern the end, sometimes to concern the means. So he makes it I know not what. The truth is this in brief: ‘Deliberation is an inquiry made by reason, whether this or that, definitely considered, be a good and fit means, or, indefinitely, what are good and fit means to be chosen for attaining some wished end.’”

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE ANSWER TO NO. XXVI.

(a) “If I did not know what deliberation was, I should be little relieved in my knowledge by this description. Sometimes he makes it to be a consideration, or an act of the understanding, sometimes an imagination, or an act of the fancy, &c. So he makes it I know not what.” If the Bishop had observed what he does himself, when he deliberates, reasons, understands, or imagines, he would have known what to make of all that I have said in this Number. He would have known that consideration, understanding, reason, and all the passions of the mind, are imaginations. That to 359consider a thing, is to imagine it; that to understand a thing, is to imagine it; that to hope and fear, are to imagine the things hoped for and feared. The difference between them is, that when we imagine the consequence of anything, we are said to consider that thing; and when we have imagined anything from a sign, and especially from those signs we call names, we are said to understand his meaning that maketh the sign; and when we reason, we imagine the consequence of affirmations and negations joined together; and when we hope or fear, we imagine things good or hurtful to ourselves: insomuch as all these are but imaginations diversely named from different circumstances: as any man may perceive as easily as he can look into his own thoughts. But to him that thinketh not himself upon the things whereof, but upon the words wherewith he speaketh, and taketh those words on trust from puzzled Schoolmen, it is not only hard, but impossible to be known. And this is the reason that maketh him say, I make deliberation he knows not what. But how is deliberation defined by him? “It is”, saith he, “an inquiry made by reason, whether this or that definitely considered, be a good and fit means; or indefinitely, what are good and fit means to be chosen for attaining some wished end.” If it were not his custom to say, the understanding understandeth, the will willeth, and so of the rest of the faculties, I should have believed that when he says deliberation is an inquiry made by reason, he meaneth an inquiry made by the man that reasoneth; for so it will be sense. But the reason which a man useth in deliberation, being the same thing 360that is called deliberation, his definition that deliberation is an inquiry made by reason, is no more than if he had said, deliberation is an inquiry made by deliberation; a definition good enough to be made by a Schoolman. Nor is the rest of the definition altogether as it should be; for there is no such thing as an “indefinite consideration of what are good and fit means”; but a man imagining first one thing, then another, considereth them successively and singly each one, whether it conduceth to his ends or not.

NO. XXVII.

T. H. Thirdly, I conceive, that in all deliberations, that is to say, in all alternate succession of contrary appetites, the last is that which we call the will, and is immediately before the doing of the action, or next before the doing of it become impossible. All other appetites to do and to quit, that come upon a man during his deliberation, are usually called intentions and inclinations, but not wills; there being but one will, which also in this case may be called last will, though the intention change often.

The Bishop’s reply.

J. D. (a) “Still here is nothing but confusion; he confounds the faculty of the will with the act of volition; he makes the will to be the last part of deliberation; he makes the intention, which is a most proper and elicit act of the will, or a willing of the end, as it is to be attained by certain means, to be no willing at all, but only some antecedaneous inclination or propension. He might as well say, that the uncertain agitation of the needle hither and thither to find out the pole, and the 361resting or fixing of itself directly towards the pole, were both the same thing. But the grossest mistake is, that he will acknowledge no act of man’s will, to be his will, but only the last act, which he calls the last will. If the first were no will, how comes this to be the last will? According to his doctrine, the will of a man should be as unchangeable as the will of God, at least so long as there is a possibility to effect it. (b) According to this doctrine, concupiscence with consent should be no sin; for that which is not truly willed is not a sin; or rather should not be at all, unless either the act followed, or were rendered impossible by some intervening circumstances. According to this doctrine no man can say, this is my will, because he knows not yet whether it shall be his last appeal. The truth is, there be many acts of the will, both in respect of the means and of the end. But that act which makes a man’s actions to be truly free, is election; which is the deliberate choosing or refusing of this or that means, or the acceptation of one means before another, where divers are represented by the understanding.

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE ANSWER TO NO. XXVII.

(a) “Still here is nothing but confusion; he confounds the faculty of the will with the act of volition; he makes the will to be the last part of deliberation; he makes the intention, which is a most proper and elicit act of the will, to be no willing at all, but only some antecedaneous (he might as well have said, antecedent) inclination.” To confound the faculty of the will with the will, were to confound a will with no will; for the faculty of the 362will is no will; the act only which he calls volition, is the will. As a man that sleepeth hath the power of seeing, and seeth not, nor hath for that time any sight; so also he hath the power of willing, but willeth nothing, nor hath for that time any will. I must therefore have departed very much from my own principles, if I have confounded the faculty of the will with the act of volition. He should have done well to have shown where I confounded them. It is true, I make the will to be the last part of deliberation; but it is that will which maketh the action voluntary, and therefore needs must be the last. But for the preceding variations of the will to do and not to do, though they be so many several wills, contrary to and destroying one another, they usually are called intentions; and therefore they are nothing to the will, of which we dispute, that maketh an action voluntary. And though a man have in every long deliberation a great many wills and nills, they use to be called inclinations, and the last only will which is immediately followed by the voluntary action. But nevertheless, both he that hath those intentions, and God that seeth them, reckoneth them for so many wills.

(b) “According to this doctrine, concupiscence with consent should be no sin; for that which is not truly willed, is not a sin.” This is no consequent to my doctrine: for I hold that they are, in the sight of God, so many consents, so many willings, which would have been followed by actions, if the actions had been in their power. It had been fitter for a man in whom is required gravity and sanctity more than ordinary, to have chosen 363some other kind of instance. But what meaneth he by concupiscence with consent? Can there be concupiscence without consent? It is the consent itself. There may be also a lawful concupiscence with consent. For concupiscence makes not the sin, but the unlawfulness of satisfying such concupiscence; and not the consent, but the will and design to prosecute that which a man knoweth to be unlawful. An appetite to another man’s bread, is concupiscence; and though it be with consent to eat, it is no sin; but the design to take it from the other, notwithstanding that he may fail in his design, that is the sin. And this instance might have served his turn as well as the other; and for consent, if he had understood the truth, he might have put design.

NO. XXVIII.

T. H. Fourthly, that those actions which man is said to do upon deliberation, are said to be voluntary, and done upon choice and election. So that voluntary action, and action proceeding from election, is the same thing. And that of a voluntary agent, it is all one to say he is free, and to say he hath not made an end of deliberating.

The Bishop’s reply.

J. D. (a) “This short section might pass without an animadversion, but for two things. The one is, that he confounds a voluntary act with a free act. A free act is only that which proceeds from the free election of the rational will after deliberation; but every act that proceeds from the sensitive appetite of man or beast, without deliberation or election, is truly voluntary. (b) The other thing observable is his conclusion, that ‘it is all one to 364say a man is free, and to say he hath not made an end of deliberating’; which confession of his overturns his whole structure of absolute necessity. For if every agent be necessitated to act what he doth act by a necessary and natural flux of extrinsical causes, then he is no more free before he deliberates, or whilst he deliberates, than he is after; but by T. H.’s confession here, he is more free whilst he deliberates, than he is after. And so after all his flourishes, for an absolute or extrinsical necessity, he is glad to set himself down, and rest contented with an hypothetical necessity, which no man ever denied or doubted of; ascribing the necessitation of a man in free acts to his own deliberation, and in indeliberate acts to his last thought, No. XXV. What is this to a natural and special influence of extrinsical causes? (c) “Again, ‘liberty’, saith he, ‘is an absence of extrinsical impediments’; but deliberation doth produce no new extrinsical impediment; therefore let him choose which part he will, either he is free after deliberation, by his own doctrine, or he was not free before. Our own deliberation, and the direction of our own understanding, and the election of our own will, do produce an hypothetical necessity, that the event be such as the understanding hath directed, and the will elected. But for as much as the understanding might have directed otherwise, and the will have elected otherwise, this is far from an absolute necessity. Neither doth liberty respect only future acts, but present acts also. Otherwise God did not freely create the world. In the same instant wherein the will elects, it is free, according to a priority of nature, though 365not of time, to elect otherwise. And so in a divided sense, the will is free, even whilst it acts; though in a compounded sense it be not free. Certainly, deliberation doth constitute, not destroy liberty.

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE ANSWER TO NO. XXVIII.

