[Sidenote: The Bishop’s reply.]
_J. D._ “Secondly, this very persuasion that there is no true liberty,
is able to overthrow all societies and commonwealths in the world. The
laws are unjust, which prohibit that which a man cannot possibly shun.
All consultations are vain, if every thing be either necessary or
impossible. Who ever deliberated whether the sun should rise to-morrow,
or whether he should sail over mountains? It is to no more purpose to
admonish men of understanding than fools, children, or madmen, if all
things be necessary. Praises and dispraises, rewards and punishments,
are as vain as they are undeserved, if there be no liberty. All
counsels, arts, arms, books, instruments, are superfluous and foolish,
if there be no liberty. In vain we labour, in vain we study, in vain we
take physic, in vain we have tutors to instruct us, if all things come
to pass alike, whether we sleep or wake, whether we be idle or
industrious, by unalterable necessity. But it is said, that though
future events be certain, yet they are unknown to us: and therefore we
prohibit, deliberate, admonish, praise, dispraise, reward, punish,
study, labour, and use means. Alas! how should our not knowing of the
event, be a sufficient motive to us to use the means, so long as we
believe the event is already certainly determined, and can no more be
changed by all our endeavours, than we can stay the course of heaven
with our finger, or add a cubit to our stature? Suppose it be unknown,
yet it is certain. We cannot hope to alter the course of things by our
labours; let the necessary causes do their work, we have no remedy but
patience, and shrug up the shoulders. Either allow liberty, or destroy
all societies.”
_T. H._ The second argument is taken from certain inconveniences which
he thinks would follow such an opinion. It is true that ill use may be
made of it, and therefore your Lordship and J. D. ought, at my request,
to keep private that I say here of it. But the inconveniences are indeed
none; and what use soever be made of truth, yet truth is truth; and now
the question is, not what is fit to be preached, but what is true. The
first inconvenience he says is this, that laws which prohibit any action
are then unjust. The second, that all consultations are vain. The third,
that admonitions to men of understanding, are of no more use than to
fools, children, and madmen. The fourth, that praise, dispraise, reward,
and punishment, are in vain. The fifth, that counsels, arts, arms,
books, instruments, study, tutors, medicines, are in vain. To which
argument, expecting I should answer by saying, that the ignorance of the
event were enough to make us use means, he adds (as it were a reply to
my answer foreseen) these words: “Alas, how should our not knowing of
the event be a sufficient motive to make us use the means?” Wherein he
saith right; but my answer is not that which he expecteth. I answer,
First, that the necessity of an action doth not make the law which
prohibits it unjust. To let pass, that not the necessity, but the will
to break the law, maketh the action unjust, because the law regardeth
the will, and no other precedent causes of action; and to let pass, that
no law can be possibly unjust, in as much as every man makes, by his
consent, the law he is bound to keep, and which, consequently, must be
just, unless a man can be unjust to himself: I say, what necessary cause
soever precedes an action, yet, if the action be forbidden, he that doth
it willingly, may justly be punished. For instance, suppose the law on
pain of death prohibit stealing, and there be a man who by the strength
of temptation is necessitated to steal, and is thereupon put to death:
does not this punishment deter others from theft? Is it not a cause that
others steal not? Doth it not frame and make their will to justice? To
make the law is therefore to make a cause of justice, and to necessitate
justice; and consequently it is no injustice to make such a law.
The institution of the law is not to grieve the delinquent for that
which is passed and not to be undone; but to make him and others just,
that else would not be so: and respecteth not the evil act past, but the
good to come. Insomuch as without this good intention of future, no past
act of a delinquent could justify his killing in the sight of God. But,
you will say, how is it just to kill one man to amend another, if what
was done were necessary? To this I answer, that men are justly killed,
not for that their actions are not necessitated, but that they are
spared and preserved, because they are not noxious; for where there is
no law, there no killing, nor any thing else can be unjust. And by the
right of nature we destroy, without being unjust, all that is noxious,
both beasts and men. And for beasts, we kill them justly, when we do it
in order to our own preservation. And yet J. D. confesseth, that their
actions, as being only spontaneous and not free, are all necessitated
and determined to that one thing which they shall do. For men, when we
make societies or commonwealths, we lay down our right to kill,
excepting in certain cases, as murder, theft, or other offensive
actions. So that the right which the commonwealth hath, to put a man to
death for crimes, is not created by the law, but remains from the first
right of nature, which every man hath to preserve himself; for the law
doth not take that right away, in case of criminals, who were by law
excepted. Men are not therefore put to death or punished, for that their
theft proceedeth from election; but because it was noxious and contrary
to men’s preservation, and the punishment conducing to the preservation
of the rest: inasmuch as to punish those that do voluntary hurt, and
none else, frameth and maketh men’s wills, such as men would have them.
