[Sidenote: The Bishop’s reply.]
_J. D._ “Now to the distinction itself, I say, first, that the proper
act of liberty is election, and election is opposed, not only to
coaction, but also to coarctation, or determination to one.
Necessitation or determination to one, may consist with spontaneity, but
not with election or liberty; as hath been showed. The very Stoics did
acknowledge a spontaneity. So our adversaries are not yet gone out of
the confines of the Stoics.
“Secondly, to rip up the bottom of this business, this I take to be the
clear resolution of the Schools. There is a double act of the will: the
one more remote, called _imperatus_, that is, in truth the act of some
inferior faculty, subject to the command of the will, as to open or shut
one’s eyes; without doubt these actions may be compelled. The other act
is nearer, called _actus elicitus_, an act drawn out of the will, as to
will, to choose, to elect. This may be stopped or hindered by the
intervening impediment of the understanding, as a stone lying on a table
is kept from its natural motion; otherwise the will should have a kind
of omnipotence. But the will cannot be compelled to an act repugnant to
its inclination, as when a stone is thrown upwards into the air; for
that is both to incline and not to incline to the same object at the
same time, which implies a contradiction. Therefore to say the will is
necessitated, is to say, the will is compelled so far as the will is
capable of compulsion. If a strong man holding the hand of a weaker,
should therewith kill a third person, _hæc quidem vis est_, this is
violence; the weaker did not willingly perpetrate the fact, because he
was compelled. But now suppose this strong man had the will of the
weaker in his power as well as the hand, and should not only incline,
but determine it secretly and insensibly to commit this act: is not the
case the same? Whether one ravish Lucretia by force, as Tarquin, or by
amatory potions and magical incantations not only allure her, but
necessitate her to satisfy his lust, and incline her effectually, and
draw her inevitably and irresistibly, to follow him spontaneously,
Lucretia in both these conditions is to be pitied. But the latter person
is more guilty, and deserves greater punishment, who endeavours also, so
much as in him lies, to make Lucretia irresistibly partake of his crime.
I dare not apply it, but thus only: take heed how we defend those secret
and invincible necessitations to evil, though spontaneous and free from
coaction.
“These are their fastnesses.”
_T. H._ In the next place, he bringeth two arguments against
distinguishing between being free from compulsion, and free from
necessitation. The first is, that election is opposite, not only to
coaction or compulsion, but also to necessitation or determination to
one. This is it he was to prove from the beginning, and therefore
bringeth no new argument to prove it. And to those brought formerly, I
have already answered; and in this place I deny again, that election is
opposite to either. For when a man is compelled, for example, to subject
himself to an enemy or to die, he hath still election left in him, and a
deliberation to bethink which of these two he can better endure; and he
that is led to prison by force, hath election, and may deliberate,
whether he will be haled and trained on the ground, or make use of his
feet.
Likewise when there is no compulsion, but the strength of temptation to
do an evil action, being greater than the motives to abstain,
necessarily determines him to the doing of it, yet he deliberates whilst
sometimes the motives to do, sometimes the motives to forbear, are
working on him, and consequently he electeth which he will. But
commonly, when we see and know the strength that moves us, we
acknowledge necessity; but when we see not, or mark not the force that
moves us, we then think there is none, and that it is not causes, but
liberty that produceth the action. Hence it is that they think he does
not choose this, that of necessity chooseth it; but they might as well
say fire does not burn, because it burns of necessity. The second
argument is not so much an argument, as a distinction, to show in what
sense it may be said that voluntary actions are necessitated, and in
what sense not. And therefore he allegeth, as from the authority of the
Schools and that which “rippeth up the bottom of the question”, that
there is a double act of the will. The one, he says, is _actus
imperatus_, an act done at the command of the will by some inferior
faculty of the soul, as to open or shut one’s eyes: and this act may be
compelled. The other, he says, is _actus elicitus_, an act allured, or
an act drawn forth by allurement out of the will, as to will, to choose,
to elect: this, he says, cannot be compelled. Wherein letting pass that
metaphorical speech of attributing command and subjection to the
faculties of the soul, as if they made a commonwealth or family among