(a) “This short section might pass, but for two things; one is, that he confounds a voluntary act with a free act.” I do indeed take all voluntary acts to be free, and all free acts to be voluntary; but withal that all acts, whether free or voluntary, if they be acts, were necessary before they were acts. But where is the error? ‘A free act’, saith he, ‘is only that which proceeds from the free election of the rational will, after deliberation; but every act that proceeds from the sensitive appetite of man or beast, without deliberation or election, is truly voluntary.’ So that my error lies in this, that I distinguish not between a rational will and a sensitive appetite in the same man. As if the appetite and will in man or beast were not the same thing, or that sensual men and beasts did not deliberate, and choose one thing before another, in the same manner that wise men do. Nor can it be said of wills, that one is rational, the other sensitive; but of men. And if it be granted that deliberation is always (as it is not) rational, there were no cause to call men rational more than beasts. For it is manifest by continual experience, that beasts do deliberate.

(b) “The other thing observable is his conclusion, that ‘it is all one to say, a man is free, and to say, he hath not made an end of deliberating’: 366which confession of his overturns his whole structure of absolute necessity.” Why so? ‘Because’, saith he, ‘if every agent be necessitated to act what he doth act by extrinsical causes, then he is no more free before he deliberates, or whilst he deliberates, than he is after’. But this is a false consequence; he should have inferred thus:--“then he is no less necessitated before he deliberates than he is after”; which is true, and yet nevertheless he is more free. But taking necessity to be inconsistent with liberty, which is the question between us: instead of necessitated he puts in not free. And therefore to say ‘a man is free till he hath made an end of deliberating’, is no contradiction to absolute and antecedent necessity. And whereas he adds presently after, that I ascribe the necessitation of a man in free acts to his own deliberation, and in indeliberate acts to his last thoughts: he mistakes the matter. For I ascribe all necessity to the universal series or order of causes, depending on the first cause eternal: which the Bishop understandeth, as if I had said in his phrase, to a special influence of extrinsical causes; that is, understandeth it not at all.

(c) “Again, ‘liberty,’ saith he, ‘is an absence of extrinsical impediments’: but deliberation doth produce no new extrinsical impediment; therefore either he is free after deliberation, or he was not free before.” I cannot perceive in these words any more force of inference, than of so many other words whatsoever put together at adventure. But be his meaning what he will, I say not that deliberation produceth any impediments: for there are no impediments but to the action, whilst we are 367endeavouring to do it, which is not till we have done deliberating. But during the deliberation there arise thoughts in him that deliberateth, concerning the consequence of the action whereof he deliberateth, which cause the action following; which are not impediments to that action which was not done, but the causes of that which was done. That which followeth in this Number is not intelligible, by reason of the insignificance of these words, “understanding directeth; will electeth; hypothetical necessity”; which are but jargon, and his “divided sense” and “compounded sense”, nonsense. And this also, “liberty respecteth not future acts only, but present acts also”, is unintelligible. For how can a man have liberty to do or not to do that which is at the same instant already done. For where he addeth, “otherwise God did not freely create the world”, it proves nothing; because he had the liberty to create it, before it was created. Besides, it is a profaning of the name of God, to make instances of his incomprehensible working in a question as this is, merely natural.

NO. XXIX.

T. H. Fifthly, I conceive liberty to be rightly defined in this manner:--Liberty is the absence of all the impediments to action, that are not contained in the nature, and in the intrinsical quality of the agent. As for example, the water is said to descend freely, or to have liberty to descend by the channel of the river, because there is no impediment that way; but not across, because the banks are impediments. And though water cannot ascend, yet men never say it wants the liberty to 368ascend, but the faculty or power; because the impediment is in the nature of the water and intrinsical. So also we say, he that is tied wants the liberty to go, because the impediment is not in him, but in his bonds; whereas we say not so of him that is sick or lame, because the impediment is in himself.

The Bishop’s reply.

J. D. (a) “How that should be a right definition of liberty, which comprehends neither the genus nor the difference, neither the matter nor form of liberty, which doth not so much as accidentally describe liberty by its marks and tokens; how a real faculty or the elective power should be defined by a negation, or by an absence, is past my understanding, and contrary to all the rules of right reason which I have learned. Negatives cannot explicate the nature of things defined. By this definition, a stone hath liberty to ascend into the air, because there is no outward impediment to hinder it; and so a violent act may be a free act. Just like his definition are his instances of the liberty of the water to descend down the channel, and a sick or lame man’s liberty to go. The latter is an impotence, and not a power or a liberty. The former is so far from being a free act, that it is scarce a natural act. Certainly the proper natural motion of water, as of all heavy bodies, is to descend directly downwards towards the centre; as we see in rain, which falls down perpendicularly. Though this be far from a free act, which proceeds from a rational appetite; yet it is a natural act, and proceeds from a natural appetite, and hath its reason within itself. So hath not the current of the river in its channel, 369which must not be ascribed to the proper nature of the water, but either to the general order of the universe, for the better being and preservation of the creatures: (otherwise the waters should not move in seas and rivers as they do, but cover the face of the earth, and possess their proper place between the air and the earth, according to the degree of their gravity): or to an extrinsical principle, whilst one particle of water thrusteth and forceth forward another, and so comes a current, or at least so comes the current to be more impetuous; to which motion the position of the earth doth contribute much, both by restraining that fluid body with its banks from dispersing itself, and also by affording way for a fair and easy descent by its proclivity. He tells us sadly, that “the water wants liberty to go over the banks, because there is an extrinsical impediment; but to ascend up the channel, it wants not liberty, but power”. Why? Liberty is a power; if it want power to ascend, it wants liberty to ascend. But he makes the reason why the water ascends not up the channel, to be intrinsical, and the reason why it ascends not over the banks, to be extrinsical; as if there were not a rising of the ground up the channel, as well as up the banks, though it be not so discernible, nor always so sudden. The natural appetite of the water is as much against the ascending over the banks, as the ascending up the channel. And the extrinsical impediment is as great, ascending up the channel, as over the banks; or rather greater, because there it must move, not only against the rising soil, but also against the succeeding waters, which press 370forward the former. Either the river wants liberty for both, or else it wants liberty for neither.

But to leave his metaphorical faculties, and his catachrestical liberty: how far is his discourse wide from the true moral liberty; which is the question between us? His former description of a free agent, that is, ‘he who hath not made an end of deliberating’, though it was wide from the mark, yet it came much nearer the truth than this definition of liberty; unless perhaps he think that the water hath done deliberating whether it will go over the banks, but hath not done deliberating whether it will go up the channel”.

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE ANSWER TO NO. XXIX.

(a) “How that should be a right definition of liberty, which comprehends neither the genus nor the difference, neither the matter nor the form of liberty, &c: how a real faculty or the elective power, should be defined by a negation or by an absence: is past my understanding, and contrary to all the rules of right reason which I have learned.” A right definition is that which determineth the signification of the word defined, to the end that in the discourse where it is used, the meaning of it may be constant and without equivocation. This is the measure of a definition, and intelligible to an English reader. But the Bishop, that measures it by the genus and the difference, thinks, it seems, though he write English, he writes not to an English reader unless he also be a Schoolman. I confess the rule is good, that we ought to define, when it can be done, by using first some more general term, and then by restraining the signification 371of that general term, till it be the same with that of the word defined. And this general term the School calls genus, and the restraint difference. This, I say, is a good rule where it can be done; for some words are so general, that they cannot admit a more general in their definition. But why this ought to be a law of definition, I doubt it would trouble him to find the reason; and therefore I refer him (he shall give me leave sometimes to cite, as well as he,) to the fourteenth and fifteenth articles of the sixth chapter of my book De Corpore. But it is to little purpose that he requires in a definition so exactly the genus and the difference, seeing he does not know them when they are there. For in this my definition of liberty, the genus is absence of impediments to action; and the difference or restriction is that they be not contained in the nature of the agent. The Bishop therefore, though he talk of genus and difference, understands not what they are, but requires the matter and form of the thing in the definition. Matter is body, that is to say, corporeal substance, and subject to dimension, such as are the elements, and the things compounded of the elements. But it is impossible that matter should be part of a definition, whose parts are only words; or to put the name of matter into the definition of liberty, which is immaterial. “How a real faculty can be defined by an absence, is”, saith he, “past my understanding.” Unless he mean by real faculty a very faculty, I know not how a faculty is real. If he mean so, then a very absence is as real as a very faculty. And if the word defined signify an absence or negation, I 372hope he would not have me define it by a presence or affirmation. Such a word is liberty; for it signifieth freedom from impediments, which is all one with the absence of impediments, as I have defined it. And if this be contrary to all the rules of right reason, that is to say, of logic, that he hath learned, I should advise him to read some other logic than he hath yet read, or consider better those he did read when he was a young man and could less understand them. He adds, that “by this definition, a stone hath liberty to ascend into the air, because there is no outward impediment to hinder it”. How knows he whether there be impediments to hinder it or not? Certainly if a stone were thrown upwards, it would either go upwards eternally, or it must be stopped by some outward impediment, or it must stop itself. He hath confessed, that nothing can move itself; I doubt not therefore that he will confess also, that it cannot stop itself. But stopped we see it is; it is therefore stopped by impediments external. He hath in this part of his answer ventured a little too far in speaking of definition, and of impediments, and motion; and bewrayed too much his ignorance in logic and philosophy; and talked so absurdly of the current of rivers, and of the motion of the seas, and of the weight of water, that it cannot be corrected otherwise than by blotting it all out.

