(_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.”
I have already, in the beginning, where I recite the inconveniences that
follow the doctrine of necessity, made clear that the same
inconveniences follow not the doctrine of necessity, any more than they
follow this truth, _whatsoever shall be, shall be_, which all men must
confess; the same also followeth upon this, that _whatsoever God
foreknows, cannot but come to pass in such time and manner as he hath
foreknown it_. It is therefore evident that these inconveniences are not
rationally deduced from those tenets. Again, it is a truth manifest to
all men, that it is not in a man’s power to-day, to choose what will he
shall have to-morrow, or an hour, or any time after. Intervening
occasions, business, which the Bishop calls trifles, (trifles of which
the Bishop maketh here a great business), do change the will. No man can
say what he will do to-morrow, unless he foreknow, which no man can,
what shall happen before to-morrow. And this being the substance of my
opinion, it must needs be that when he deduceth from it, that counsels,
arts, arms, medicines, teachers, praise, prayer, and piety, are in vain,
that his deduction is false, and his ratiocination fallacy. And though I
need make no other answer to all that he can object against me, yet I
shall here mark out the causes of his several paralogisms.
“Those laws,” he saith, “are unjust and tyrannical, which do prescribe
things absolutely impossible to be done, and punish men for not doing of
them.” In which words this is one absurdity, that _a law can be unjust_;
for all laws are divine or civil, neither of which can be unjust. Of the
first there is no doubt. And as for civil laws, they are made by every
man that is subject to them; because every one of them consenteth to the
placing of the legislative power. Another is this, in the same words,
that he supposeth there may be laws that are tyrannical; for if he that
maketh them have the sovereign power, they may be regal, but not
tyrannical; if tyrant signify not King, as he thinks it doth not.
Another is in the same words, “that a law may prescribe things
absolutely impossible in themselves to be done.” When he says
_impossible in themselves_, he understands not what himself means.
_Impossible in themselves_ are contradictions only, as to be and not to
be at the same time, which the divines say is not possible to God. All
other things are possible at least in themselves. Raising from the dead,
changing the course of nature, making of a new heaven, and a new earth,
are things possible in themselves; for there is nothing in their nature
able to resist the will of God. And if laws do not prescribe such
things, why should I believe they prescribe other things that are more
impossible. Did he ever read in Suarez of any tyrant that made a law
commanding any man to do and not to do the same action, or to be and not
to be at the same place in one and the same moment of time. But out of
the doctrine of necessity, it followeth he says, that “all laws do
prescribe absolute impossibilities to be done.” Here he has left out _in
themselves_, which is a wilful fallacy.
He further says that “just laws are the ordinances of right reason;”
which is an error that hath cost many thousands of men their lives. Was
there ever a King, that made a law which in right reason had been better
unmade? And shall those laws therefore not be obeyed? Shall we rather
rebel? I think not, though I am not so great a divine as he. I think
rather that the reason of him that hath the sovereign authority, and by
whose sword we look to be protected both against war from abroad and
injuries at home, whether it be right or erroneous in itself, ought to
stand for right to us that have submitted ourselves thereunto by
receiving the protection.
But the Bishop putteth his greatest confidence in this, that whether the
things be impossible in themselves, or made impossible by some unseen
accident, yet there is no reason that men should be _punished for not
doing them_. It seems he taketh punishment for a kind of revenge, and
can never therefore agree with me, that take it for nothing else but for
a correction, or for an example, which hath for end the _framing_ and
_necessitating of the will_ to virtue; and that he is no good man, that
upon any provocation useth his power, though a power lawfully obtained,
to afflict another man without this end, to reform the will of him or
others. Nor can I comprehend, as having only humane ideas, that that
punishment which neither intendeth the correction of the offender, nor
the correction of others by example, doth proceed from God.
(_b_) “He saith that no law can possibly be unjust,” &c.