And thus it is plain, that from the necessity of a voluntary action
cannot be inferred the injustice of the law that forbiddeth it, or of
the magistrate that punisheth it.
Secondly, I deny that it makes consultations to be in vain; it is the
consultation that causeth a man, and necessitateth him, to choose to do
one thing rather than another. So that unless a man say that cause to be
in vain, which necessitateth the effect, he cannot infer the
superfluousness of consultation out of the necessity of the election
proceeding from it. But it seems he reasons thus: If I must needs do
this rather than that, then I shall do this rather than that, though I
consult not at all; which is a false proposition, a false consequence,
and no better than this: If I shall live till to-morrow, I shall live
till to-morrow, though I run myself through with a sword to-day. If
there be a necessity that an action shall be done, or that any effect
shall be brought to pass, it does not therefore follow that there is
nothing necessarily required as a means to bring it to pass. And
therefore, when it is determined that one thing shall be chosen before
another, it is determined also for what cause it shall be chosen; which
cause, for the most part, is deliberation or consultation. And therefore
consultation is not in vain; and indeed the less in vain, by how much
the election is more necessitated.
The same answer is to be given to the third supposed inconvenience;
namely, that admonitions are in vain; for admonitions are parts of
consultations; the admonitor being a counsellor, for the time, to him
that is admonished.
The fourth pretended inconvenience is, that praise and dispraise, reward
and punishment, will be in vain. To which I answer, that for praise and
dispraise, they depend not at all on the necessity of the action praised
or dispraised. For, what is it else to praise, but to say a thing is
good? Good, I say, for me, or for somebody else, or for the state and
commonwealth. And what is it to say an action is good, but to say, it is
as I would wish, or as another would have it, or according to the will
of the state, that is to say, according to law? Does J. D. think, that
no action can please me or him, or the commonwealth, that should proceed
from necessity?
Things may be therefore necessary and yet praiseworthy, as also
necessary and yet dispraised, and neither of both in vain; because
praise and dispraise, and likewise reward and punishment, do by example
make and conform the will to good or evil. It was a very great praise,
in my opinion, that Velleius Paterculus gives Cato, where he says, he
was good by nature, _et quia aliter esse non potuit_.
To his fifth and sixth inconvenience, that counsels, arts, arms, books,
instruments, study, medicines, and the like, would be superfluous, the
same answer serves that to the former; that is to say, that this
consequence, if the effect shall necessarily come to pass, then it shall
come to pass without its cause, is a false one. And those things named,
counsels, arts, arms, &c., are the causes of those effects.
_J. D._ “Nothing is more familiar with T. H. than to decline an
argument. But I will put it into form for him. (_a_) The first
inconvenience is thus pressed. Those laws are unjust and tyrannical,
which do prescribe things absolutely impossible in themselves to be
done, and punish men for not doing of them. But supposing T. H’s opinion
of the necessity of all things to be true, all laws do prescribe
absolute impossibilities to be done, and punish men for not doing of
them. The former proposition is so clear that it cannot be denied. Just
laws are the ordinances of right reason; but those laws which prescribe
absolute impossibilities, are not the ordinances of right reason. Just
laws are instituted for the public good; but those laws which prescribe
absolute impossibilities, are not instituted for the public good. Just
laws do show unto a man what is to be done, and what is to be shunned;
but those laws which prescribe impossibilities, do not direct a man what
he is to do, and what he is to shun. The minor is as evident. For if his
opinion be true, all actions, all transgressions are determined
antecedently inevitably to be done by a natural and necessary flux of
extrinsical causes. Yea, even the will of man, and the reason itself is
thus determined. And therefore whatsoever laws do prescribe any thing to
be done, which is not done, or to be left undone which is done, do
prescribe absolute impossibilities, and punish men for not doing of
impossibilities. In all his answer there is not one word to this
argument, but only to the conclusion. He saith, that ‘not the necessity,
but the will to break the law makes the action unjust.’ I ask what makes
the will to break the law; is it not his necessity? What gets he by
this? A perverse will causeth injustice, and necessity causeth a
perverse will. He saith, ‘the law regardeth the will, but not the
precedent causes of action.’ To what proposition, to what term is this
answer? He neither denies nor distinguisheth. First, the question here
is not what makes actions to be unjust, but what makes laws to be
unjust. So his answer is impertinent. It is likewise untrue. For first,
that will which the law regards, is not such a will as T. H. imagineth.
