(_a_) “There is nothing said with more show of reason in this cause by
the patrons of necessity than this, ‘that the will doth perpetually and
infallibly follow the last dictate of the understanding, or the last
judgment of right reason,’ &c. Yet the common and approved opinion is
contrary, and justly; for, first, this very act of the understanding is
an effect of the will, &c.”
I note here, first, that the Bishop is mistaken in saying that I or any
other patron of necessity, are of opinion that the will follows always
the last judgment of right reason. For it followeth as well the judgment
of an erroneous as of a true reasoning; and the truth in general is that
it followeth the last opinion of the goodness or evilness of the object,
be the opinion true or false.
Secondly, I note, that in making the understanding to be an effect of
the will, he thinketh a man may have a will to that which he not so much
as thinks on. And in saying, that “it is the will which, affecting some
particular good, doth engage and command the understanding to consult,”
&c, that he not only thinketh the will affecteth a particular good,
before the man understands it to be good; but also he thinketh that
these words “doth command the understanding,” and these, “for it belongs
to the will as to the general of an army, to move the other powers of
the soul to their acts,” and a great many more that follow, are sense,
which they are not, but mere confusion and emptiness: as, for example,
“the understanding doth determine the will, not naturally, but morally,”
and “the will is moved by the understanding,” is unintelligible. “Moved
not as by an efficient,” is nonsense. And where he saith, that “it is
ridiculous to say the object of the sight is the cause of seeing,” he
showeth so clearly that he understandeth nothing at all of natural
philosophy, that I am sorry I had the ill fortune to be engaged with him
in a dispute of this kind. There is nothing that the simplest countryman
could say so absurdly concerning the understanding, as this of the
Bishop, “the judgment of the understanding is not always _practice
practicum_.” A countryman will acknowledge there is judgment in men, but
will as soon say the judgment of the judgment, as the judgment of the
understanding. And if _practice practicum_ had been sense, he might have
made a shift to put it into English. Much more followeth of this stuff.
(_b_) “Lastly, whereas he saith, ‘that the nature of election doth
consist in following our hopes and fears,’ I cannot but observe that
there is not one word of art in this whole treatise which he useth in
the right sense. I hope it doth not proceed out of an affectation of
singularity, nor out of a contempt of former writers,” &c.
He might have said, there is not a word of jargon nor nonsense; and that
it proceedeth from an affectation of truth, and contempt of metaphysical
writers, and a desire to reduce into frame the learning which they have
confounded and disordered.