themselves, and could speak one to another, which is very improper in
searching the truth of the question: you may observe first, that to
compel a voluntary act is nothing else but to will it. For it is all one
to say, my will commands the shutting of mine eyes or the doing of any
other action, and to say, I have the will to shut mine eyes. So that
_actus imperatus_ here, might as easily have been said in English, _a
voluntary action_, but that they that invented the term understood not
any thing it signified. Secondly you may observe, that _actus elicitus_
is exemplified by these words, to will, to elect, to choose, which are
all one; and so to will is here made an act of the will; and indeed, as
the will is a faculty or power of a man’s soul, so to will is an act of
it according to that power. But as it is absurdly said, that to dance is
an act allured or drawn by fair means out of the ability to dance; so it
is also to say, that to will is an act allured or drawn out of the power
to will, which power is commonly called the will. Howsoever it be, the
sum of his distinction is, that a voluntary act may be done on
compulsion, that is to say, by foul means; but to will that or any act
cannot be but by allurement or fair means. Now, seeing fair means,
allurements, and enticements, produce the action which they do produce
as necessarily as threatening and foul means, it follows, that to will
may be made as necessary as any thing that is done by compulsion. So
that the distinction of _actus imperatus_, and _actus elicitus_, are but
words, and of no effect against necessity.
_J. D._ “In the next place follow two reasons of mine own against the
same distinction, the one taken from the former grounds, that election
cannot consist with determination to one. To this, he saith, he hath
answered already. No; truth is founded upon a rock. He hath been so far
from prevailing against it, that he hath not been able to shake it.
(_a_) Now again he tells us, that ‘election is not opposite to either’,
necessitation or compulsion. He might even as well tell us, that a stone
thrown upwards moves naturally; or that a woman can be ravished with her
own will. Consent takes away the rape. This is the strangest liberty
that ever was heard of, that a man is compelled to do what he would not,
and yet is free to do what he will. And this he tells us upon the old
score, that ‘he who submits to his enemy for fear of death, chooseth to
submit’. But we have seen formerly, that this which he calls compulsion,
is not compulsion properly, nor that natural determination of the will
to one, which is opposite to true liberty. He who submits to an enemy
for saving his life, doth either only counterfeit, and then there is no
will to submit; (this disguise is no more than a stepping aside to avoid
a present blow); or else he doth sincerely will a submission, and then
the will is changed. There is a vast difference between compelling and
changing the will. Either God or man may change the will of man, either
by varying the condition of things, or by informing the party otherwise:
but compelled it cannot be, that is, it cannot both will this and not
will this, as it is invested with the same circumstances; though, if the
act were otherwise circumstantiated, it might nill that freely which now
it wills freely. (_b_) Wherefore this kind of actions are called mixed
actions, that is partly voluntary, partly involuntary. That which is
compelled in a man’s present condition or distress, that is not
voluntary nor chosen. That which is chosen, as the remedy of its
distress, that is voluntary. So hypothetically, supposing a man were not
in that distress, they are involuntary; but absolutely without any
supposition at all, taking the case as it is, they are voluntary. (_c_)
His other instance of ‘a man forced to prison, that he may choose
whether he will be haled thither upon the ground, or walk upon his
feet,’ is not true. By his leave, that is not as he pleaseth, but as it
pleaseth them who have him in their power. If they will drag him, he is
not free to walk; and if they give him leave to walk, he is not forced
to be dragged. (_d_) Having laid this foundation, he begins to build
upon it, that ‘other passions do necessitate as much as fear’. But he
errs doubly; first, in his foundation. Fear doth not determine the
rational will naturally and necessarily. The last and greatest of the
five terrible things is death; yet the fear of death cannot necessitate
a resolved mind to do a dishonest action, which is worse than death. The
fear of the fiery furnace could not compel the three children to worship
an idol, nor the fear of the lions necessitate Daniel to omit his duty
to God. It is our frailty, that we are more afraid of empty shadows than
of substantial dangers, because they are nearer our senses; as little
children fear a mouse or a visard more than fire or weather. But as a
fit of the stone takes away the sense of the gout for the present, so
the greater passion doth extinguish the less. The fear of God’s wrath