It is a free will, not a determined necessitated will; a rational will,
not a brutish will. Secondly, the law doth look upon precedent causes,
as well as the voluntariness of the action. If a child, before he be
seven years old or have the use of reason, in some childish quarrel do
willingly stab another, whereof we have seen experience, yet the law
looks not upon it as an act of murder; because there wanted a power to
deliberate, and consequently true liberty. Manslaughter may be as
voluntary as murder, and commonly more voluntary; because being done in
hot blood there is the less reluctation. Yet the law considers, that the
former is done out of some sudden passion without serious deliberation,
and the other out of prepensed malice and desire of revenge; and
therefore condemns murder, as more wilful and more punishable than
manslaughter.”
(_b_) “He saith, ‘that no law can possibly be unjust;’ and I say, that
this is to deny the conclusion, which deserves no reply. But to give him
satisfaction, I will follow him in this also, if he intended no more but
that unjust laws are not genuine laws, nor bind to active obedience,
because they are not the ordinations of right reason, not instituted for
the common good, nor prescribe that which ought to be done; he said
truly, but nothing at all to his purpose. But if he intend, as he doth,
that there are no laws _de facto_, which are the ordinances of reason
erring, instituted for the common hurt, and prescribing that which ought
not to be done, he is much mistaken. Pharaoh’s law, to drown the male
children of the Israelites (Exod. i. 22); Nebuchadnezzar’s law, that
whosoever did not fall down and worship the golden image which he had
set up, should be cast into the fiery furnace (Dan. iii. 4-6); Darius’s
law, that whosoever should ask a petition of any God or man for thirty
days, save of the king, should be cast into the den of lions (Dan. vi.
7); Ahasuerus’s law, to destroy the Jewish nation, root and branch
(Esther iii. 13); the Pharisees’ law, that whosoever confesseth Christ,
should be excommunicated (John ix. 22); were all unjust laws.
(_c_) “The ground of this error is as great an error itself (such an art
he hath learned of repacking paradoxes); which is this, ‘that every man
makes by his consent the law which he is bound to keep.’ If this were
true, it would preserve them, if not from being unjust, yet from being
injurious. But it is not true. The positive law of God, contained in the
Old and New Testament; the law of nature, written in our hearts by the
finger of God; the laws of conquerors, who come in by the power of the
sword; the laws of our ancestors, which were made before we were born;
do all oblige us to the observation of them; yet to none of all these
did we give our actual consent. Over and above all these exceptions, he
builds upon a wrong foundation, that all magistrates at first were
elective. The first governors were fathers of families; and when those
petty princes could not afford competent protection and security to
their subjects, many of them did resign their several and respective
interests into the hands of one joint father of the country.
“And though his ground had been true, that all first legislators were
elective, which is false; yet his superstructure fails: for it was done
in hope and trust that they would make just laws. If magistrates abuse
this trust, and deceive the hopes of the people by making tyrannical
laws, yet it is without their consent. A precedent trust doth not
justify the subsequent errors and abuses of a trustee. He who is duly
elected a legislator, may exercise his legislative power unduly. The
people’s implicit consent doth not render the tyrannical laws of their
legislators to be just.