NO. XXX.

T. H. Sixthly, I conceive nothing taketh beginning from itself, but from the action of some other immediate agent without itself: and that 373therefore when first a man had an appetite or will to something, to which immediately before he had no appetite nor will, the cause of his will is not the will itself, but something else not in his own disposing. So that, whereas it is out of controversy that of voluntary actions the will is a necessary cause; and by this which is said, the will is also caused by other things whereof it disposeth not; it followeth that voluntary actions have all of them necessary causes, and therefore are necessitated.

The Bishop’s reply.

J. D. “This sixth point doth not consist in explicating of terms, as the former; but in two proofs, that voluntary actions are necessitated. The former proof stands thus: ‘Nothing takes beginning from itself, but from some agent without itself, which is not in its own disposing therefore, &c’. Concedo omnia; (a) I grant all he saith. The will doth not take beginning from itself. Whether he understand by will the faculty of the will, which is a power of the reasonable soul, it takes not beginning from itself, but from God, who created and infused the soul into man, and endowed it with this power: or whether he understand by will the act of willing, it takes not beginning from itself, but from the faculty or from the power of willing, which is in the soul. This is certain; finite and participated things cannot be from themselves, nor be produced by themselves. What would he conclude from hence? That therefore the act of willing takes not its beginning from the faculty of the will? Or that the faculty is always determined antecedently, extrinsically, to will that which it doth will? He may as soon draw water out of a 374pumice, as draw any such conclusion out of these premises. Secondly, for his “taking a beginning”, either he understands a beginning of being, or a beginning of working and acting. If he understand a beginning of being, he saith most truly, that nothing hath a beginning of being in time from itself. But this is nothing to his purpose: the question is not between us, whether the soul of man or the will of man be eternal. But if he understand a beginning of working or moving actually, it is a gross error. All men know that when a stone descends, or fire ascends, or when water, that hath been heated, returns to its former temper; the beginning or reason is intrinsical, and one and the same thing doth move and is moved in a diverse respect. It moves in respect of the form, and it is moved in respect of the matter. Much more man, who hath a perfect knowledge and prenotion of the end, is most properly said to move himself. Yet I do not deny but that there are other beginnings of human actions, which do concur with the will: some outward, as the first cause by general influence, which is evermore requisite, angels or men by persuading, evil spirits by tempting, the object or end by its appetibility, the understanding by directing. So passions and acquired habits. But I deny that any of these do necessitate or can necessitate the will of man by determining it physically to one, except God alone, who doth it rarely, in extraordinary cases. And where there is no antecedent determination to one, there is no absolute necessity, but true liberty.

(b) “His second argument is ex concessis: ‘It is out of controversy’, saith he, ‘that of voluntary 375actions the will is a necessary cause’. The argument may be thus reduced: necessary causes produce necessary effects; but the will is a necessary cause of voluntary actions. I might deny his major. Necessary causes do not always produce necessary effects, except they be also necessarily produced; as I have shewed before in the burning of Protagoras’s book. But I answer clearly to the minor, that the will is not a necessary cause of what it wills in particular actions. It is without controversy indeed, for it is without all probability. That it wills when it wills, is necessary; but that it wills this or that, now or then, is free. More expressly, the act of the will may be considered three ways; either in respect of its nature, or in respect of its exercise, or in respect of its object. First, for the nature of the act: that which the will wills, is necessarily voluntary, because the will cannot be compelled. And in this sense, ‘it is out of controversy, that the will is a necessary cause of voluntary actions’. Secondly, for the exercise of its acts, that is not necessary: the will may either will or suspend its act. Thirdly, for the object, that is not necessary, but free: the will is not extrinsically determined to its objects. As for example: the cardinals meet in the conclave to choose a Pope; whom they choose, he is necessarily Pope. But it is not necessary that they shall choose this or that day. Before they were assembled, they might defer their assembling; when they are assembled, they may suspend their election for a day or a week. Lastly, for the person whom they will choose, it is freely in their own power; otherwise if the election were not free, it were void, and no 376election at all. So that which takes its beginning from the will, is necessarily voluntary; but it is not necessary that the will shall will this or that in particular, as it was necessary that the person freely elected should be Pope: but it was not necessary either that the election should be at this time, or that this man should be elected. And therefore voluntary acts in particular have not necessary causes, that is, they are not necessitated.”

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE ANSWER TO NO. XXX.

I had said, that nothing taketh beginning from itself, and that the cause of the will is not the will itself, but something else which it disposeth not of. Answering to this, he endeavours to shew us the cause of the will.

(a) “I grant”, saith he, “that the will doth not take beginning from itself, for that the faculty of the will takes beginning from God, who created the soul, and poured it into man, and endowed it with this power; and for that the act of willing takes not beginning from itself, but from the faculty or from the power of willing, which is in the soul. This is certain; finite and participated things cannot be from themselves, nor be produced by themselves. What would he conclude from hence? That therefore the act of willing takes not its beginning from the faculty of the will?” It is well that he grants finite things (as for his participated, it signifies nothing here) cannot be produced by themselves. For out of this I can conclude that the act of willing is not produced by the faculty of willing. He that hath the faculty 377of willing, hath the faculty of willing something in particular. And at the same time he hath the faculty of nilling the same. If therefore the faculty of willing be the cause he willeth anything whatsoever, for the same reason the faculty of nilling will be the cause at the same time of nilling it: and so he shall will and nill the same thing at the same time, which is absurd. It seems the Bishop had forgot, that matter and power are indifferent to contrary forms and contrary acts. It is somewhat besides the matter, that determineth it to a certain form; and somewhat besides the power, that produceth a certain act: and thence it is, that is inferred this that he granteth, that nothing can be produced by itself; which nevertheless he presently contradicteth, in saying, that “all men know when a stone descends, the beginning is intrinsical”, and that “the stone moves in respect of the form”. Which is as much as to say, that the form moveth the matter, or that the stone moveth itself; which before he denied. When a stone ascends, the beginning of the stone’s motion was in itself, that is to say, intrinsical, because it is not the stone’s motion, till the stone begins to be moved; but the motion that caused it to begin to ascend, was a precedent and extrinsical motion of the hand or other engine that threw it upward. And so when it descends, the beginning of the stone’s motion is in the stone; but nevertheless, there is a former motion in the ambient body, air or water, that causeth it to descend. But because no man can see it, most men think there is none; though reason, wherewith the Bishop (as relying only upon the authority of books) troubleth not himself, convince that there is.

378(b) “His second argument is, ex concessis: ‘It is out of controversy, that of voluntary actions the will is a necessary cause’. The argument may be thus reduced: necessary causes produce necessary effects; but the will is a necessary cause of voluntary actions. I might deny his major; necessary causes do not always produce necessary effects, except they be also necessarily produced.” He has reduced the argument to nonsense, by saying necessary causes produce not necessary effects. For necessary effects, unless he mean such effects as shall necessarily be produced, is insignificant. Let him consider therefore with what grace he can say, necessary causes do not always produce their effects, except those effects be also necessarily produced. But his answer is chiefly to the minor, and denies that the will is not a necessary cause of what it wills in particular actions. That it wills when it wills, saith he, is necessary; but that it wills this or that, is free. Is it possible for any man to conceive, that he that willeth, can will anything but this or that particular thing? It is therefore manifest, that either the will is a necessary cause of this or that or any other particular action, or not the necessary cause of any voluntary action at all. For universal actions there be none. In that which followeth, he undertaketh to make his doctrine more expressly understood by considering the act of the will three ways: “in respect of its nature, in respect of its exercise, and in respect of its object”. For the nature of the act, he saith, that “that which the will wills, is necessarily voluntary”, and that in this sense he grants it is out of controversy, that the will is a necessary cause 379of voluntary actions. Instead of “that which the will wills”, to make it sense, read that which the man wills; and then if the man’s will be, as he confesseth, a necessary cause of voluntary actions, it is no less a necessary cause that they are actions, than that they are voluntary. For the exercise of the act, he saith that “the will may either will, or suspend its act”. This is the old canting, which hath already been sufficiently detected. But to make it somewhat, let us read it thus: the man that willeth, may either will or suspend his will: and thus it is intelligible, but false; for how can he that willeth, at the same time suspend his will? And for the object he says, that “it is not necessary but free”, &c. His reason is, because, he says, it was not necessary, for example, in choosing a Pope, to choose him this or that day, or to choose this or that man. I would be glad to know, by what argument he can prove the election not to have been necessitated: for it is not enough for him to say, I perceive no necessity in it; nor to say, they might have chosen another, because he knows not whether they might or not; nor to say if he had not been freely elected, the election had been void or none. For though that be true, it does not follow that the election was not necessary; for there is no repugnance to necessity, either in election or in freedom. And whereas he concludeth, “therefore voluntary acts in particular, are not necessitated”; I would have been glad he had set down what voluntary acts there are, not particular, which by his restricting of voluntary acts he grants to be necessitated.

