Part 6

(f) “If the chain of necessity be no stronger but that it may be snapped so easily asunder, &c. by the signification of your lordship’s desire, and my modest entreaty, then we may safely conclude that human affairs,” &c.

Whether my Lord’s desire and the Bishop’s modest entreaty were enough to produce a will in me to write an answer to his treatise, without other concurrent causes, I am not sure. Obedience to his Lordship did much, and my civility to the Bishop did somewhat, and perhaps there were other imaginations of mine own that contributed their part. But this I am sure of, that altogether they were sufficient to frame my will thereto; and whatsoever is sufficient to produce any thing, produceth it as necessarily as the fire necessarily burneth the fuel that is cast into it. And though the Bishop’s modest entreaty had been no part of the cause of my yielding to it, yet certainly it would have been cause enough to some civil man, to have requited me with fairer language than he hath done throughout this reply.

NO. II.

T. H. And first I assure your Lordship, I find in it no new argument, neither from Scripture nor from reason, that I have not often heard before, which is as much as to say, that I am not surprised.

J. D. (a) “Though I be so unhappy that I can present no novelty to T. H., yet I have this comfort, that if he be not surprised, then in reason I may expect a more mature answer from him; and where he fails, I may ascribe it to the weakness of his cause, not to want of preparation. But in this cause I like Epictetus’s counsel well, that (b) the sheep should not brag how much they have eaten, or what an excellent pasture they do go in, but shew it in their lamb and wool. Opposite answers and downright arguments advantage a cause. To tell what we have heard or seen is to no purpose. When a respondent leaves many things untouched, as if they were too hot for his fingers, and declines the weight of other things, and alters the true state of the question, it is a shrewd sign either that he hath not weighed all things maturely, or else that he maintains a desperate cause.”

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON HIS REPLY NO. II.

(a) “Though I be so unhappy that I can present no novelty to T. H. yet I have this comfort, that if he be not surprised, then in reason I may expect a more mature answer from him,” &c.

Though I were not surprised, yet I do not see the reason for which he saith he may expect a more mature answer from me; or any further answer at all. For seeing I wrote this at his modest request, it is no modest expectation to look for as many answers as he shall be pleased to exact.

(b) “The sheep should not brag how much they have eaten, but shew it in their lamb and wool.”

It is no great bragging, to say I was not surprised; for whosoever chanceth to read Suarez’s Opuscula, where he writeth of free-will and of the concourse of God with man’s will, shall find the greatest part, if not all, that the Bishop hath urged in this question. But that which the Bishop hath said of the reasons and authorities which he saith in his epistle do offer themselves to serve in this cause, and many other passages of his book, I shall, I think, before I have done with him, make appear to be very bragging, and nothing else. And though he say it be Epictetus’s counsel, that sheep should shew what they eat in their lamb and wool, it is not likely that Epictetus should take a metaphor from lamb and wool; for it could not easily come into the mind of men that were not acquainted with the paying of tithes. Or if it had, he would have said lambs in the plural, as laymen use to speak. That which follows of my leaving things untouched, and altering the state of the question; I remember no such thing, unless he require that I should answer, not to his arguments only, but also to his syllables.

NO. III.

T. H. The preface is a handsome one, but it appears even in that, that he hath mistaken the question; for whereas he says thus, “if I be free to write this discourse, I have obtained the cause,” I deny that to be true. For it is not enough to his freedom of writing that he had not written it, unless he would himself; if he will obtain the cause, he must prove that, before he wrote it, it was not necessary he should write it afterwards. It may be he thinks it all one to say, “I was free to write it,” and “it was not necessary I should write it.” But I think otherwise; for he is free to do a thing, that may do it if he have the will to do it, and may forbear if he have the will to forbear. And yet if there be a necessity that he shall have the will to do it, the action is necessarily to follow; and if there be a necessity that he shall have the will to forbear, the forbearing also will be necessary. The question, therefore, is not whether a man be a free agent, that is to say, whether he can write or forbear, speak or be silent, according to his will; but whether the will to write, and the will to forbear, come upon him according to his will, or according to any thing else in his own power. I acknowledge this liberty, that I can do if I will: but to say, I can will if I will, I take to be an absurd speech. Wherefore I cannot grant him the cause upon this preface.

J. D. “Tacitus speaks of a close kind of adversaries, which evermore begin with a man’s praise. The crisis or the catastrophe of their discourse is when they come to their but; as, he is a good natured man, but he hath a naughty quality; or, he is a wise man, but he hath committed one of the greatest follies; so here, ‘the preface is a handsome one, but it appears even in this that he hath mistaken the question.’ This is to give an inch, that one may take away an ell without suspicion; to praise the handsomeness of the porch, that he may gain credit to the vilifying of the house. Whether of us hath mistaken the question, I refer to the judicious reader. (a) Thus much I will maintain, that that is no true necessity, which he calls necessity; nor that liberty, which he calls liberty; nor that the question, which he makes the question.

