(_a_) “The first thing that I offer is, how often he mistakes my meaning
in this one section. First, I make voluntary and spontaneous actions to
be one and the same. He saith, I distinguish them,” &c.
It is very possible I may have mistaken him; for neither he nor I
understand him. If they be one, why did he without need bring in this
strange word, spontaneous? Or rather, why did the Schoolmen bring it in,
if not merely to shift off the difficulty of maintaining their tenet of
free-will?
(_b_) “Secondly, he saith I distinguish between free acts and voluntary
acts; but he saith, I confound them and make them the same.”
In his reply No. II, he saith, that for the clearing of the question, we
are to know the difference between these three, necessity, spontaneity,
and liberty; and because I thought he knew that it could not be cleared
without understanding what is will, I had reason to think that
spontaneity was his new word for will. And presently after, “some things
are necessary, and not voluntary or spontaneous; some things are both
necessary and voluntary.” These words, voluntary and spontaneous, so put
together, would make any man believe spontaneous were put as explicative
of voluntary; for it is no wonder in the eloquence of the Schoolmen.
Therefore, presently after, these words, “spontaneity consists in a
conformity of the appetite, either intellectual or sensitive,” signify
that spontaneity is a conformity or likeness of the appetite to the
object; which to me soundeth as if he had said, that the appetite is
like the object; which is as proper as if he had said, the hunger is
like the meat. If this be the bishop’s meaning, as it is the meaning of
the words, he is a very fine philosopher. But hereafter I will venture
no more to say his meaning is this or that, especially where he useth
terms of art.
(_c_) “Thirdly, he saith, I ascribe spontaneity only to fools, children,
madmen, and beasts. But I acknowledge spontaneity hath place in rational
men,” &c.
I resolve to have no more to do with spontaneity. But I desire the
reader to take notice, that the common people, on whose arbitration
dependeth the signification of words in common use, among the Latins and
Greeks did call all actions and motions whereof they did perceive no
cause, spontaneous and αυτοματα: I say, not those actions which had no
causes; for all actions have their causes; but those actions whose
causes they did not perceive. So that spontaneous, as a general name,
comprehended many actions and motions of inanimate creatures; as the
falling of heavy things downwards, which they thought spontaneous, and
that if they were not hindered, they would descend of their _own
accord_. It comprehended also all animal motion, as beginning from the
will or appetite; because the causes of the will and appetite being not
perceived, they supposed, as the Bishop doth, that they were the causes
of themselves. So that which in general is called spontaneous, being
applied to men and beasts in special, is called voluntary. Yet the will
and appetite, though the very same thing, use to be distinguished in
certain occasions. For in the public conversation of men, where they are
to judge of one another’s will, and of the regularity and irregularity
of one another’s actions, not every appetite, but the last is esteemed
in the public judgment for the will: nor every action proceeding from
appetite, but that only to which there had preceded or ought to have
preceded some deliberation. And this I say is so, when one man is to
judge of another’s will. For every man in himself knoweth that what he
desireth or hath an appetite to, the same he hath a will to, though his
will may be changed before he hath obtained his desire. The Bishop,
understanding nothing of this, might, if it had pleased him, have called
it jargon. But he had rather pick out of it some contradictions of
myself. And therefore saith:
(_d_) “Yet I have no reason to be offended at it, (meaning such
contradictions), for he dealeth no otherwise with me than he doth with
himself.”
It is a contradiction, he saith, that having said that “voluntary
presupposeth deliberation,” I say in another place, “that whatsoever
followeth the last appetite, is voluntary, and where there is but one
appetite, that is the last.” Not observing that _voluntary_ presupposeth
_deliberation_, when the judgment, whether the action be voluntary or
not, is not in the actor, but in the judge; who regardeth not the will
of the actor, where there is nothing to be accused in the action of
deliberate malice; yet knoweth that though there be but one appetite,
the same is truly will for the time, and the action, if it follow, a
voluntary action.
This also he saith is a contradiction, that having said, “no action of a
man can be said to be without deliberation, though never so sudden,” I
say afterward that “by spontaneity is meant inconsiderate proceeding.”
Again he observes not, that the action of a man that is not a child, in
public judgment how rash, inconsiderate, and sudden soever it be, it is
to be taken for deliberation; because it is supposed, he ought to have
considered and compared his intended action with the law; when,
nevertheless, that sudden and indeliberate action was truly voluntary.
Another contradiction which he finds is this, that having undertaken to
prove “that children before they have the use of reason do deliberate
and elect,” I say by and by after a “child may be so young as to do what
he doth without all deliberation.” I yet see no contradiction here; for
a child may be so young, as that the appetite thereof is its first
appetite, but afterward and often before it come to have the use of
reason, may elect one thing and refuse another, and consider the
consequences of what it is about to do. And why not as well as beasts,
which never have the use of reason; for they deliberate, as men do? For
though men and beasts do differ in many things very much, yet they
differ not in the nature of their deliberation. A man can reckon by
words of general signification, make propositions, and syllogisms, and
compute in numbers, magnitudes, proportions, and other things
computable; which being done by the advantage of language, and words of
general significations, a beast that hath not language cannot do, nor a
man that hath language, if he misplace the words, that are his counters.
From hence to the end of this number, he discourseth again of
spontaneity, and how it is in children, madmen, and beasts; which, as I
before resolved, I will not meddle with; let the reader think and judge
of it as he pleaseth.