380

NO. XXXI.

T. H. Seventhly, I hold that to be a sufficient cause, to which nothing is wanting that is needful to the producing of the effect. The same is also a necessary cause: for if it be possible that a sufficient cause shall not bring forth the effect, then there wanted somewhat which was needful to the producing of it; and so the cause was not sufficient. But if it be impossible that a sufficient cause should not produce the effect, then is a sufficient cause a necessary cause: for that is said to produce an effect necessarily, that cannot but produce it. Hence it is manifest, that whatsoever is produced, is produced necessarily: for whatsoever is produced, hath had a sufficient cause to produce it, or else it had not been. And therefore also voluntary actions are necessitated.

The Bishop’s reply.

J. D. “This section contains a third argument to prove that all effects are necessary; for clearing whereof, it is needful to consider how a cause may be said to be sufficient or insufficient.

“First, several causes singly considered may be insufficient, and the same taken conjointly be sufficient to produce an effect. As (a) two horses jointly are sufficient to draw a coach, which either of them singly is insufficient to do. Now to make the effect, that is, the drawing of the coach necessary, it is not only required that the two horses be sufficient to draw it, but also that their conjunction be necessary, and their habitude such as they may draw it. If the owner of one of these horses will not suffer him to draw; if the smith have shod the other in the quick, and lamed him; if the 381horse have cast a shoe, or be a resty jade, and will not draw but when he list; then the effect is not necessarily produced, but contingently more or less, as the concurrence of the causes is more or less contingent.

(b) “Secondly, a cause may be said to be sufficient, either because it produceth that effect which is intended, as in the generation of a man; or else, because it is sufficient to produce that which is produced, as in the generation of a monster. The former is properly called a sufficient cause, the latter a weak and insufficient cause. Now, if the debility of the cause be not necessary, but contingent, then the effect is not necessary, but contingent. It is a rule in logic, that the conclusion always follows the weaker part. If the premises be but probable, the conclusion cannot be demonstrative. It holds as well in causes as in propositions. No effect can exceed the virtue of its cause. If the ability or debility of the causes be contingent, the effect cannot be necessary.

“Thirdly, that which concerns this question of liberty from necessity most nearly, is that (c) a cause is said to be sufficient in respect of the ability of it to act, not in respect of its will to act. The concurrence of the will is needful to the production of a free effect. But the cause may be sufficient, though the will do not concur. As God is sufficient to produce a thousand worlds; but it doth not follow from thence, either that he hath produced them, or that he will produce them. The blood of Christ is a sufficient ransom for all mankind; but it doth not follow therefore, that all mankind shall be actually saved by virtue of his 382blood. A man may be a sufficient tutor, though he will not teach every scholar, and a sufficient physician, though he will not administer to every patient. For as much therefore as the concurrence of the will is needful to the production of every free effect, and yet the cause may be sufficient in sensu diviso, although the will do not concur; it follows evidently, that the cause may be sufficient, and yet something which is needful to the production of the effect, may be wanting; and that every sufficient cause is not a necessary cause.

“Lastly, if any man be disposed to wrangle against so clear light, and say, that though the free agent be sufficient in sensu diviso, yet he is not sufficient in sensu composito, to produce effect without the concurrence of the will, he saith true: but first, he bewrays the weakness and the fallacy of the former argument, which is a mere trifling between sufficiency in a divided sense, and sufficiency in a compounded sense. And seeing the concurrence of the will is not predetermined, there is no antecedent necessity before it do concur; and when it hath concurred, the necessity is but hypothetical, which may consist with liberty.”

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE ANSWER TO NO. XXXI.

In this place he disputeth against my definition of a sufficient cause, namely, that cause to which nothing is wanting needful to the producing of the effect. I thought this definition could have been misliked by no man that had English enough to know that a sufficient cause, and cause enough, signifieth the same thing. And no man will say that that is cause enough to produce an effect, to 383which any thing is wanting needful to the producing of it. But the Bishop thinks, if he set down what he understands by sufficient, it would serve to confute my definition: and therefore says: (a) “Two horses jointly are sufficient to draw a coach, which either of them singly is insufficient to do. Now to make the effect, that is, the drawing of the coach necessary, it is not only required that the two horses be sufficient to draw it, but also that it be necessary they shall be joined, and that the owner of the horses will let them draw, and that the smith hath not lamed them, and they be not resty, and list not to draw but when they list: otherwise the effect is contingent”. It seems the Bishop thinks two horses may be sufficient to draw a coach, though they will not draw, or though they be lame, or though they be never put to draw; and I think they can never produce the effect of drawing, without those needful circumstances of being strong, obedient, and having the coach some way or other fastened to them. He calls it a sufficient cause of drawing, that they be coach horses, though they be lame or will not draw. But I say they are not sufficient absolutely, but conditionally, if they be not lame nor resty. Let the reader judge, whether my sufficient cause or his, may properly be called cause enough.

(b) “Secondly, a cause may be said to be sufficient, either because it produceth that effect which is intended, as in the generation of a man; or else, because it is sufficient to produce that which is produced, as in the generation of a monster: the former is properly called a sufficient cause, the latter a weak and insufficient cause.” In these 384few lines he hath said the cause of the generation of a monster is sufficient to produce a monster, and that it is insufficient to produce a monster. How soon may a man forget his words, that doth not understand them. This term of insufficient cause, which also the School calls deficient, that they may rhyme to efficient, is not intelligible, but a word devised like hocus pocus, to juggle a difficulty out of sight. That which is sufficient to produce a monster, is not therefore to be called an insufficient cause to produce a man; no more than that which is sufficient to produce a man, is to be called an insufficient cause to produce a monster.

(c) “Thirdly, a cause is said to be sufficient in respect to the ability of it to act, not in respect of its will to act, &c. As God is sufficient to produce a thousand worlds.” He understands little, when men say, God is sufficient to produce many worlds, if he understand not the meaning to be, that he is sufficient to produce them if he will. Without this supposition, if he will, a man is not sufficient to produce any voluntary action, not so much as to walk, though he be in health and at liberty. The will is as much a sufficient cause without the strength to do, as the strength without the will. To that which he adds, that my definition is “a mere trifling between a sufficiency in a divided sense, and a sufficiency in a compounded sense”, I can make no answer; because I understand no more what he means by sufficiency in a divided sense, and sufficiency in a compounded sense, than if he had said sufficiency in a divided nonsense, and sufficiency in a compounded nonsense.

385

NO. XXXII.

T. H. Lastly, I hold that the ordinary definition of a free agent, namely, that a free agent is that, which when all things are present which are needful to produce the effect, can nevertheless not produce it, implies a contradiction, and is nonsense; being as much as to say, the cause may be sufficient, that is, necessary, and yet the effect not follow.

The Bishop’s reply.