(_d_) “But his chiefest answer is, that ‘an action forbidden, though it
proceed from necessary causes, yet if it were done willingly, it may be
justly punished;’ which, according to his custom, he proves by an
instance. ‘A man necessitated to steal by the strength of temptation,
yet if he steal willingly, is justly put to death.’ Here are two things,
and both of them untrue.
“First, he fails in his assertion. Indeed we suffer justly for those
necessities, which we ourselves have contracted by our own fault; but
not for extrinsical antecedent necessities, which were imposed upon us
without our fault. If that law do not oblige to punishment, which is not
intimated, because the subject is invincibly ignorant of it; how much
less that law which prescribes absolute impossibilities: unless perhaps
invincible necessity be not as strong a plea as invincible ignorance.
That which he adds, ‘if it were done willingly,’ though it be of great
moment, if it be rightly understood, yet in his sense, that is, if a
man’s ‘will be not in his own disposition,’ and ‘if his willing do not
come upon him according to his will, nor according to anything else in
his power,’ it weighs not half so much as the least feather in all his
horse-load. For if that law be unjust and tyrannical which commands a
man to do that which is impossible for him to do, then that law is
likewise unjust and tyrannical, which commands him to will that which is
impossible for him to will.
“Secondly, his instance supposeth an untruth, and is a plain begging of
the question. No man is extrinsically, antecedently, and irresistibly
necessitated by temptation to steal. The devil may solicit us, but he
cannot necessitate us. He hath a faculty of persuading, but not a power
of compelling. _Nos ignem habemus, spiritus flammam ciet_; as Gregory
Nazianzen, he blows the coals, but the fire is our own. _Mordet duntaxat
sese in fauces illius objicientem_; as St. Austin, he bites not, until
we thrust ourselves into his mouth. He may propose, he may suggest, but
he cannot move the will effectively. _Resist the devil, and he will flee
from you_ (James iv. 7). By faith we are able _to quench all the fiery
darts of the wicked_ (Ephes. vi. 16). And if Satan, who can both propose
the object, and choose out the fittest times and places to work upon our
frailties, and can suggest reasons, yet cannot necessitate the will,
(which is most certain); then much less can outward objects do it alone.
They have no natural efficacy to determine the will. Well may they be
occasions, but they cannot be causes of evil. The sensitive appetite may
engender a proclivity to steal, but not a necessity to steal. And if it
should produce a kind of necessity, yet it is but moral, not natural;
hypothetical, not absolute; coexistent, not antecedent from ourselves,
nor extrinsical. This necessity, or rather proclivity, was free in its
causes; we ourselves by our own negligence in not opposing our passions
when we should and might, have freely given it a kind of dominion over
us. Admit that some sudden passions may and do extraordinarily surprise
us; and therefore we say, _motus primo primi_, the first motions are not
always in our power, neither are they free: yet this is but very rarely,
and it is our own fault that they do surprise us. Neither doth the law
punish the first motion to theft, but the advised act of stealing. The
intention makes the thief. But of this more largely No. XXV.
(_e_) “He pleads moreover, ‘That the law is a cause of justice,’ that
‘it frames the wills of men to justice,’ and ‘that the punishment of one
doth conduce to the preservation of many.’ All this is most true of a
just law justly executed. But this is no God-a-mercy to T. H.’s opinion
of absolute necessity. If all actions and all events be predetermined
naturally, necessarily, extrinsically, how should the law frame men
morally to good actions? He leaves nothing for the law to do, but either
that which is done already, or that which is impossible to be done. If a
man be chained to every individual act which he doth, and from every act
which he doth not, by indissolvable bonds of inevitable necessity, how
should the law either deter him or frame him? If a dog be chained fast
to a post, the sight of a rod cannot draw him from it. Make a thousand
laws that the fire shall not burn, yet it will burn. And whatsoever men
do, according to T. H., they do it as necessarily as the fire burneth.
Hang up a thousand thieves, and if a man be determined inevitably to
steal, he must steal notwithstanding.