Against this he replies that the law of Pharaoh, to drown the male
children of the Israelites; and of Nebuchadnezzar, to worship the golden
image; and of Darius, against praying to any but him in thirty days; and
of Ahasuerus, to destroy the Jews; and of the Pharisees, to
excommunicate the confessors of Christ; were all unjust laws. The laws
of these kings, as they were laws, have relation only to the men that
were their subjects; and the _making_ of them, which was the action of
every one of those kings, who were subjects to another king, namely, to
God Almighty, had relation to the law of God. In the first relation,
there could be no injustice in them; because all laws made by him to
whom the people had given the legislative power, are the acts of every
one of that people; and no man can do injustice to himself. But in
relation to God, if God have by a law forbidden it, the making of such
laws is injustice. Which law of God was to those heathen princes no
other but _salus populi_, that is to say, the properest use of their
natural reason for the preservation of their subjects. If therefore
those laws were ordained out of wantonness, or cruelty, or envy, or for
the pleasing of a favourite, or out of any other sinister end, as it
seems they were, the making of those laws was unjust. But if in right
reason they were necessary for the preservation of those people of whom
they had undertaken the charge, then was it not unjust. And for the
Pharisees, who had the same written law of God that we have, their
excommunication of the Christians, proceeding, as it did, from envy, was
an act of malicious injustice. If it had proceeded from
misinterpretation of their own Scriptures, it had been a sin of
ignorance. Nevertheless, as it was a law to their subjects (in case they
had the legislative power, which I doubt of), the law was not unjust.
But the making of it was an unjust action, of which they were to give
account to none but God. I fear the Bishop will think this discourse too
subtile; but the judgment is the reader’s.
(_c_) “The ground of this error,” &c., “is this: that every man makes by
his consent the law which he is bound to keep,” &c.
The reason why he thinketh this an error, is because the positive law of
God, contained in the Bible, is a law without our assent; the law of
nature was written in our hearts by the finger of God without our
assent; the laws of conquerors, who come in by the power of the sword,
were made without our assent; and so were the laws of our ancestors,
which were made before we were born. It is a strange thing that he that
understands the nonsense of the Schoolmen, should not be able to
perceive so easy a truth as this which he denieth. The Bible is a law.
To whom? To all the world? He knows it is not. How came it then to be a
law to us? Did God speak it _viva voce_ to us? Have we then any other
warrant for it than the word of the prophets? Have we seen the miracles?
Have we any other assurance of their certainty than the authority of the
Church? And is the authority of the Church any other than the authority
of the commonwealth, or that of the commonwealth any other than that of
the head of the commonwealth, or hath the head of the commonwealth any
other authority than that which hath been given him by the members?
Else, why should not the Bible be canonical as well in Constantinople as
in any other place? They that have the legislative power make nothing
canon, which they make not law, nor law, which they make not canon. And
because the legislative power is from the assent of the subjects, the
Bible is made law by the assent of the subjects. It was not the Bishop
of Rome that made the Scripture law without his own temporal dominions;
nor is it the clergy that make it law in their dioceses and rectories.
Nor can it be a law of itself without special and supernatural
revelation. The Bishop thinks because the Bible is law, and he is
appointed to teach it to the people in his diocese, that therefore it is
law to whomsoever he teach it; which is somewhat gross, but not so gross
as to say that conquerors who come in by the power of the sword, make
their laws also without our assent. He thinks, belike, that if a
conqueror can kill me if he please, I am presently obliged without more
ado to obey all his laws. May not I rather die, if I think fit? The
conqueror makes no law over the conquered by virtue of his power; but by
virtue of their assent, that promised obedience for the saving of their
lives. But how then is the assent of the children obtained to the laws
of their ancestors? This also is from the desire of preserving their
lives, which first the parents might take away, where the parents be
free from all subjection; and where they are not, there the civil power
might do the same, if they doubted of their obedience. The children
therefore, when they be grown up to strength enough to do mischief, and
to judgment enough to know that other men are kept from doing mischief
to them by fear of the sword that protecteth them, in that very act of
receiving that protection, and not renouncing it openly, do oblige
themselves to obey the laws of their protectors; to which, in receiving
such protection, they have assented. And whereas he saith, the law of
nature is a law without our assent, it is absurd; for the law of nature
is the assent itself that all men give to the means of their own
preservation.
