Part 24

(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 will 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 some 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.

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 say 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 not 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’: which 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 endeavouring 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 ascend, 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.

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, which 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 forward 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 of 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 hope 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 therefore 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.

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 pumice, 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 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; 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 election 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 of 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.

(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 of 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.

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.

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 horse 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.