“First for liberty, that which he calls liberty, is no true liberty.

“For the clearing whereof, it behoveth us to know the difference between these three, necessity, spontaneity, and liberty.

“Necessity and spontaneity may sometimes meet together; so may spontaneity and liberty; but real necessity and true liberty can never meet together. Some things are necessary and not voluntary or spontaneous; some things are both necessary and voluntary; some things are voluntary and not free; some things are both voluntary and free; but those things which are truly necessary can never be free, and those things which are truly free can never be necessary. Necessity consists in an antecedent determination to one; spontaneity consists in a conformity of the appetite, either intellectual or sensitive, to the object; true liberty consists in the elective power of the rational will; that which is determined without my concurrence, may nevertheless agree well enough with my fancy or desires, and obtain my subsequent consent; but that which is determined without my concurrence or consent, cannot be the object of mine election. I may like that which is inevitably imposed upon me by another, but if it be inevitably imposed upon me by extrinsical causes, it is both folly for me to deliberate, and impossible for me to choose, whether I shall undergo it or not. Reason is the root, the fountain, the original of true liberty, which judgeth and representeth to the will, whether this or that be convenient, whether this or that be more convenient. Judge then what a pretty kind of liberty it is which is maintained by T. H., such a liberty as is in little children before they have the use of reason, before they can consult or deliberate of any thing. Is not this a childish liberty; and such a liberty as is in brute beasts, as bees and spiders, which do not learn their faculties as we do our trades, by experience and consideration? This is a brutish liberty, such a liberty as a bird hath to fly when her wings are clipped, or to use his own comparison, such a liberty as a lame man, who hath lost the use of his limbs, hath to walk. Is not this a ridiculous liberty? Lastly, (which is worse than all these), such a liberty as a river hath to descend down the channel. What! will he ascribe liberty to inanimate creatures also, which have neither reason, nor spontaneity, nor so much as sensitive appetite? Such is T. H.’s liberty.

(b) “His necessity is just such another, a necessity upon supposition, arising from the concourse of all the causes, including the last dictate of the understanding in reasonable creatures. The adequate cause and the effect are together in time, and when all the concurrent causes are determined, the effect is determined also, and is become so necessary that it is actually in being; but there is a great difference between determining, and being determined. If all the collateral causes concurring to the production of an effect, were antecedently determined what they must of necessity produce, and when they must produce it, then there is no doubt but the effect is necessary. (c) But if these causes did operate freely or contingently; if they might have suspended or denied their concurrence, or have concurred after another manner, then the effect was not truly and antecedently necessary, but either free or contingent. This will be yet clearer by considering his own instance of casting ambs-ace, though it partake more of contingency than of freedom. Supposing the positure of the parties’ hand who did throw the dice, supposing the figure of the table and of the dice themselves, supposing the measure of force applied, and supposing all other things which did concur to the production of that cast, to be the very same they were, there is no doubt but in this case the cast is necessary. But still this is but a necessity of supposition; for if all these concurrent causes, or some of them, were contingent or free, then the cast was not absolutely necessary. To begin with the caster, he might have denied his concurrence, and not have cast at all; he might have suspended his concurrence, and not have cast so soon; he might have doubled or diminished his force in casting, if it had pleased him; he might have thrown the dice into the other table. In all these cases what becomes of his ambs-ace? The like uncertainties offer themselves for the maker of the tables, and for the maker of the dice, and for the keeper of the tables, and for the kind of wood, and I know not how many other circumstances. In such a mass of contingencies, it is impossible that the effect should be antecedently necessary. T. H. appeals to every man’s experience. I am contented. Let every one reflect upon himself, and he shall find no convincing, much less constraining reason, to necessitate him to any one of these particular acts more than another, but only his own will or arbitrary determination. So T. H.’s necessity is no absolute, no antecedent, extrinsical necessity, but merely a necessity upon supposition.