J. D. “This last point is but a corollary, or an inference from the former doctrine, that ‘every sufficient cause produceth its effect necessarily’; which pillar being taken away the superstructure must needs fall to the ground, having nothing left to support it. ‘Lastly, I hold’, saith he. What he is able to prove, is something: so much reason, so much trust. But what he holds, concerns himself, not others. But what holds he? ‘I hold’, saith he, ‘that the ordinary definition of a free agent implies a contradiction, and is nonsense.’ That which he calls the ‘ordinary definition’ of liberty, is the very definition which is given by the much greater part of Philosophers and Schoolmen. And doth he think that all these spake nonsense: or had no more judgment than to contradict themselves in a definition? He might much better suspect himself, than censure so many. Let us see the definition itself: ‘A free agent is that, which when all things are present that are needful to produce the effect, can nevertheless not produce it.’ I acknowledge the old definition of liberty, with little variation. But I cannot see this nonsense, nor discover this contradiction. 386For (a) in these words, ‘all things needful’, or ‘all things requisite’, the actual determination of the will is not included. But by all things needful or requisite, all necessary power either operative or elective, all necessary instruments and adjuments extrinsical and intrinsical, and all conditions are intended. As he that hath pen, and ink, and paper, a table, a desk, and leisure, the art of writing, and the free use of his hand, hath all things requisite to write if he will; and yet he may forbear if he will. Or as he that hath men, and money, and arms, and munition, and ships, and a just cause, hath all things requisite for war; yet he may make peace if he will. Or as the king proclaimed in the gospel (Matth. xxii. 4): I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fatlings are killed, all things are ready; come unto the marriage. According to T. H.’s doctrine, the guests might have told him that he said not truly, for their own wills were not ready. (b) And indeed if the will were (as he conceives it is) necessitated extrinsically to every act of willing, if it had no power to forbear willing what it doth will, nor to will what it doth not will; then if the will were wanting, something requisite to the producing of the effect was wanting. But now when science and conscience, reason and religion, our own and other men’s experience doth teach us, that the will hath a dominion over its own acts to will or nill without extrinsical necessitation, if the power to will be present in actu primo, determinable by ourselves, then there is no necessary power wanting in this respect to the producing of the effect.

“Secondly, these words, ‘to act or not to act, to 387work or not to work, to produce or not to produce’, have reference to the effect, not as a thing which is already done or doing, but as a thing to be done. They imply not the actual production, but the producibility of the effect. But when once the will hath actually concurred with all other causes and conditions and circumstances, then the effect is no more possible nor producible, but it is in being, and actually produced. Thus he takes away the subject of the question. The question is, whether effects producible be free from necessity. He shuffles out ‘effects producible’, and thrusts in their places ‘effects produced’, or which are in the act of production. Wherefore I conclude, that it is neither nonsense nor contradiction to say that a free agent, when all things requisite to produce the effect are present, may nevertheless not produce it.

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE ANSWER TO NO. XXXII.

The question is here whether these words ‘a free agent is that, which when all things needful to the production of the effect are present, can nevertheless not produce it’, imply a contradiction; as I say it does. To make it appear no contradiction, he saith: (a) “In these words, ‘all things needful’, or ‘all things requisite’, the actual determination of the will is not included”: as if the will were not needful nor requisite to the producing of a voluntary action. For to the production of any act whatsoever, there is needful, not only those things which proceed from the agent, but also those that consist in the disposition of the patient. And to 388use his own instance, it is necessary to writing, not only that there be pen, ink, paper, &c.; but also a will to write. He that hath the former, hath all things requisite to write if he will, but not all things necessary to writing. And so in his other instances, he that hath men and money, &c. (without that which he putteth in for a requisite), hath all things requisite to make war if he will, but not simply to make war. And he in the Gospel that had prepared his dinner, had all things requisite for his guests if they came, but not all things requisite to make them come. And therefore “all things requisite”, is a term ill defined by him.

(b) “And indeed if the will were (as he conceives it is) necessitated extrinsically to every act of willing; if it had no power to forbear willing what it doth will, nor to will what it does not will; then if the will were wanting, something requisite to the producing of the effect were wanting. But now when science and conscience, reason and religion, our own and other men’s experience doth teach us, that the will hath a dominion over its own acts to will or nill without extrinsical necessitation, if the power to will be present in actu primo, determinable by ourselves, then there is no necessary power wanting in this respect to the producing of the effect.” These words, “the will hath power to forbear willing what it doth will”; and these, “the will hath a dominion over its own acts”; and these, “the power to will is present in actu primo, determinable by ourselves”; are as wild as ever were any spoken within the walls of Bedlam: and if science, conscience, reason, and religion teach us to speak thus, they make us mad. 389And that which followeth is false: “to act or not to act, to work or not to work, to produce or not to produce, have reference to the effect, not as a thing which is already done or doing, but as a thing to be done”. For to act, to work, to produce, are the same thing with to be doing. It is not the act, but the power that hath reference to the future: for act and power differ in nothing but in this, that the former signifieth the time present, the latter the time to come. And whereas he adds, that I shuffle out effects producible, and thrust into their places effects produced; I must take it for an untruth, till he cite the place wherein I have done so.

NO. XXXIII.

T. H. For my first five points; where it is explicated, first, what spontaneity is; secondly, what deliberation is; thirdly, what will, propension, and appetite is; fourthly, what a free agent is; fifthly, what liberty is: there can be no other proof offered but every man’s own experience, by reflecting on himself, and remembering what he useth to have in his mind, that is, what he himself meaneth, when he saith, an action is spontaneous, a man deliberates, such is his will, that agent or that action is free. Now, he that so reflecteth on himself, cannot but be satisfied, that deliberation is the considering of the good and evil sequels of the action to come; that by spontaneity is meant inconsiderate proceeding; for else nothing is meant by it; that will is the last act of our deliberation; that a free agent, is he that can do if he will and forbear if he will; and that liberty is the absence of external impediments. 390But to those that out of custom speak not what they conceive, but what they hear, and are not able or will not take the pains to consider what they think, when they hear such words, no argument can be sufficient; because experience and matter of fact is not verified by other men’s arguments, but by every man’s own sense and memory. For example, how can it be proved, that to love a thing and to think it good are all one, to a man that does not mark his own meaning by those words? Or how can it be proved that eternity is not nunc stans, to a man that says these words by custom, and never considers how he can conceive the thing itself in his mind? Also the sixth point, that a man cannot imagine any thing to begin without a cause, can no other way be made known but by trying how he can imagine it. But if he try, he shall find as much reason, if there be no cause of the thing, to conceive it should begin at one time as another, that is, he hath equal reason to think it should begin at all times, which is impossible. And therefore he must think there was some special cause, why it began then rather than sooner or later; or else, that it began never, but was eternal.

The Bishop’s reply.

J. D. “Now at length he comes to his main proofs; he that hath so confidently censured the whole current of Schoolmen and Philosophers of nonsense, had need to produce strong evidence for himself. So he calls his reasons, No. XXXVI., demonstrative proofs. All demonstrations are either from the cause or the effect, not from private notions and conceptions which we have in our minds. That which he calls a demonstration, deserves 391not the name of an intimation. He argues thus: ‘that which a man conceives in his mind by these words, spontaneity, deliberation, &c.; that they are’. This is his proposition, which I deny. (a) The true natures of things are not to be judged by the private ideas, or conceptions of men, but by their causes and formal reasons. Ask an ordinary person what upwards signifies, and whether our antipodes have their heads upwards or downwards; and he will not stick to tell you, that if his head be upwards, theirs must needs be downwards. And this is because he knows not the formal reason thereof; that the heavens encircle the earth, and what is towards heaven is upwards. This same erroneous notion of upwards and downwards, before the true reason was fully discovered, abused more than ordinary capacities; as appears by their arguments of penduli homines, and pendulæ arbores. Again, what do men conceive ordinarily by this word empty, as when they say an empty vessel, or by this word body, as when they say, there is no body in that room? They intend not to exclude the air, either out of the vessel or out of the room: yet reason tells us, that the vessel is not truly empty, and that the air is a true body. I might give a hundred such like instances. He who leaves the conduct of his understanding to follow vulgar notions, shall plunge himself into a thousand errors; like him who leaves a certain guide to follow an ignus fatuus, or a will-with-the-wisp. So his proposition is false. (b) His reason, ‘that matter of fact is not verified by other men’s arguments, but by every man’s own sense and memory’, is likewise maimed on both sides. Whether we hear 392such words or not, is matter of fact; and sense is the proper judge of it: but what these words do, or ought truly to signify, is not to be judged by sense but by reason. Secondly, reason may, and doth oftentimes correct sense, even about its proper object. Sense tells us that the sun is no bigger than a good ball; but reason demonstrates, that it is many times greater than the whole globe of the earth. As to his instance: ‘how can it be proved, that to love a thing and to think it good is all one, to a man that doth not mark his own meaning by these words’, I confess it cannot be proved; for it is not true. Beauty, and likeness, and love, do conciliate love as much as goodness, cos amoris amor. Love is a passion of the will; but to judge of goodness is an act of the understanding. A father may love an ungracious child, and yet not esteem him good. A man loves his own house better than another man’s; yet he cannot but esteem many others better than his own. His other instance, ‘how can it be proved that eternity is not nunc stans, to a man that says these words by custom, and never considers how he can conceive the thing itself in his mind’, is just like the former, not to be proved by reason, but by fancy, which is the way he takes. And it is not unlike the counsel which one gave to a novice about the choice of his wife, to advise with the bells: as he fancied so they sounded, either take her or leave her.

