_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.
[Sidenote: The Bishop’s reply.]
_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.