(d) “Thirdly, that which T. H. makes the question, is not the question. ‘The question is not,’ saith he, ‘whether a man may write if he will, and forbear if he will, but whether the will to write or the will to forbear come upon him according to his will, or according to any thing else in his own power.’ Here is a distinction without a difference. If his will do not come upon him according to his will, then he is not a free, nor yet so much as a voluntary agent, which is T. H.’s liberty. Certainly all the freedom of the agent is from the freedom of the will. If the will have no power over itself, the agent is no more free than a staff in a man’s hand. Secondly, he makes but an empty show of a power in the will, either to write or not to write. (e) If it be precisely and inevitably determined in all occurrences whatsoever, what a man shall will, and what he shall not will, what he shall write, and what he shall not write, to what purpose is this power? God and nature never made any thing in vain; but vain and frustraneous is that power which never was and never shall be deduced into act. Either the agent is determined before he acteth, what he shall will, and what he shall not will, what he shall act, and what he shall not act, and then he is no more free to act than he is to will; or else he is not determined, and then there is no necessity. No effect can exceed the virtue of its cause; if the action be free to write or to forbear, the power or faculty to will or nill, must of necessity be more free. Quod efficit tale, illud magis est tale. If the will be determined, the writing or not writing is likewise determined, and then he should not say, ‘he may write or he may forbear,’ but he must write or he must forbear. Thirdly, this answer contradicts the sense of all the world, that the will of man is determined without his will, or without any thing in his power. Why do we ask men whether they will do such a thing or not? Why do we represent reasons to them? Why do we pray them? Why do we entreat them? Why do we blame them, if their will come not upon them according to their will. Wilt thou be made clean? said our Saviour to the paralytic person (John v. 6); to what purpose, if his will was extrinsically determined? Christ complains, (Matth. xi. 17): We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced. How could they help it, if their wills were determined without their wills to forbear? And (Matth. xxiii. 37): I would have gathered your children together as the hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, but ye would not. How easily might they answer, according to T. H.’s doctrine, ‘Alas! blame not us; our wills are not in our own power or disposition; if they were, we would thankfully embrace so great a favour.’ Most truly said St. Austin, ‘Our will should not be a will at all, if it were not in our power.’ (f) This is the belief of all mankind, which we have not learned from our tutors, but is imprinted in our hearts by nature; we need not turn over any obscure books to find out this truth. The poets chaunt it in the theatres, the shepherds in the mountains, the pastors teach it in their churches, the doctors in the universities, the common people in the markets, and all mankind in the whole world do assent unto it, except an handful of men who have poisoned their intellectuals with paradoxical principles. Fourthly, this necessity which T. H. hath devised, which is grounded upon the necessitation of a man’s will without his will, is the worst of all others, and is so far from lessening those difficulties and absurdities which flow from the fatal destiny of the Stoics, that it increaseth them, and rendereth them unanswerable. (g) No man blameth fire for burning whole cities; no man taxeth poison for destroying men; but those persons who apply them to such wicked ends. If the will of man be not in his own disposition, he is no more a free agent than the fire or the poison. Three things are required to make an act or omission culpable. First, that it be in our power to perform it or forbear it; secondly, that we be obliged to perform it, or forbear it, respectively; thirdly, that we omit that which we ought to have done, or do that which we ought to have omitted. (h) No man sins in doing those things which he could not shun, or forbearing those things which never were in his power. T. H. may say, that besides the power, men have also an appetite to evil objects, which renders them culpable. It is true; but if this appetite be determined by another, not by themselves, or if they have not the use of reason to curb or restrain their appetites, they sin no more than a stone descending downward, according to its natural appetite, or the brute beasts who commit voluntary errors in following their sensitive appetites, yet sin not.

(i) The question then is not whether a man be necessitated to will or nill, yet free to act or forbear. But saving the ambiguous acception of the word free, the question is plainly this, whether all agents, and all events natural, civil, moral, (for we speak not now of the conversion of a sinner, that concerns not this question), be predetermined extrinsically and inevitably without their own concurrence in the determination; so as all actions and events which either are or shall be, cannot but be, nor can be otherwise, after any other manner, or in any other place, time, number, measure, order, nor to any other end, than they are. And all this in respect of the supreme cause, or a concourse of extrinsical causes determining them to one.

(k) “So my preface remains yet unanswered. Either I was extrinsically and inevitably predetermined to write this discourse, without any concurrence of mine in the determination, and without any power in me to change or oppose it, or I was not so predetermined. If I was, then I ought not to be blamed, for no man is justly blamed for doing that which never was in his power to shun. If I was not so predetermined, then mine actions and my will to act, are neither compelled nor necessitated by any extrinsical causes, but I elect and choose, either to write or to forbear, according to mine own will and by mine own power. And when I have resolved and elected, it is but a necessity of supposition, which may and doth consist with true liberty, not a real antecedent necessity. The two horns of this dilemma are so straight, that no mean can be given, nor room to pass between them. And the two consequences are so evident, that instead of answering he is forced to decline them.

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON HIS REPLY NO. III.

(a) “Thus much I will maintain, that this is no true necessity, which he calleth necessity; nor that liberty which he calleth liberty; nor that the question, which he makes the question,” &c. “For the clearing whereof, it behoveth us to know the difference between these three, necessity, spontaneity, and liberty.”