(_d_) “But his chiefest answer is, that an action forbidden, though it
proceed from necessary causes, yet if it were done willingly, may be
justly punished,” &c.
This the Bishop also understandeth not, and therefore denies it. He
would have the judge condemn no man for a crime, if it were
necessitated; as if the judge could know what acts are necessary, unless
he knew all that hath anteceded, both visible and invisible, and what
both every thing in itself, and altogether, can effect. It is enough to
the judge, that the act he condemneth be voluntary. The punishment
whereof may, if not capital, reform the will of the offender; if
capital, the will of others by example. For heat in one body doth not
more create heat in another, than the terror of an example createth fear
in another, who otherwise were inclined to commit injustice.
Some few lines before, he hath said that I built upon a wrong
foundation, namely, “that all magistrates were at first elective;” I had
forgot to tell you, that I never said nor thought it. And therefore his
reply, as to that point, is impertinent.
Not many lines after, for a reason why a man may not be justly punished
when his crime is voluntary, he offereth this: “that law is unjust and
tyrannical, which commands a man to will that which is impossible for
him to will.” Whereby it appears, he is of opinion that a law may be
made to command the will. The style of a law is _do this_, or _do not
this_; or, _if thou do this, thou shalt suffer this_; but no law runs
thus, _will this_, or _will not this_; or, _if thou have a will to this,
thou shalt suffer this_. He objecteth further, that I beg the question,
because no man’s will is necessitated. Wherein he mistakes; for I say no
more in that place, but that he that doth evil willingly, whether he be
necessarily willing, or not necessarily, may be justly punished. And
upon this mistake he runneth over again his former and already answered
nonsense, saying, “we ourselves, by our own negligence in not opposing
our passions when we should and might, have freely given them a kind of
dominion over us;” and again, _motus primo primi_, the first motions are
not always in our power. Which _motus primo primi_, signifies nothing;
and “our negligence in not opposing our passions,” is the same with “our
want of will to oppose our will,” which is absurd; and “that we have
given them a kind of dominion over us,” either signifies nothing, or
that we have a dominion over our wills, or our wills a dominion over us,
and consequently either we or our wills are not free.
(_e_) “He pleads moreover that the law is a cause of justice,” &c. “All
this is most true, of a just law justly executed.”
But I have shown that all laws are just, as laws, and therefore not to
be accused of injustice by those that owe subjection to them; and a just
law is always justly executed. Seeing then that he confesseth that all
that he replieth to here is true, it followeth that the reply itself,
where it contradicteth me, is false.
(_f_) “He addeth 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.”
This he neither confirmeth nor denieth, and yet forbeareth not to
discourse upon it to little purpose; and therefore I pass it over.
(_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, &c.”
To all this, which hath been pressed before, I have answered before; but
that he says I say, “having commanded one thing openly, he plots another
thing secretly,” it is not mine, but one of his own ugly phrases. And
the force it hath, proceeded out of an apprehension he hath, that
affliction is not God’s correction, but his revenge upon the creatures
of his own making; and from a reasoning he useth, “because it is not
just in a man to kill one man for the amendment of another, therefore
neither is it so in God;” not remembering that God hath, or shall have
killed all the men in the world, both nocent and innocent.
My assertion, he saith, “is a dream, and the sum of it this; that where
there is no law, there no killing or anything else can be unjust; that
before the constitution of commonwealths, every man had power to kill
another,” &c., and adds, that “this may well be called stringing of
paradoxes.” To these my words he replies:
(_h_) “There was never any time when mankind was without governors,
laws, and societies.”