(_f_) “He adds, that ‘the sufferings imposed by the law upon
delinquents, respect not the evil act passed, but the good to come, and
that the putting of a delinquent to death by the magistrate for any
crime whatsoever, cannot be justified before God, except there be a real
intention to benefit others by his example.’ The truth is, the punishing
of delinquents by law, respecteth both the evil act passed and the good
to come. The ground of it, is the evil act passed, the scope or end of
it, is the good to come. The end without the ground cannot justify the
act. A bad intention may make a good action bad; but a good intention
cannot make a bad action good. It is not lawful to do evil that good may
come of it, nor to punish an innocent person for the admonition of
others; that is to fall into a certain crime for fear of an uncertain.
Again, though there were no other end of penalties inflicted, neither
probatory, nor castigatory, nor exemplary, but only vindicatory, to
satisfy the law out of a zeal of justice by giving to every one his own,
yet the action is just and warrantable. Killing, as it is considered in
itself, without all undue circumstances, was never prohibited to the
lawful magistrate, who is the vice-gerent or lieutenant of God, from
whom he derives his power of life and death.
“T. H. hath one plea more. As a drowning man catcheth at every bulrush,
so he lays hold on every pretence to save a desperate cause. But first,
it is worth our observation to see how oft he changeth shapes in this
one particular. (_g_) First, he told us, that it was the irresistible
power of God that justifies all his actions, though he command one thing
openly, and plot another thing secretly, though he be the cause not only
of the action, but also of the irregularity; though he both give man
power to act, and determine this power to evil as well as good; though
he punish the creatures, for doing that which he himself did necessitate
them to do. But being pressed with reason, that this is tyrannical,
first to necessitate a man to do his will, and then to punish him for
doing of it, he leaves this pretence in the plain field, and flies to a
second; that therefore a man is justly punished for that which he was
necessitated to do, because the act was voluntary on his part. This hath
more show of reason than the former, if he did make the will of man to
be in his own disposition; but maintaining that the will is irresistibly
determined to will whatsoever it doth will, the injustice and absurdity
is the same, first to necessitate a man to will, and then to punish him
for willing. The dog only bites the stone which is thrown at him with a
strange hand, but they make the first cause to punish the instrument for
that which is his own proper act. Wherefore not being satisfied with
this, he casts it off and flies to his third shift. ‘Men are not
punished,’ saith he, ‘therefore, because their theft proceeded from
election,’ (that is, because it was willingly done, for to elect and
will, saith he, are both one; is not this to blow hot and cold with the
same breath?) ‘but because it was noxious and contrary to men’s
preservation.’ Thus far he saith true, that every creature by the
instinct of nature seeks to preserve itself: cast water into a dusty
place, and it contracts itself into little globes, that is to preserve
itself. And those who are noxious in the eye of the law, are justly
punished by them to whom the execution of the law is committed; but the
law accounts no persons noxious, but those who are noxious by their own
fault. It punisheth not a thorn for pricking, because it is the nature
of the thorn, and it can do no otherwise, nor a child, before it have
the use of reason. If one should take my hand perforce and give another
a box on the ear with it, my hand is noxious, but the law punisheth the
other who is faulty. And therefore he hath reason to propose the
question, ‘how it is just to kill one man to amend another, if he who
killed did nothing but what he was necessitated to do.’ He might as well
demand, how it is lawful to murder a company of innocent infants, to
make a bath of their lukewarm blood for curing the leprosy. It had been
a more rational way, first to have demonstrated that it is so, and then
to have questioned why it is so. His assertion itself is but a dream,
and the reason which he gives of it why it is so, is a dream of a dream.
“The sum of it is this; ‘that where there is no law, there no killing or
any thing else can be unjust; that before the constitution of
commonwealths, every man had power to kill another, if he conceived him
to be hurtful to him; that at the constitution of commonwealths,
particular men lay down this right in part, and in part reserve it to
themselves, as in case of theft or murder; that the right which the
commonwealth hath to put a malefactor to death, is not created by the
law, but remaineth from the first right of nature which every man hath
to preserve himself; that the killing of men in this case is as the
killing of beasts in order to our own preservation.’ This may well be
called stringing of paradoxes.
“But first, (_h_) there never was any such time when mankind was without
governors and laws, and societies. Paternal government was in the world
from the beginning, and the law of nature. There might be sometimes a
root of such barbarous thievish brigands, in some rocks or deserts, or
odd corners of the world; but it was an abuse and a degeneration from
the nature of man, who is a political creature. This savage opinion
reflects too much upon the honour of mankind.