(c) “Then for his assumption, it is as defective as his proposition, that by those words spontaneity, &c, men do understand as he conceives. No rational man doth conceive a spontaneous action 393and an indeliberate action to be all one. Every indeliberate action is not spontaneous; the fire considers not whether it should burn, yet the burning of it is not spontaneous. Neither is every spontaneous action indeliberate; a man may deliberate what he will eat, and yet eat it spontaneously. (d) Neither doth deliberation properly signify, the considering of the good and evil sequels of an action to come, but the considering whether this be a good and fit means, or the best and fittest means for obtaining such an end. The physician doth not deliberate whether he should cure his patient, but by what means he should cure him. Deliberation is of the means, not of the end. (e) Much less doth any man conceive with T. H. that deliberation is an imagination, or an act of fancy not of reason, common to men of discretion with madmen, and natural fools, and children, and brute beasts. (f) Thirdly, neither doth any understanding man conceive, or can conceive, that ‘the will is an act of our deliberation’; (the understanding and the will are two distinct faculties); or that ‘only the last appetite is to be called our will’. So no man should be able to say, this is my will, because he knows not whether he shall persevere in it or not. (g) Concerning the fourth point we agree, that ‘he is a free agent that can do if he will, and forbear if he will’. But I wonder how this dropped from his pen. What is now become of his absolute necessity of all things, if a man be free to do and to forbear anything? Will he make himself guilty of the nonsense of the Schoolmen, and run with them into contradictions for company? It may be he will say, he can 394do if he will, and forbear if he will, but he cannot will if he will. This will not serve his turn; for if the cause of a free action, that is, the will to do it be determined, then the effect, or the action itself is likewise determined; a determined cause cannot produce an undetermined effect; either the agent can will and forbear to will, or else he cannot do and forbear to do. (h) But we differ wholly about the fifth point. He who conceives liberty aright, conceives both a liberty in the subject to will or not to will, and a liberty to the object to will this or that, and a liberty from impediments. T. H. by a new way of his own cuts off the liberty of the subject; as if a stone was free to ascend or descend, because it hath no outward impediment: and the liberty towards the object; as if the needle touched with the loadstone were free to point either towards the north or towards the south, because there is not a barricado in its way to hinder it. Yea, he cuts off the liberty from inward impediments also; as if a hawk were at liberty to fly when her wings are plucked, but not when they are tied. And so he makes liberty from extrinsical impediments to be complete liberty; so he ascribes liberty to brute beasts, and liberty to rivers, and by consequence makes beasts and rivers to be capable of sin and punishment. Assuredly Xerxes, who caused the Hellespont to be beaten with so many stripes, was of this opinion. Lastly, T. H.’s reason, that ‘it is custom, or want of ability, or negligence, which makes a man conceive otherwise’, is but a begging of that which he should prove. Other men consider as seriously as himself, with as much judgment as himself, with less prejudice 395than himself, and yet they can apprehend no such sense of these words. Would he have other men feign they see fiery dragons in the air, because he affirms confidently that he sees them, and wonders why others are so blind as not to see them?

(i) “The reason for the sixth point is like the former, a fantastical or imaginative reason. ‘How can a man imagine anything to begin without a cause, or if it should begin without a cause, why it should begin at this time rather than at that time?’ He saith truly, nothing can begin without a cause, that is, to be; but it may begin to act of itself without any other cause. Nothing can begin without a cause; but many things may begin, and do begin without necessary causes. A free cause may as well choose his time when he will begin, as a necessary cause be determined extrinsically when it must begin. And although free effects cannot be foretold, because they are not certainly predetermined in their causes; yet when the free causes do determine themselves, they are of as great certainty as the other. As when I see a bell ringing, I can conceive the cause of it as well why it rings now, as I know the interposition of the earth to be the cause of the eclipse of the moon, or the most certain occurrent in the nature of things.

(k) “And now that I have answered T. H.’s arguments drawn from the private conceptions of men concerning the sense of words, I desire him seriously without prejudice to examine himself, and those natural notions which he finds in himself, (not of words, but of things; these are from 396nature, those are by imposition), whether he doth not find by experience, that he doth many things which he might have left undone if he would, and omits many things which he might have done if he would; whether he doth not some things out of mere animosity and will, without either regard to the direction of right reason or serious respect of what is honest or profitable, only to show that he will have a dominion over his own actions; as we see ordinarily in children, and wise men find at some times in themselves by experience; (and I apprehend this very defence of necessity against liberty to be partly of that kind); whether he is not angry with those who draw him from his study, or cross him in his desires; (if they be necessitated to do it, why should he be angry with them, any more than he is angry with a sharp winter, or a rainy day that keeps him at home against his antecedent will?); whether he doth not sometimes blame himself, and say, ‘O what a fool was I to do thus and thus’, or wish to himself, ‘O that I had been wise’, or, ‘O that I had not done such an act’. If he have no dominion over his actions, if he be irresistibly necessitated to all things that he doth, he might as well wish, ‘O that I had not breathed,’ or blame himself for growing old, ‘O what a fool was I to grow old’.”

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE ANSWER TO NO. XXXIII.

I have said in the beginning of this number, that to define what spontaneity is, what deliberation is, what will, propension, appetite, a free agent, and liberty is, and to prove they are well 397defined, there can be no other proof offered, but every man’s own experience and memory of what he meaneth by such words. For definitions being the beginning of all demonstration, cannot themselves be demonstrated, that is, proved to another man; all that can be done, is either to put him in mind what those words signify commonly in the matter whereof they treat, or if the words be unusual, to make the definitions of them true by mutual consent in their signification. And though this be manifestly true, yet there is nothing of it amongst the Schoolmen, who use to argue not by rule, but as fencers teach to handle weapons, by quickness only of the hand and eye. The Bishop therefore boggles at this kind of proof; and says, (a) “the true natures of things are not to be judged by the private ideas or conceptions of men, but by their causes and formal reasons. Ask an ordinary person what upwards signifies,” &c. But what will he answer, if I should ask him, how he will judge of the causes of things, whereof he hath no idea or conception in his own mind? It is therefore impossible to give a true definition of any word without the idea of the thing which that word signifieth, or not according to that idea or conception. Here again he discovereth the true cause why he and other Schoolmen so often speak absurdly. For they speak without conception of the things, and by rote, one receiving what he saith from another by tradition, from some puzzled divine or philosopher, that to decline a difficulty speaks in such manner as not to be understood. And where he bids us ask an ordinary person what upwards signifieth, I dare answer for 398that ordinary person he will tell us as significantly as any scholar, and say it is towards heaven; and as soon as he knows the earth is round, makes no scruple to believe there are antipodes, being wiser in that point than were those which he saith to have been of more than ordinary capacities. Again, ordinary men understand not, he saith, the words empty and body; yes, but they do, just as well as learned men. When they hear named an empty vessel, the learned as well as the unlearned mean and understand the same thing, namely, that there is nothing in it that can be seen; and whether it be truly empty, the ploughman and the Schoolman know alike. “I might give”, he says, “a hundred such like instances.” That is true; a man may give a thousand foolish and impertinent instances of men ignorant in such questions of philosophy concerning emptiness, body, upwards, and downwards, and the like. But the question is not whether such and such tenets be true, but whether such and such words can be well defined without thinking upon the things they signified; as the Bishop thinks they may, when he concludeth with these words, “so his proposition is false”.

(b) “His reason, ‘that matter of fact is not verified by other men’s arguments, but by every man’s own sense and memory’, is likewise maimed on both sides. Whether we hear such words or not, is matter of fact, and sense is the proper judge of it; but what these words do, or ought truly to signify, is not to be judged by sense, but by reason.” A man is born with a capacity after due time and experience to reason truly; to which capacity of nature, if there be added no discipline 399at all, yet as far as he reasoneth he will reason truly; though by a right discipline he may reason truly in more numerous and various matters. But he that hath lighted on deceiving or deceived masters, that teach for truth all that hath been dictated to them by their own interest, or hath been cried up by other such teachers before them, have for the most part their natural reason, as far as concerneth the truth of doctrine, quite defaced or very much weakened, becoming changelings through the enchantments of words not understood. This cometh into my mind from this saying of the Bishop, that matter of fact is not verified by sense and memory, but by arguments. How is it possible that, without discipline, a man should come to think that the testimony of a witness, which is the only verifier of matter of fact, should consist not in sense and memory, so as he may say he saw and remembers the thing done, but in arguments or syllogisms? Or how can an unlearned man be brought to think the words he speaks, ought to signify, when he speaks sincerely, anything else but that which himself meant by them? Or how can any man without learning take the question, “whether the sun be no bigger than a ball, or bigger than the earth”, to be a question of fact? Nor do I think that any man is so simple, as not to find that to be good which he loveth; good, I say, so far forth, as it maketh him to love it. Or is there any unlearned man so stupid, as to think eternity is this present instant of time standing still, and the same eternity to be the very next instant after; and consequently that there be so many eternities as there can be instants 400of time supposed? No, there is scholastic learning required in some measure to make one mad.