It is very likely to be true, that since the creation there never was a
time in which mankind was totally without society. If a part of it were
without laws and governors, some other parts might be commonwealths. He
saw there was paternal government in Adam; which he might do easily, as
being no deep consideration. But in those places where there is a civil
war at any time, at the same time there is neither laws, nor
commonwealth, nor society, but only a temporal league, which every
discontented soldier may depart from when he pleases, as being entered
into by each man for his private interest, without any obligation of
conscience: there are therefore almost at all times multitudes of
lawless men. But this was a little too remote from his understanding to
perceive. Again, he denies, that ever there was a time when one private
man might lawfully kill another for his own preservation; and has
forgotten that these words of his (No. II.), “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,” &c.; which are the words of Cicero in the defence of
Milo, and translated by the Bishop to the defence of free-will, were
used by Cicero to prove this very thing, that it is and hath been always
lawful for one private man to kill another for his own preservation. But
where he saith it is not lawful _ordinarily_, he should have shown some
particular case wherein it is unlawful. For seeing it is a “belief
imprinted in our hearts,” not only I, but many more are apt to think it
is the law of nature, and consequently universal and eternal. And where
he saith, this right of defence where it is, “is not a remainder of some
greater power which they have resigned, but a privilege which God hath
given them in case of extreme danger and invincible necessity,” &c.; I
also say it is a privilege which God hath given them, but we differ in
the manner how; which to me seems this, that God doth not account such
killing sin. But the Bishop it seems would have it thus: God sends a
bishop into the pulpit to tell the people it is lawful for a man to kill
another man when it is necessary for the preservation of his own life;
of which necessity, that is, whether it be _invincible_, or whether the
danger be _extreme_, the bishop shall be the judge after the man is
killed, as being a case of conscience. Against the resigning of this our
general power of killing our enemies, he argues thus: “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,” &c. Needs there much acuteness to understand, what number of
men soever there be, though not united into government, that every one
of them in particular having a right to destroy whatsoever he thinketh
can annoy him, may not resign the same right, and give it to whom he
please, when he thinks it conducible to his preservation? And yet it
seems he has not understood it.
He takes it ill that I compare the “murdering of men with the
slaughtering of brute beasts:” as also a little before, he says, “my
opinion reflects too much upon the honour of mankind: the elements are
for the plants, the plants for the brute beasts, and the brute beasts
for man.” I pray, when a lion eats a man, and a man eats an ox, why is
the ox more made for the man, than the man for the lion? “Yes,” he
saith, “God gave man liberty (Gen. ix. 3) to eat the flesh of the
creatures for his sustenance.” True, but the lion had the liberty to eat
the flesh of man long before. But he will say, no; pretending that no
man of any nation, or at any time, could lawfully eat flesh, unless he
had this licence of holy Scripture, which it was impossible for most men
to have. But how would he have been offended, if I had said of man as
Pliny doth: “_quo nullum est animal neque miserius, neque superbius_?”
The truth is, that man is a creature of greater power than other living
creatures are, but his advantages do consist especially in two things:
whereof one is the use of speech, by which men communicate one with
another, and join their forces together, and by which also they register
their thoughts that they perish not, but be reserved, and afterwards
joined with other thoughts, to produce general rules for the direction
of their actions. There be beasts that see better, others that hear
better, and others that exceed mankind in other senses. Man excelleth
beasts only in making of rules to himself, that is to say, in
remembering, and in reasoning aright upon that which he remembereth.
They which do so, deserve an honour above brute beasts. But they which
mistaking the use of words, deceive themselves and others, introducing
error, and seducing men from the truth, are so much less to be honoured
than brute beasts, as error is more vile than ignorance. So that it is
not merely the nature of man, that makes him worthier than other living
creatures, but the knowledge that he acquires by meditation, and by the
right use of reason in making good rules of his future actions. The
other advantage a man hath, is the use of his hands for the making of
those things which are instrumental to his well-being. But this
advantage is not a matter of so great honour, but that a man may speak
negligently of it without offence. And for the dominion that a man hath
over beasts, he saith, “it is lost in part for the sin of man, because
the strongest creatures, as lions and bears, have withdrawn their
obedience; but the most profitable and useful creatures, as sheep and
oxen, do in some degree retain their obedience.” I would ask the Bishop,
in what consisteth the dominion of man over a lion or a bear. Is it in
an obligation of promise, or of debt? That cannot be; for they have no
sense of debt or duty. And I think he will not say, that they have
received a command to obey him from authority. It resteth therefore that
the dominion of man consists in this, that men are too hard for lions
and bears, because, though a lion or a bear be stronger than a man, yet
the strength, and art, and especially the leaguing and societies of men,
are a greater power than the ungoverned strength of unruly beasts. In
this it is that consisteth this dominion of man. And for the same reason
when a hungry lion meeteth an unarmed man in a desert, the lion hath the
dominion over the man, if that of man over lions, or over sheep and
oxen, may be called dominion, which properly it cannot; nor can it be
said that sheep and oxen do otherwise obey us, than they would do a
lion. And if we have dominion over sheep and oxen, we exercise it not as
dominion, but as hostility; for we keep them only to labour, and to be
killed and devoured by us; so that lions and bears would be as good
masters to them as we are. By this short passage of his concerning
_dominion_ and _obedience_, I have no reason to expect a very shrewd
answer from him to my _Leviathan_.