“Secondly, there never was a time when it was lawful, ordinarily, for
private men to kill one another for their own preservation. If God would
have had men live like wild beasts, as lions, bears, or tigers, he would
have armed them with horns, or tusks, or talons, or pricks; but of all
creatures man is born most naked, without any weapon to defend himself,
because God had provided a better means of security for him, that is,
the magistrate.
“Thirdly, that right which private men have to preserve themselves,
though it be with the killing of another, when they are set upon to be
murdered or robbed, is not a remainder or a reserve of some greater
power which they have resigned, but a privilege which God hath given
them, in case of extreme danger and invincible necessity, that when they
cannot possibly have recourse to the ordinary remedy, that is, the
magistrate, every man becomes a magistrate to himself.
“Fourthly, nothing can give that which it never had. The people, whilst
they were a dispersed rabble, (which in some odd cases might happen to
be), never had justly the power of life and death, and therefore they
could not give it by their election. All that they do is to prepare the
matter, but it is God Almighty that infuseth the soul of power.
“Fifthly and lastly, I am sorry to hear a man of reason and parts to
compare the murdering of men with the slaughtering of brute beasts. The
elements are for the plants, the plants for the brute beasts, the brute
beasts for man. When God enlarged his former grant to man, and gave him
liberty to eat the flesh of his creatures for his sustenance, (Gen. ix.
3), yet man is expressly excepted (verse 6): _Whoso sheddeth man’s
blood, by man shall his blood be shed_. And the reason is assigned, _for
in the image of God made he man_. Before sin entered into the world, or
before any creatures were hurtful or noxious to man, he had dominion
over them as their lord and master. And though the possession of this
sovereignty be lost in part, for the sin of man, which made not only the
creatures to rebel, but also the inferior faculties to rebel against the
superior, from whence it comes that one man is hurtful to another; yet
the dominion still remains. Wherein we may observe how sweetly the
providence of God doth temper this cross; that though the strongest
creatures have withdrawn their obedience, as lions and bears, to shew
that man hath lost the excellency of his dominion, and the weakest
creatures, as flies and gnats, to shew into what a degree of contempt he
is fallen; yet still the most profitable and useful creatures, as sheep
and oxen, do in some degree retain their obedience.
(_i_) “The next branch of his answer concerns consultations, ‘which,’
saith he, ‘are not superfluous, though all things come to pass
necessarily, because they are the cause which doth necessitate the
effect, and the means to bring it to pass.’ We were told (No. XI.) ‘that
the last dictate of right reason was but as the last feather which
breaks the horse’s back. It is well yet, that reason hath gained some
command again, and is become at least a quarter-master. Certainly if any
thing under God have power to determine the will, it is right reason.
But I have shewed sufficiently, that reason doth not determine the will
physically, nor absolutely, much less extrinsically, and antecedently;
and therefore it makes nothing for that necessity which T. H. hath
undertaken to prove.
(_k_) “He adds further, that ‘as the end is necessary, so are the means;
and when it is determined that one thing shall be chosen before another,
it is determined also for what cause it shall be so chosen.’ All which
is truth, but not the whole truth; for as God ordains means for all
ends, so he adapts and fits the means to their respective ends, free
means to free ends, contingent means to contingent ends, necessary means
to necessary ends, whereas T. H. would have all means, all ends, to be
necessary. If God hath so ordered the world, that a man ought to use,
and may freely use, those means of God, which he doth neglect, not by
virtue of God’s decree, but by his own fault; if a man use those means
of evil, which he ought not to use, and which by God’s decree he had
power to forbear; if God have left to man in part the free managery of
human affairs, and to that purpose hath endowed him with understanding:
then consultations are of use, then provident care is needful, then it
concerns him to use the means. But if God have so ordered this world,
that a man cannot, if he would, neglect any means of good, which by
virtue of God’s decree it is possible for him to use, and that he cannot
possibly use any means of evil, but those which are irresistibly and
inevitably imposed upon him by an antecedent decree; then not only
consultations are vain, but that noble faculty of reason itself is vain.
