"This," quoth she, "is an ancient complaint of providence, vehemently
pursued by Marcus Tullius in his _Distribution of Divination_,[174]
and a thing which thou thyself hast made great and long search after.
But hitherto none of you have used sufficient diligence and vigour in
the explication thereof. The cause of which obscurity is for that the
motion of human discourse cannot attain to the simplicity of the divine
knowledge, which if by any means we could conceive, there would not
remain any doubt at all; which I will endeavour to make manifest and
plain when I have first explicated that which moveth thee. For I demand
why thou thinkest their solution unsufficient, who think that free-will
is not hindered by foreknowledge, because they suppose that
foreknowledge is not the cause of any necessity in things to come. For
fetchest thou any proof for the necessity of future things from any
other principle, but only from this, that those things which are
foreknown cannot choose but happen? Wherefore if foreknowledge imposeth
no necessity upon future events, which thou didst grant not long before,
why should voluntary actions be tied to any certain success? For
example's sake, that thou mayest see what will follow, let us suppose
that there were no providence or foresight at all. Would those things
which proceed from free-will be compelled to any necessity by this
means?" "No." "Again, let us grant it to be, but that it imposeth no
necessity upon anything; no doubt the same freedom of will will remain
whole and absolute.
But thou wilt say, even though foreknowledge be not a necessity for
things to happen, yet it is a sign that they shall necessarily come to
pass. Wherefore now, even if there had been no foreknowledge, the events
of future things would have been necessary. For all signs only show what
is, but cause not that which they design. And consequently it must first
be proved that all things fall out by necessity, that it may appear that
foreknowledge is a sign of this necessity. For otherwise, if there be no
necessity, neither can foreknowledge be the sign of that which is not.
Besides it is manifest that every firm proof must be drawn from
intrinsical and necessary causes and not from signs and other farfetched
arguments. But how is it possible those things should not happen which
are foreseen to be to come? As though we did believe that those things
will not be which providence hath foreknown and do not rather judge that
although they happen, yet by their own nature they had no necessity of
being, which thou mayest easily gather hence. For we see many things
with our eyes while they are in doing, as those things which the
coachmen do while they drive and turn their coaches and in like manner
other things. Now doth necessity compel any of these things to be done
in this sort?" "No. For in vain should art labour if all things were
moved by compulsion." "Wherefore, as these things are without necessity
when they are in doing, so likewise they are to come without necessity
before they be done. And consequently there are some things to come
whose event is free from all necessity. For I suppose no man will say
that those things which are done now were not to come before they were
done. Wherefore these things even being foreseen come freely to effect.
For as the knowledge of things present causeth no necessity in things
which are in doing, so neither the foreknowledge in things to come. But
thou wilt say: This is the question, whether there can be any
foreknowledge of those things whose events are not necessary. For these
things seem opposite, and thou thinkest that, if future things be
foreseen, there followeth necessity, if there be no necessity, that they
that are not foreknown, and that nothing can be perfectly known unless
it be certain. But if uncertain events be foreseen as certain, it is
manifest that this is the obscurity of opinion and not the truth of
knowledge. For thou thinkest it to be far from the integrity of
knowledge to judge otherwise than the thing is. The cause of which error
is because thou thinkest that all that is known is known only by the
force and nature of the things themselves, which is altogether
otherwise. For all that is known is not comprehended according to the
force which it hath in itself, but rather according to the faculty of
them which know it. For to explicate it with a brief example: the sight
and the feeling do diversely discern the same roundness of a die. The
sight standing aloof beholdeth it altogether by his beams; but the
feeling united and joined to the orb, being moved about the compass of
it, comprehendeth the roundness by parts. Likewise sense, imagination,
reason and understanding do diversely behold a man. For sense looketh
upon his form as it is placed in matter or subject, the imagination
discerneth it alone without matter, reason passeth beyond this also and
considereth universally the species or kind which is in particulars. The
eye of the understanding is higher yet. For surpassing the compass of
the whole world it beholdeth with the clear eye of the mind that simple
form in itself.
In which that is chiefly to be considered, that the superior force of
comprehending embraceth the inferior; but the inferior can by no means
attain to the superior; for the sense hath no force out of matter,
neither doth the imagination conceive universal species, nor is reason
capable of the simple form, but the understanding, as it were looking
downward, having conceived that form, discerneth of all things which are
under it, but in that sort in which it apprehendeth that form which can
be known by none of the other. For it knoweth the universality of
reason, and the figure of imagination, and the materiality of sense,
neither using reason, nor imagination, nor senses, but as it were
formally beholding all things with that one twinkling of the mind.
Likewise reason, when it considereth any universality, comprehendeth
both imagination and sensible things without the use of either
imagination or senses. For she defineth the universality of her conceit
thus: Man is a reasonable, two-footed, living creature, which being an
universal knowledge, no man is ignorant that it is an imaginable and
sensible thing, which she considereth by a reasonable conceiving and not
by imagination or sense. Imagination also, although it began by the
senses of seeing and forming figures, yet when sense is absent it
beholdeth sensible things, not after a sensible, but after an imaginary
manner of knowledge. Seest thou now how all these in knowing do rather
use their own force and faculty than the force of those things which are
known? Nor undeservedly; for since all judgment is the act of him who
judgeth, it is necessary that every one should perfect his operation by
his own power and not by the force of any other.
[174] _De diuin_, ii.