[Sidenote: The Bishop’s reply.]
_J. D._ “Fourthly, the order, beauty, and perfection of the world doth
require that in the universe should be agents of all sorts, some
necessary, some free, some contingent. He that shall make, either all
things necessary, guided by destiny; or all things free, governed by
election; or all things contingent, happening by chance: doth overthrow
the beauty and the perfection of the world.”
_T. H._ The fourth argument from reason, is this. The order, beauty, and
perfection of the world requireth that in the universe there should be
agents of all sorts, some necessary, some free, some contingent. He that
shall make all things necessary, or all things free, or all things
contingent, doth overthrow the beauty and perfection of the world.
In which argument I observe, first, a contradiction. For seeing he that
maketh anything, in that he maketh it, he maketh it to be necessary, it
followeth, that he that maketh all things, maketh all things necessary
to be. As if a workman make a garment, the garment must necessarily be.
So if God make every thing, every thing must necessarily be. Perhaps the
beauty of the world requireth, though we know it not, that some agents
should work without deliberation, which he calls necessary agents; and
some agents with deliberation, and those both he and I call free agents;
and that some agents should work, and we not know how; and those effects
we both call contingent. But this hinders not, but that he that
electeth, may have his election necessarily determined to one by former
causes; and that which is contingent, and imputed to fortune, be
nevertheless necessary, and depend on precedent necessary causes. For by
contingent, men do not mean that which hath no cause, but which hath not
for cause any thing which we perceive. As for example; when a traveller
meets with a shower, the journey had a cause, and the rain had a cause,
sufficient enough to produce it; but because the journey caused not the
rain, nor the rain the journey, we say, they were contingent one to
another. And thus you see, though there be three sorts of events,
necessary, contingent, and free, yet they may be all necessary, without
the destruction of the beauty or perfection of the universe.
_J. D._ “The first thing he observes in mine argument, is contradiction,
as he calls it; but in truth, it is but a deception of the sight, as one
candle sometimes seems to be two, or a rod in the water shows to be two
rods; _quicquid recipitur, recipitur ad modum recipientis_. But what is
this contradiction? Because I say, he who maketh all things, doth not
make them necessary. What! a contradiction and but one proposition! That
were strange. I say, God hath not made all agents necessary; he saith,
God hath made all agents necessary. Here is a contradiction indeed; but
it is between him and me, not between me and myself. But though it be
not a formal contradiction, yet perhaps it may imply a contradiction _in
adjecto_. Wherefore to clear the matter, and dispel the mist which he
hath raised, it is true, that everything when it is made, it is
necessary that it be made so as it is, that is, by a necessity of
infallibility, or supposition, supposing that it be so made; but this is
not that absolute, antecedent necessity, whereof the question is between
him and me. As to use his own instance: before the garment be made, the
tailor is free to make it either of the Italian, Spanish, or French
fashion indifferently; but after it is made, it is necessary that it be
of that fashion whereof he hath made it, that is, by a necessity of
supposition. But this doth neither hinder the cause from being a free
cause, nor the effect from being a free effect; but the one did produce
freely, and the other was freely produced. So the contradiction is
vanished.”
“In the second part of his answer, (_a_) he grants; that there are some
free agents, and some contingent agents, and that perhaps the beauty of
the world doth require it; but like a shrewd cow, which after she hath
given her milk casts it down with her foot, in the conclusion he tells
us, that nevertheless they are all necessary. This part of his answer is
a mere logomachy, as a great part of the controversies in the world are,
or a contention about words. What is the meaning of necessary, and free,
and contingent actions? I have showed before what free and necessary do
properly signify; but he misrecites it. He saith, I make all agents
which want deliberation, to be necessary; but I acknowledge that many of
them are contingent. (_b_) Neither do I approve his definition of
contingents, though he say I concur with him, that they are ‘such agents
as work we know not how’. For, according to this description, many
necessary actions should be contingent, and many contingent actions
should be necessary. The loadstone draweth iron, the jet chaff, we know
not how; and yet the effect is necessary; and so it is in all sympathies
and antipathies or occult qualities. Again, a man walking in the
streets, a tile falls down from a house, and breaks his head. We know
all the causes, we know how this came to pass. The man walked that way,
the pin failed, the tile fell just when he was under it; and yet this is
a contingent effect: the man might not have walked that way, and then
the tile had not fallen upon him. Neither yet do I understand here in
this place by contingents, such events as happen beside the scope or
intention of the agents; as when a man digging to make a grave, finds a
treasure; though the word be sometimes so taken. But by contingents, I
understand all things which may be done and may not be done, may happen
or may not happen, by reason of the indetermination or accidental
concurrence of the causes. And those same things which are absolutely
contingent, are yet hypothetically necessary. As supposing the passenger
did walk just that way, just at that time, and that the pin did fail
just then, and the tile fall; it was necessary that it should fall upon
the passenger’s head. The same defence will keep out his shower of rain.
But we shall meet with his shower of rain again, No. XXXIV; whither I
refer the further explication of this point.”