Do we think that we can help God Almighty to do his proper work? In vain
we trouble ourselves, in vain we take care to use those means, which are
not in our power to use, or not to use. And this is that which was
contained in my prolepsis or prevention of his answer, though he be
pleased both to disorder it, and to silence it. We cannot hope by our
labours, to alter the course of things set down by God; let him perform
his decree, let the necessary causes do their work. If we be those
causes, yet we are not in our own disposition; we must do what we are
ordained to do, and more we cannot do. Man hath no remedy but patience,
and to shrug up the shoulders. This is the doctrine that flows from this
opinion of absolute necessity. Let us suppose the great wheel of the
clock which sets all the little wheels going, to be as the decree of
God, and that the motion of it were perpetually infallible from an
intrinsical principle, even as God’s decree is infallible, eternal,
all-sufficient. Let us suppose the lesser wheels to be the second
causes, and that they do as certainly follow the motion of the great
wheel, without missing or swerving in the least degree, as the second
causes do pursue the determination of the first cause. I desire to know
in this case, what cause there is to call a council of smiths, to
consult and order the motion of that which was ordered and determined
before to their hands? Are men wiser than God? Yet all men know, that
the motion of the lesser wheels is a necessary means to make the clock
strike.
(_l_) “But he tells me in great sadness, that ‘my argument is just like
this other; if I shall live till to-morrow, I shall live till to-morrow,
though I run myself through with a sword to-day; which, saith he, is a
false consequence, and a false proposition.’ Truly, if by running
through, he understands killing, it is a false, or rather a foolish
proposition, and implies a contradiction. To live till to-morrow, and to
die to-day, are inconsistent. But by his favour, this is not my
consequence, but this is his own opinion. He would persuade us, that it
is absolutely necessary that a man shall live till to-morrow, and yet
that it is possible that he may kill himself to-day. My argument is
this: if there be a liberty and possibility for a man to kill himself
to-day, then it is not absolutely necessary that he shall live till
to-morrow; but there is such a liberty, therefore no such necessity. And
the consequence which I make here, is this: if it be absolutely
necessary, that a man shall live till to-morrow, then it is vain and
superfluous for him to consult and deliberate whether he should die
to-day, or not. And this is a true consequence. The ground of his
mistake is this, that though it be true, that a man may kill himself
to-day, yet upon the supposition of his absolute necessity, it is
impossible. Such heterogeneous arguments and instances he produceth,
which are half builded upon our true grounds, and the other half upon
his false grounds.
(_m_) “The next branch of my argument concerns admonitions, to which he
gives no new answer, and therefore I need not make any new reply, saving
only to tell him, that he mistakes my argument. I say not only, if all
things be necessary, then admonitions are in vain; but if all things be
necessary, then it is to no more purpose to admonish men of
understanding than fools, children, or madmen. That they do admonish the
one and not the other, is confessedly true; and no reason under heaven
can be given for it but this, that the former have the use of reason and
true liberty, with a dominion over their own actions, which children,
fools, and madmen have not.