(_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.’”
His reply to this is, that he hath “showed sufficiently, that reason
doth not determine the will physically,” &c. If not physically, how
then? As he hath told us in another place, _morally_. But what it is to
determine a thing morally, no man living understands. I doubt not but he
had therefore the will to write this reply, _because_ I had answered his
treatise concerning true liberty. My answer therefore was, at least in
part, the _cause_ of his writing; yet that is the cause of the nimble
local motion of his fingers. Is not the cause of local motion physical?
His will therefore was physically, and extrinsically, and antecedently,
and not morally caused by my writing.
(_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,” &c.
Is it not enough that it is truth? Must I put all the truth I know into
two or three lines? No. I should have added, that God doth adapt and fit
the means to their respective ends, free means to free ends, contingent
means to contingent ends, necessary means to necessary ends. It may be I
would have done so, but for shame. _Free_, _contingent_ and _necessary_
are not words that can be joined to _means_ or _ends_, but to _agents_
and _actions_; that is to say, to things that move or are moved: a _free
agent_ being that whose motion or action is not hindered or stopped, and
a _free action_, that which is produced by a free agent. A _contingent
agent_ is the same with an _agent_ simply. But, because men for the most
part think those things are produced without cause, whereof they do not
see the cause, they use to call both the agent and the action
contingent, as attributing it to fortune. And therefore, when the causes
are necessary, if they perceive not the necessity, they call those
necessary agents and actions, in things that have appetite, _free_; and
in things inanimate, _contingent_. The rest of his reply to this point
is very little of it applied to my answer. I note only that where he
says, “but if God have so ordered the world, that a man cannot, _if he
would_, neglect any means of good, &c.;” he would fraudulently insinuate
that it is my opinion, that a man is not _free to do if he will, and to
abstain if he will_. Whereas from the beginning I have often declared
that it is none of my opinion; and that my opinion is only this, that he
is not _free to will_, or which is all one, he is not master of his
future will. After much unorderly discourse he comes in with “this is
the doctrine that flows from this opinion of absolute necessity;” which
is impertinent; seeing nothing flows from it more than may be drawn from
the confession of an eternal prescience.
(_l_) “But he tells me in great sadness, that ‘my argument is 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; which, saith he, is a
false consequence, and a false proposition.’ Truly, if by running
through, he understand killing, it is a false or rather a foolish
proposition.” He saith right. Let us therefore see how it is not like to
his. He says, “if it be absolutely necessary that a man shall live till
to-morrow, then it is vain and superfluous for him to consult whether he
should die to-day or not.” “And this,” he says, “is a true consequence.”
I cannot perceive how it is a better consequence than the former; for if
it be absolutely necessary that a man should live till to-morrow, and in
health, which may also be supposed, why should he not, if he have the
curiosity, have his head cut off to try what pain it is. But the
consequence is false; for if there be a necessity of his living, it is
necessary also that he shall not have so foolish a curiosity. But he
cannot yet distinguish between a seen and an unseen necessity, and that
is the cause he believeth his consequence to be good.
(_m_) “The next branch of my argument concerns admonitions,” &c.
Which he says is this: “If all things be necessary, then it is to no
more purpose to admonish men of understanding, than fools, children, or
madmen; but 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.”