I did expect, that for the knowing of the difference between necessity, spontaneity, and liberty, he would have set down their definitions. For without these, their difference cannot possibly appear. For how can a man know how things differ, unless he first know what they are? which he offers not to shew. He tells us that necessity and spontaneity may meet together, and spontaneity and liberty; but necessity and liberty never; and many other things impertinent to the purpose. For which, because of the length, I refer the reader to the place. I note only this, that spontaneity is a word not used in common English; and they that understand Latin, know it means no more than appetite, or will, and is not found but in living creatures. And seeing, he saith, that necessity and spontaneity may stand together, I may say also, that necessity and will may stand together, and then is not the will free, as he would have it, from necessitation. There are many other things in that which followeth, which I had rather the reader would consider in his own words, to which I refer him, than that I should give him greater trouble in reciting them again. For I do not fear it will be thought too hot for my fingers, to shew the vanity of such words as these, intellectual appetite, conformity of the appetite to the object, rational will, elective power of the rational will; nor understand I how reason can be the root of true liberty, if the Bishop, as he saith in the beginning, had the liberty to write this discourse. I understand how objects, and the conveniences and the inconveniences of them may be represented to a man, by the help of his senses; but how reason representeth anything to the will, I understand no more than the Bishop understands how there may be liberty in children, in beasts, and inanimate creatures. For he seemeth to wonder how children may be left at liberty; how beasts in prison may be set at liberty; and how a river may have a free course; and saith, “What! will he ascribe liberty to inanimate creatures, also?” And thus he thinks he hath made it clear how necessity, spontaneity, and liberty differ from one another. If the reader find it so, I am contented.

(b) “His necessity is just such another; a necessity upon supposition, arising from the concourse of all the causes, including the last dictate of the understanding in reasonable creatures,” &c.

The Bishop might easily have seen, that the necessity I hold, is the same necessity that he denies; namely, a necessity of things future, that is, an antecedent necessity derived from the very beginning of time; and that I put necessity for an impossibility of not being, and that impossibility as well as possibility are never truly said but of the future. I know as well as he that the cause, when it is adequate, as he calleth it, or entire, as I call it, is together in time with the effect. But for all that, the necessity may be and is before the effect, as much as any necessity can be. And though he call it a necessity of supposition, it is no more so than all other necessity is. The fire burneth necessarily; but not without supposition that there is fuel put to it. And it burneth the fuel, when it is put to it, necessarily; but it is by supposition, that the ordinary course of nature is not hindered; for the fire burnt not the three children in the furnace.

(c) “But if these causes did operate freely or contingently, if they might have suspended or denied their concurrence, or have concurred after another manner, then the effect was not truly and antecedently necessary, but either free or contingent.”

It seems by this he understands not what these words, free and contingent, mean. A little before, he wondered I should attribute liberty to inanimate creatures, and now he puts causes amongst those things that operate freely. By these causes it seems he understandeth only men, whereas I shewed before that liberty is usually ascribed to whatsoever agent is not hindered. And when a man doth any thing freely, there be many other agents immediate, that concur to the effect he intendeth, which work not freely, but necessarily; as when the man moveth the sword freely, the sword woundeth necessarily, nor can suspend or deny its concurrence; and consequently if the man move not himself, the man cannot deny his concurrence. To which he cannot reply, unless he say a man originally can move himself; for which he will be able to find no authority of any that have but tasted of the knowledge of motion. Then for contingent, he understandeth not what it meaneth. For it is all one to say it is contingent, and simply to say it is; saving that when they say simply it is, they consider not how or by what means; but in saying it is contingent, they tell us they know not whether necessarily or not. But the Bishop thinking contingent to be that which is not necessary, instead of arguing against our knowledge of the necessity of things to come, argueth against the necessity itself. Again, he supposeth that free and contingent causes might have suspended or denied their concurrence. From which it followeth, that free causes, and contingent causes, are not causes of themselves, but concurrent with other causes, and therefore can produce nothing but as they are guided by those causes with which they concur. For it is strange he should say, they might have concurred after another manner; for I conceive not how, when this runneth one way, and that another, that they can be said to concur, that is, run together. And this his concurrence of causes contingent, maketh, he saith, the cast of ambs-ace not to have been absolutely necessary. Which cannot be conceived, unless it had hindered it; and then it had made some other cast necessary, perhaps deux-ace, which serveth me as well. For that which he saith of suspending his concurrence, of casting sooner or later, of altering the caster’s force, and the like accidents, serve not to take away the necessity of ambs-ace, otherwise than by making a necessity of deux-ace, or other cast that shall be thrown.

(d) “Thirdly, that which T. H. makes the question, is not the question,” &c.