“Concerning praise and dispraise, he enlargeth himself. The scope of his
discourse is, that ‘things necessary may be praiseworthy.’ There is no
doubt of it; but withal their praise reflects upon the free agent, as
the praise of a statue reflects upon the workman who made it. ‘To praise
a thing,’ saith he, ‘is to say it is good.’ (_n_) True, but this
goodness is not a metaphysical goodness; so the worst of things, and
whatsoever hath a being, is good: nor a natural goodness; the praise of
it passeth wholly to the Author of nature; _God saw all that he had
made, and it was very good_: but a moral goodness, or a goodness of
actions rather than of things. The moral goodness of an action is the
conformity of it with right reason. The moral evil of an action is the
deformity of it, and the alienation of it from right reason. It is moral
praise and dispraise which we speak of here. To praise anything morally,
is to say, it is morally good, that is, conformable to right reason. The
moral dispraise of a thing is to say, it is morally bad, or disagreeing
from the rule of right reason. So moral praise is from the good use of
liberty, moral dispraise from the bad use of liberty; but if all things
be necessary, then moral liberty is quite taken away, and with it all
true praise and dispraise. Whereas T. H. adds, that ‘to say a thing is
good, is to say, it is as I would wish, or as another would wish, or as
the state would have it, or according to the law of the land;’ he
mistakes infinitely. He, and another, and the state, may all wish that
which is not really good, but only in appearance. We do often wish what
is profitable or delightful, without regarding so much as we ought what
is honest. And though the will of the state where we live, or the law of
the land, do deserve great consideration, yet it is no infallible rule
of moral goodness. And therefore to his question, ‘whether nothing that
proceeds from necessity can please me,’ I answer, yes. The burning of
the fire pleaseth me, when I am cold; and I say, it is good fire, or a
creature created by God for my use and for my good. Yet I do not mean to
attribute any moral goodness to the fire, nor give any moral praise to
it, as if it were in the power of the fire itself either to communicate
its heat or to suspend it; but I praise first the Creator of the fire,
and then him who provided it. As for the praise which Velleius
Paterculus gives Cato, that he was good by nature, _et quia aliter esse
non potuit_; it hath more of the orator, than either of the theologian
or philosopher in it. Man in the state of innocency did fall and become
evil; what privilege hath Cato more than he? No, by his leave. _Narratur
et divi Catonis sæpe mero caluisse virtus._ But the true meaning is,
that he was naturally of a good temper, not so prone to some kinds of
vice as others were. This is to praise a thing, not an action,
naturally, not morally. Socrates was not of so good a natural temper,
yet proved as good a man; the more his praise, by how much the
difficulty was the more to conform his disorderly appetite to right
reason.
“Concerning reward and punishment, he saith not a word, but only that
they frame and conform the will to good, which hath been sufficiently
answered. They do so indeed; but if his opinion were true, they could
not do so. But because my aim is not only to answer T. H., but also to
satisfy myself, (_o_) though it be not urged by him, yet I do
acknowledge that I find some improper and analogical rewards and
punishments used to brute beasts, as the hunter rewards his dog, the
master of the decoy-duck whips her when she returns without company. And
if it be true, which he affirmeth a little before that I have confessed,
‘that the actions of brute beasts are all necessitated and determined to
that one thing which they shall do,’ the difficulty is increased.
“But first, my saying is misalleged. I said, that some kinds of actions
which are most excellent in brute beasts, and make the greatest show of
reason, as the bees working their honey, and the spiders weaving their
webs, are yet done without any consultation or deliberation, by a mere
instinct of nature, and by a determination of their fancies to these
only kinds of works. But I did never say, I could not say, that all
their individual actions are necessary, and antecedently determined in
their causes, as what days the bees shall fly abroad, and what days and
hours each bee shall keep in the hive, how often they shall fetch in
thyme on a day, and from whence. These actions and the like, though they
be not free, because brute beasts want reason to deliberate, yet they
are contingent, and therefore not necessary.
“Secondly, I do acknowledge, that as the fancies of some brute creatures
are determined by nature to some rare and exquisite works; so in others,
where it finds a natural propension, art, which is the imitator of
nature, may frame and form them according to the will of the artist to
some particular actions and ends, as we see in setting-dogs, and
coy-ducks, and parrots; and the principal means whereby they effect
this, is by their backs or by their bellies, by the rod or by the
morsel, which have indeed a shadow or resemblance of rewards and
punishments. But we take the word here properly, not as it is used by
vulgar people, but as it is used by divines and philosophers, for that
recompense which is due to honest and dishonest actions. Where there is
no moral liberty, there is neither honesty nor dishonesty, neither true
reward nor punishment.
“Thirdly, (_p_) when brute creatures do learn any such qualities, it is
not out of judgment, or deliberation, or discourse, by inferring or
concluding one thing from another, which they are not capable of.
Neither are they able to conceive a reason of what they do, but merely
out of memory or out of a sensitive fear or hope. They remember that
when they did after one manner, they were beaten; and when they did
after another manner, they were cherished; and accordingly they apply
themselves. But if their individual actions were absolutely necessary,
fear or hope could not alter them. Most certainly, if there be any
desert in it, or any praise due unto it, it is to them who did instruct
them.
Lastly, concerning arts, arms, books, instruments, study, physic, and
the like, he answereth not a word more than what is already satisfied.
And therefore I am silent.