The true reason why we admonish men and not children, &c., is because
admonition is nothing else but telling a man the good and evil
consequences of his actions. They who have experience of good and evil,
can better perceive the reasonableness of such admonition, than they
that have not; and such as have like passions to those of the admonitor,
do more easily conceive that to be good or bad which the admonitor saith
is so, than they who have great passions, and such as are contrary to
his. The first, which is want of experience, maketh children and fools
unapt; and the second, which is strength of passion, maketh madmen
unwilling to receive admonition; for children are ignorant, and madmen
in an error, concerning what is good or evil for themselves. This is not
to say children and madmen want true liberty, that is, the liberty to do
as they will, nor to say that men of judgment, or the admonitor himself
hath a dominion over his own actions, more than children or madmen, (for
their actions are also voluntary), or that when he admonisheth he hath
always the use of reason, though he have the use of deliberation, which
children, fools, madmen, and beasts also have. There be, therefore,
reasons under heaven which the Bishop knows not of.
Whereas I had said, that things necessary may be praiseworthy, and to
praise a thing is to say it is good, he distinguisheth and saith:
(_n_) “True, but this goodness is not a metaphysical goodness; so
whatsoever hath a being is good; nor a natural goodness; the praise of
it passeth wholly to the Author of nature, &c.; but a moral goodness, or
a goodness of actions, rather than of things. The moral goodness of an
action is the conformity of it to right reason,” &c.
There hath been in the Schools derived from _Aristotle’s Metaphysics_,
an old proverb rather than an axiom: _ens, bonum, et verum
convertuntur_. From hence the Bishop hath taken this notion of a
metaphysical goodness, and his doctrine that whatsoever hath a being is
good; and by this interpreteth the words of Gen. i. 31: _God saw all
that he had made, and it was very good_. But the reason of those words
is, that _good_ is relative to those that are pleased with it, and not
of absolute signification to all men. God therefore saith, that all that
he had made was very good, because he was pleased with the creatures of
his own making. But if all things were absolutely good, we should be all
pleased with their _being_, which we are not, when the actions that
depend upon their being are hurtful to us. And therefore, to speak
properly, nothing is good or evil but in regard of the action that
proceedeth from it, and also of the person to whom it doth good or hurt.
Satan is evil to us, because he seeketh our destruction, but good to
God, because he executeth his commandments. And so his _metaphysical
goodness_ is but an idle term, and not the member of a distinction. And
as for natural goodness and evilness, that also is but the goodness and
evilness of actions; as some herbs are good because they nourish, others
evil because they poison us; and one horse is good because he is gentle,
strong, and carrieth a man easily; another bad, because he resisteth,
goeth hard, or otherwise displeaseth us; and that quality of gentleness,
if there were no more laws amongst men than there is amongst beasts,
would be as much a moral good in a horse or other beast as in a man. It
is the law from whence proceeds the difference between the moral and the
natural goodness: so that it is well enough said by him, that “moral
goodness is the conformity of an action with right reason”; and better
said than meant; for this _right reason_, which is the law, is no
otherwise certainly right than by our making it so by our approbation of
it and voluntary subjection to it. For the law-makers are men, and may
err, and think that law, which they make, is for the good of the people
sometimes when it is not. And yet the actions of subjects, if they be
conformable to the law, are morally good, and yet cease not to be
naturally good; and the praise of them passeth to the Author of nature,
as well as of any other good whatsoever. From whence it appears that
moral praise is not, as he says, from the good use of liberty, but from
obedience to the laws; nor moral dispraise from the bad use of liberty,
but from disobedience to the laws. And for his consequence, “if all
things be necessary, then moral liberty is quite taken away, and with it
all true praise and dispraise”, there is neither truth in it, nor
argument offered for it; for there is nothing more necessary than the
consequence of _voluntary_ actions to the _will_. And whereas I had
said, that to say a thing is good, is to say it is as I or another would
wish, or as the state would have it, or according to the law of the
land, he answers, that “I mistake infinitely”. And his reason is,
because “we often wish what is profitable or delightful, without
regarding as we ought what is honest”. There is no man living that seeth
all the consequences of an action from the beginning to the end, whereby
to weigh the whole sum of the good with the whole sum of the evil
consequence. We choose no further than we can weigh. That is good to
every man, which is so far good as he can see. All the real good, which
we call honest and morally virtuous, is that which is not repugnant to
the law, civil or natural; for the law is all the right reason we have,
and, (though he, as often as it disagreeth with his own reason, deny
it), is the infallible rule of moral goodness. The reason whereof is
this, that because neither mine nor the Bishop’s reason is right reason
fit to be a rule of our moral actions, we have therefore set up over
ourselves a sovereign governor, and agreed that his laws shall be unto
us, whatsoever they be, in the place of right reason, to dictate to us
what is really good. In the same manner as men in playing turn up trump,
and as in playing their game their morality consisteth in not
renouncing, so in our civil conversation our morality is all contained
in not disobeying of the laws.