(c) “Then for his assumption, it is as defective as his proposition, that by these words, spontaneity, &c. men do understand as he conceives, &c. No rational man doth conceive a spontaneous action and an indeliberate action to be all one; every indeliberate action is not spontaneous, &c.” Not every spontaneous action indeliberate? This I get by striving to make sense of that which he strives to make nonsense. I never thought the word spontaneity English. Yet because he used it, I make such meaning of it as it would bear, and said it “meant inconsiderate proceeding, or nothing”. And for this my too much officiousness, I receive the reward of being thought by him not to be a rational man. I know that in the Latin of all authors but Schoolmen, actio spontanea signifies that action, whereof there is no apparent cause derived further than from the agent itself; and is in all things that have sense the same with voluntary, whether deliberated or not deliberated. And therefore where he distinguished it from voluntary, I thought he might mean indeliberate. But let it signify what it will, provided it be intelligible, it would make against him.

(d) “Neither doth deliberation properly signify ‘the considering of the good and evil sequels of an action to come’; but the considering whether this be a good and fit means, or the best and fittest means, for obtaining such an end.” If the Bishop’s words proceeded not from hearing and reading of others, but from his own thoughts, he could never have reprehended this definition of deliberation, 401especially in the manner he doth it; for he says, it is the considering whether this or that be a good and fit means for obtaining such an end; as if considering whether a means be good or not, were not all one with considering whether the sequel of using those means be good or evil.

(e) “Much less doth any man conceive with T. H. that ‘deliberation is an act of fancy’, not of reason, common to men of discretion with madmen, natural fools, children, and brute beasts”. I do indeed conceive that deliberation is an act of imagination or fancy; nay more, that reason and understanding also are acts of the imagination, that is to say, they are imaginations. I find it so by considering my own ratiocination; and he might find it so in his, if he did consider his own thoughts, and not speak as he does by rote; by rote I say, when he disputes; not by rote, when he is about those trifles he calleth business; then when he speaks, he thinks of, that is to say, he imagines, his business; but here he thinks only upon the words of other men that have gone before him in this question, transcribing their conclusions and arguments, not his own thoughts.

(f) “Thirdly, neither doth any understanding man conceive, or can conceive, either ‘that the will is an act of our deliberation’ (the understanding and the will are two distinct faculties); or ‘that only the last appetite is to be called our will’.” Though the understanding and the will were two distinct faculties, yet followeth it not that the will and the deliberation are two distinct faculties. For the whole deliberation is nothing else but so many wills alternatively changed, according as a 402man understandeth or fancieth the good and evil sequels of the thing concerning which he deliberateth whether he shall pursue it, or of the means whether they conduce or not to that end, whatsoever it be, he seeketh to obtain. So that in deliberation there be many wills, whereof not any is the cause of a voluntary action but the last; as I have said before, answering this objection in another place.

(g) “Concerning the fourth point we agree, that ‘he is a free agent, that can do if he will and forbear if he will’. But I wonder how this dropped from his pen? &c. It may be he will say he can do if he will and forbear if he will, but he cannot will if he will.” He has no reason to wonder how this dropped from my pen. He found it in my answer No. III, and has been all this while about to confute it, so long indeed that he had forgot I said it; and now again brings another argument to prove a man is free to will, which is this: “Either the agent can will and forbear to will, or else he cannot do and forbear to do”. There is no doubt a man can will one thing or other, and forbear to will it. For men, if they be awake, are always willing one thing or other. But put the case, a man has a will to-day to do a certain action to-morrow; is he sure to have the same will to-morrow, when he is to do it? Is he free to-day, to choose to-morrow’s will? This is it that is now in question, and this argument maketh nothing for the affirmative or negative.

(h) “But we differ wholly about the fifth point. He who conceives liberty aright, conceives both a ‘liberty in the subject’, to will or not to will, and 403a ‘liberty to the object’ to will this or that, and a ‘liberty from impediments’. T. H., by a new way of his own, cuts off the ‘liberty of the subject’, as if a stone were free to ascend or descend because it hath no outward impediment; and the ‘liberty towards the object’, as if the needle touched with the loadstone were free to point either towards the north or towards the south, because there is not a barricado in its way.” How does it appear, that he who conceives liberty aright, conceives a liberty in the subject to will or not to will; unless he mean liberty to do if he will, or not to do if he will not, which was never denied? Or how does it follow, that a stone is as free to ascend as descend, unless he prove there is no outward impediment to its ascent; which cannot be proved, for the contrary is true? Or how proveth he, that there is no outward impediment to keep that point of the loadstone, which placeth itself towards the north, from turning to the south? His ignorance of the causes external is not a sufficient argument that there are none. And whereas he saith, that according to my definition of liberty, “a hawk were at liberty to fly when her wings are plucked, but not when they are tied”; I answer that she is not at liberty to fly when her wings are tied; but to say, when her wings are plucked that she wanted the liberty to fly, were to speak improperly and absurdly; for in that case, men that speak English use to say she cannot fly. And for his reprehension of my attributing liberty to brute beasts and rivers; I would be glad to know whether it be improper language, to say a bird or beast may be set at liberty from the cage wherein 404they were imprisoned or to say that a river, which was stopped, hath recovered its free course; and how it follows, that a beast or river recovering this freedom must needs therefore “be capable of sin and punishment”?

(i) “The reason for the sixth point is like the former, a phantastical or imaginative reason: ‘How can a man imagine anything to begin without a cause; or if it should begin without a cause, why it should begin at this time, rather than at that time?’ He saith truly, nothing can begin without a cause, that is to be; but it may begin to act of itself without any other cause. Nothing can begin without a cause; but many things may begin without a necessary cause.” He granteth nothing can begin without a cause; and he hath granted formerly that nothing can cause itself. And now he saith, it may begin to act of itself. The action therefore begins to be without any cause, which he said nothing could do, contradicting what he had said but in the line before. And for that that he saith, that “many things may begin not without a cause, but without a necessary cause”; it hath been argued before; and all causes have been proved, if entire and sufficient causes, to be necessary. And that which he repeateth here, namely, that “a free cause may choose his time when he will begin to work”; and that “although free effects cannot be foretold, because they are not certainly predetermined in their causes, yet when the free causes do determine themselves, they are of as great certainty as the other”; it has been made appear sufficiently before that it is but jargon, the words free cause and determining themselves being insignificant, and having 405nothing in the mind of man answerable to them.

(k) “And now that I have answered T. H.’s arguments, drawn from the private conceptions of men concerning the sense of words, I desire him seriously to examine himself, &c.” One of his interrogatories is this, “whether I find not by experience, that I do many things which I might have left undone if I would”. This question was needless, because all the way I have granted him that men have liberty to do many things if they will, which they left undone because they had not the will to do them. Another interrogatory is this, “whether I do not some things without regard to the direction of right reason, or serious respect of what is honest or profitable”. This question was in vain, unless he think himself my confessor. Another is, “whether I writ not this defence against liberty, only to show I will have a dominion over my own actions”. To this I answer, no: but to show I have no dominion over my will, and this also at his request. But all these questions serve in this place for nothing else, but to deliver him of a jest he was in labour withal: and therefore his last question is, “whether I do not sometimes say, ‘Oh, what a fool was I to do thus and thus!’ or, ‘Oh, that I had been wise!’ or, ‘Oh, what a fool was I to grow old!’”old!’” Subtle questions, and full of episcopal gravity! I would he had left out charging me with blasphemous, desperate, destructive, and atheistical opinions. I should then have pardoned him his calling me fool; both because I do many things foolishly, and because, in this question disputed between us, I think he will appear a greater fool than I.

406

NO. XXXIV.

