[Sidenote: The Bishop’s reply.]
_J. D._ “The first argument is _Herculeum_ or _baculinum_, drawn from
that pleasant passage between Zeno and his man. The servant had
committed some petty larceny, and the master was cudgelling him well for
it. The servant thinks to creep under his master’s blind side, and
pleads for himself that ‘the necessity of destiny did compel him to
steal.’ The master answers, ‘the same necessity of destiny compels me to
beat thee.’ He that denies liberty, is fitter to be refuted with rods
than with arguments, until he confess that it is free for him that beats
him, either to continue striking, or to give over, that is, to have true
liberty.”
_T. H._ Of the arguments from reason, the first is that which he saith
is drawn from Zeno’s beating of his man, which is therefore called
_argumentum baculinum_, that is to say, a wooden argument. The story is
this. Zeno held that all actions were necessary. His man therefore,
being for some fault beaten, excused himself upon the necessity of it.
To avoid this excuse, his master pleaded likewise the necessity of
beating him. So that not he that maintained, but he that derided the
necessity of things, was beaten; contrary to that he would infer; and
the argument was rather withdrawn, than drawn, from the story.
_J. D._ “Whether the argument be withdrawn from the story, or the answer
withdrawn from the argument, let the reader judge. T. H. mistakes the
scope of the reason, the strength whereof doth not lie, neither in the
authority of Zeno, a rigid Stoic, which is not worth a button in this
cause; nor in the servant’s being an adversary to stoical necessity. For
it appears not out of the story, that the servant did deride necessity,
but rather that he pleaded it in good earnest for his own justification.
Now in the success of the fray, we were told even now, that no power
doth justify an action, but only that which is irresistible. Such was
not Zeno’s. And therefore it advantageth neither of their causes,
neither that of Zeno, nor this of T. H. What if the servant had taken
the staff out of his master’s hand, and beaten him soundly, would not
the same argument have served the man as well as it did the master, that
the necessity of destiny did compel him to strike again? Had not Zeno
smarted justly for his paradox? And might not the spectators well have
taken up the judge’s apothegm, concerning the dispute between Corax and
his scholar, ‘an ill egg of an ill bird’? But the strength of this
argument lies _partly_ in the ignorance of Zeno, that great champion of
necessity, and the beggarliness of his cause, which admitted no defence
but with a cudgel. No man, saith the servant, ought to be beaten for
doing that which he is compelled inevitably to do: but I am compelled
inevitably to steal. The major is so evident, that it cannot be denied.
If a strong man shall take a weak man’s hand per force, and do violence
with it to a third person, he whose hand is forced, is innocent, and he
only culpable who compelled him. The minor was Zeno’s own doctrine; what
answer made the great patron of destiny to his servant? very learnedly
he denied the conclusion, and cudgelled his servant; telling him in
effect, that though there was no reason why he should be beaten, yet
there was a necessity why he must be beaten. And _partly_ in the evident
absurdity of such an opinion, which deserves not to be confuted with
reasons, but with rods. There are four things, said the philosopher,
which ought not to be called into question. First, such things whereof
it is wickedness to doubt; as whether the soul be immortal, whether
there be a God, such an one should not be confuted with reasons, but
cast into the sea with a mill-stone about his neck, as unworthy to
breathe the air, or to behold the light. Secondly, such things as are
above the capacity of reason; as among Christians, the mystery of the
Holy Trinity. Thirdly, such principles as are evidently true; as that
two and two are four, in arithmetic; that the whole is greater than the
part, in logic. Fourthly, such things as are obvious to the senses; as
whether the snow be white. He who denied the heat of the fire, was
justly sentenced to be scorched with fire; and he that denied motion, to
be beaten until he recanted. So he who denies all liberty from
necessitation, should be scourged until he become an humble suppliant to
him that whips him, and confess that he hath power, either to strike, or
to hold his hand.”
_T. H._ In this Number XIII. which is about Zeno and his man, there is
contained nothing necessary to the instruction of the reader. Therefore
I pass it over.