To my question, “whether nothing could please him, that proceeded from
necessity”, he answers: “yes; the fire pleaseth him when he is cold, and
he says it is good fire, but does not praise it morally”. He praiseth,
he says, first the Creator of the fire, and then him who provided it. He
does well; yet he praiseth the fire when he saith it is good, though not
morally. He does not say it is a just fire, or a wise, or a
well-mannered fire, obedient to the laws; but these attributes it seems
he gives to God, as if justice were not of his nature, but of his
manners. And in praising morally him that provided it, he seems to say,
he would not say the fire was good, if he were not morally good that did
provide it.
To that which I had answered concerning reward and punishment, he hath
replied, he says, sufficiently before, and that that which he
discourseth here, is not only to answer me, but also to satisfy himself,
and saith:
(_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,” &c.
For my part, I am too dull to perceive the difference between those
rewards used to brute beasts, and those that are used to men. If they be
not properly called rewards and punishments, let him give them their
proper name. It may be he will say, he has done it in calling them
_analogical_; yet for any thing that can be understood thereby, he might
have called them _paragogical_, or _typical_, or _topical_, if he had
pleased. He adds further, that whereas he had said that the actions of
bees and spiders were done without consultation, by mere instinct of
nature, and by a determination of their fancies, I misallege him, and
say he made their individual actions necessary. I have only this to
answer, that, seeing he says that by instinct of nature their fancies
were determined to special kinds of works, I might justly infer they
were determined every one of them to some work; and every work is an
individual action; for _a kind of work_ in the general, is no work. But
these their individual actions, he saith, “are contingent, and therefore
not necessary”; which is no good consequence: for if he mean by
_contingent_, that which has no cause, he speaketh not as a Christian,
but maketh a Deity of fortune; which I verily think he doth not. But if
he mean by it, that whereof he knoweth not the cause, the consequence is
nought.
The means whereby setting-dogs, and coy-ducks, and parrots, are taught
to do what they do, “is by their backs, 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,” &c. Does
not the Bishop know that the belly hath taught poets, and historians,
and divines, and philosophers, and artificers, their several arts, as
well as parrots? Do not men do their duty with regard to their backs, to
their necks, and to their morsels, as well as setting-dogs, coy-ducks,
and parrots? Why then are these things to us the substance, and to them
but the _shadow_ or _resemblance_ of rewards or punishments?
(_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,” &c.: but “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.”
If the Bishop had considered the cogitations of his own mind, not then
when he disputeth, but then when he followed those businesses which he
calleth trifles, he would have found them the very same which he here
mentioneth; saving instead of _beating_, (because he is exempt from
that), he is to put _in damage_. For, setting aside the discourse of the
tongue in words of general signification, the ideas of our minds are the
same with those of other living creatures, created from visible,
audible, and other sensible objects to the eyes and other organs of
sense, as their’s are. For as the objects of sense are all individual,
that is, singular, so are all the fancies proceeding from their
operations; and men reason not but in words of universal signification,
uttered or tacitly thought on. But perhaps he thinketh remembrance of
words to be the ideas of those things which the words signify; and that
all fancies are not effected by the operation of objects upon the organs
of our senses. But to rectify him in those points is greater labour
(unless he had better principles) than I am willing, or have at this
time leisure, to undergo.
Lastly, whereas he says, “if their individual actions were absolutely
necessary, fear or hope could not alter them”: that is true. For it is
fear and hope, that makes them necessarily what they are.