T. H. For the seventh point, that all events have necessary causes, it is there proved in that they have sufficient causes. Further, let us in this place also suppose any event never so casual, as for example, the throwing ambs-ace upon a pair of dice; and see if it must not have been necessary before it was thrown. For, seeing it was thrown, it had a beginning, and consequently a sufficient cause to produce it; consisting partly in the dice, partly in the outward things, as the posture of the party’s hand, the measure of force applied by the caster, the posture of the parts of the table, and the like. In sum, there was nothing wanting that was necessarily requisite to the producing of that particular cast; and consequently, that cast was necessarily thrown. For if it had not been thrown, there had wanted somewhat requisite to the throwing of it; and so the cause had not been sufficient. In the like manner it may be proved that every other accident, how contingent soever it seem, or how voluntary soever it be, is produced necessarily; which is that J. D. disputes against. The same also may be proved in this manner. Let the case be put for example, of the weather. It is necessary, that to-morrow it shall rain or not rain. If therefore it be not necessary it shall rain, it is necessary it shall not rain. Otherwise it is not necessary that the proposition, it shall rain or it shall not rain, should be true. I know there are some that say, it may necessarily be true, that one of the two shall come to pass, but not singly, that it shall rain or it shall not rain. Which is as 407much as to say, one of them is necessary, yet neither of them is necessary. And therefore, to seem to avoid that absurdity, they make a distinction, that neither of them is true determinate, but indeterminate. Which distinction either signifies no more than this: one of them is true, but we know not which, and so the necessity remains, though we know it not: or if the meaning of the distinction be not that, it has no meaning. And they might as well have said, one of them is true tytyrice, but neither of them tupatulice.

The Bishop’s reply.

J. D. (a) “His former proof, that all sufficient causes are necessary causes, is answered before (No. XXXI). (b) And his two instances of casting ambs-ace, and raining to-morrow, are altogether impertinent to the question now agitated between us, for two reasons. First, our present controversy is concerning free actions, which proceed from the liberty of man’s will: both his instances are of contingent actions, which proceed from the indetermination or contingent concurrence of natural causes. First, that there are free actions which proceed merely from election, without any outward necessitation, is a truth so evident as that there is a sun in the heavens; and he that doubteth of it, may as well doubt whether there be a shell without the nut, or a stone within the olive. A man proportions his time each day, and allots so much to his devotions, so much to his study, so much to his diet, so much to his recreations, so much to necessary or civil visits, so much to his rest; he who will seek for I know not what causes of all this without himself, except that good God who hath given him a reasonable soul, may as 408well seek for a cause of the Egyptian pyramids among the crocodiles of Nilus. (c) Secondly, for mixed actions which proceed from the concurrence of free and natural agents, though they be not free, yet they are not necessary. As, to keep my former instance, a man walking through a street of a city to do his occasions, a tile falls from a house and breaks his head. The breaking of his head was not necessary, for he did freely choose to go that way without any necessitation; neither was it free, for he did not deliberate of that accident; therefore it was contingent, and by undoubted consequence, there are contingent actions in the world which are not free. Most certainly by the concurrence of free causes, as God, the good and bad angels, and men, with natural agents, sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident, many events happen, which otherwise had never happened; many effects are produced, which otherwise had never been produced. And admitting such things to be contingent, not necessary, all their consequent effects, not only immediate, but mediate, must likewise be contingent, that is to say, such as do not proceed from a continued connexion and succession of necessary causes; which is directly contrary to T. H.’s opinion.

(d) “Thirdly, for the actions of brute beasts, though they be not free, though they have not the use of reason to restrain their appetites from that which is sensitively good by the consideration of what is rationally good, or what is honest, and though their fancies be determined by nature to some kinds of work; yet to think that every individual 409action of theirs, and each animal motion of theirs, even to the least murmur or gesture, is bound by the chain of unalterable necessity to the extrinsical causes or objects, I see no ground for it. Christ saith, one of these sparrows doth not fall to the ground without your heavenly Father, that is, without an influence of power from him, or exempted from his disposition; he doth not say, which your heavenly Father casteth not down. Lastly, for the natural actions of inanimate creatures, wherein there is not the least concurrence of any free or voluntary agents, the question is yet more doubtful. For many things are called contingent in respect of us, because we know not the cause of them, which really and in themselves are not contingent, but necessary. Also many things are contingent in respect of one single cause, either actually hindered, or in possibility to be hindered, which are necessary in respect of the joint concurrence of all collateral causes. (e) But whether there be a necessary connexion of all natural causes from the beginning, so as they must all have concurred as they have done, and in the same degree of power, and have been deficient as they have been in all events whatsoever, would require a further examination, if it were pertinent to this question of liberty; but it is not. It is sufficient to my purpose, to have showed that all elective actions are free from absolute necessity: and moreover, that the concurrence of voluntary and free agents with natural causes, both upon purpose and accidentally, hath helped them to produce many effects, which otherwise they had not produced, and hindered them from producing many effects, which 410otherwise they had produced: and that if this intervention of voluntary and free agents had been more frequent than it hath been, as without doubt it might have been, many natural events had been otherwise than they are. And therefore he might have spared his instance of casting ambs-ace and raining to-morrow. And first, for his casting ambs-ace: if it be thrown by a fair gamester with indifferent dice, it is a mixed action; the casting of the dice is free, but the casting of ambs-ace is contingent. A man may deliberate whether he will cast the dice or not; but it were folly to deliberate whether he will cast ambs-ace or not, because it is not in his power, unless he be a cheater that can cog the dice, or the dice be false dice; and then the contingency, or degree of contingency, ceaseth accordingly as the caster hath more or less cunning, or as the figure or making of the dice doth incline them to ambs-ace more than to another cast, or necessitate them to this cast and no other. Howsoever, so far as the cast is free or contingent, so far it is not necessary: and where necessity begins, there liberty and contingency do cease to be. Likewise his other instance of raining or not raining to-morrow, is not of a free elective act, nor always of a contingent act. In some countries, as they have their stati venti, their certain winds at set seasons; so they have their certain and set rains. The Ethiopian rains are supposed to be the cause of the certain inundation of Nilus. In some eastern countries they have rain only twice a year, and those constant; which the Scriptures call the former and the later rain. In such places not only the causes do act determinately and necessarily, 411but also the determination or necessity of the event is foreknown to the inhabitants. In our climate, the natural causes celestial and sublunary do not produce rain so necessarily at set times; neither can we say so certainly and infallibly, it will rain to-morrow, or it will not rain to-morrow. Nevertheless, it may so happen that the causes are so disposed and determined, even in our climate, that this proposition, it will rain to-morrow or it will not rain to-morrow, may be necessary in itself; and the prognostics, or tokens, may be such in the sky, in our own bodies, in the creatures, animate and inanimate, as weather glasses, &c., that it may become probably true to us that it will rain to-morrow, or it will not rain to-morrow. But ordinarily, it is a contingent proposition to us; whether it be contingent also in itself, that is, whether the concurrence of the causes were absolutely necessary, whether the vapours or matter of the rain may not yet be dispersed, or otherwise consumed, or driven beyond our coast, is a speculation which no way concerns this question. So we see one reason why his two instances are altogether impertinent; because they are of actions which are not free, nor elective, nor such as proceed from the liberty of man’s will.

“Secondly, our dispute is about absolute necessity; his proofs extend only to hypothetical necessity. Our question is, whether the concurrence and determination of the causes were necessary before they did concur, or were determined. He proves that the effect is necessary after the causes have concurred, and are determined. The freest actions of God or man are necessary, by such a 412necessity of supposition, and the most contingent events that are, as I have showed plainly, No. III, where his instance of ambs-ace is more fully answered. So his proof looks another way from his proposition. His proposition is, ‘that the casting of ambs-ace was necessary before it was thrown’. His proof is, that it was necessary when it was thrown. Examine all his causes over and over, and they will not afford him one grain of antecedent necessity. The first cause is in the dice: true, if they be false dice there may be something in it; but then his contingency is destroyed: if they be square dice, they have no more inclination to ambs-ace, than to cinque and quatre, or any other cast. His second cause is ‘the posture of the party’s hand’: but what necessity was there that he should put his hands into such a posture? None at all. The third cause is ‘the measure of the force applied by the caster’. Now for the credit of his cause let him but name, I will not say a convincing reason nor so much as a probable reason, but even any pretence of reason, how the caster was necessitated from without himself to apply just so much force, and neither more nor less. If he cannot, his cause is desperate, and he may hold his peace for ever. His last cause is the posture of the table. But tell us in good earnest, what necessity there was why the caster must throw into that table rather than the other, or that the dice must fall just upon that part of the table, before the cast was thrown: he that makes these to be necessary causes, I do not wonder if he make all effects necessary effects. If any one of these causes be contingent, it is sufficient to render 413the cast contingent; and now that they are all so contingent, yet he will needs have the effect to be necessary. And so it is when the cast is thrown; but not before the cast was thrown, which he undertook to prove. Who can blame him for being so angry with the Schoolmen, and their distinctions of necessity into absolute and hypothetical, seeing they touch his freehold so nearly?