and eternal torments doth expel corporeal fear: _fear not them who kill
the body, but fear him who is able to cast both body and soul into hell_
(Luke xii. 4). (_e_) _Da veniam imperator; tu carcerem, ille gehennam
minatur._--_Excuse me, O emperor, thou threatenest men with prison, but
he threatens me with hell._ (_f_) Secondly, he errs in his
superstruction also. There is a great difference, as to this case of
justifying, or not justifying an action, between force and fear, and
other passions. Force doth not only lessen the sin, but takes it quite
away. He who forced a betrothed damsel was to die; ‘but unto the
damsel,’ saith he, ‘thou shalt do nothing, there is in her no fault
worthy of death’ (Deut. xxii. 26). Tamar’s beauty, or Ammon’s love, did
not render him innocent; but Ammon’s force rendered Tamar innocent. But
fear is not so prevalent as force. Indeed if fear be great and justly
grounded, such as may fall upon a constant man, though it do not
dispense with the transgression of the negative precepts of God or
nature, because they bind to all times, yet it diminisheth the offence
even against them, and pleads for pardon. But it dispenseth in many
cases with the transgression of the positive law, either divine or
human; because it is not probable that God or the law would oblige man
to the observation of all positive precepts, with so great damage as the
loss of his life. The omission of circumcision was no sin, whilst the
Israelites were travelling through the wilderness. By T. H.’s
permission, (_g_) I will propose a case to him. A gentleman sends his
servant with money to buy a dinner; some Russians meet him by the way,
and take it from him by force; the servant cried for help, and did what
he could to defend himself, but all would not serve. The servant is
innocent, if he were to be tried before a court of Areopagites. Or
suppose the Russians did not take it from him by force, but drew their
swords and threatened to kill him except he delivered it himself; no
wise man will conceive, that it was either the master’s intention or the
servant’s duty to hazard his life or limbs for saving of such a trifling
sum. But on the other side, suppose this servant, passing by some
cabaret or tennis-court where his comrades were drinking or playing,
should stay with them, and drink or play away his money, and afterwards
plead, as T. H. doth here, that he was overcome by the mere strength of
temptation. I trow, neither T. H. nor any man else would admit of this
excuse, but punish him for it: because neither was he necessitated by
the temptation, and what strength it had was by his own fault, in
respect of that vicious habit which he had contracted of drinking or
gaming: (James i. 14): _Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of
his own lust and enticed_. Disordered passions of anger, hatred, lust,
if they be consequent (as the case is here put by T. H.) and flow from
deliberation and election, they do not only not diminish the fault, but
they aggravate it, and render it much greater.
(_h_) “He talks much of the ‘motives to do and motives to forbear, how
they work upon and determine a man’; as if a reasonable man were no more
than a tennis-ball, to be tossed to and fro by the rackets of the second
causes; as if the will had no power to move itself, but were merely
passive, like an artificial popingay removed hither and thither by the
bolts of the archers, who shoot on this side and on that. What are
motives, but reasons or discourses framed by the understanding, and
freely moved by the will? What are the will and the understanding, but
faculties of the same soul? And what is liberty but a power resulting
from them both? To say that the will is determined by these motives, is
as much as to say that the agent is determined by himself. If there be
no necessitation before the judgment of right reason doth dictate to the
will, then there is no antecedent, no extrinsical necessitation at all.
(_i_) All the world knows, that when the agent is determined by himself,
then the effect is determined likewise in its cause. But if he
determined himself freely, then the effect is free. Motives determine
not naturally, but morally; which kind of determination may consist with
true liberty. But if T. H.’s opinion were true, that the will were
naturally determined by the physical and special influence of
extrinsical causes, not only motives were vain, but reason itself and
deliberation were vain. No, saith he, they are not vain, because they
are the means. Yes, if the means be superfluous, they are vain. What
needed such a circuit of deliberation to advise what is fit to be done,
when it is already determined extrinsically what must be done?
(_k_) “He saith, ‘that the ignorance of the true causes and their power,
is the reason why we ascribe the effect to liberty; but when we
seriously consider the causes of things, we acknowledge a necessity’. No
such thing, but just the contrary. The more we consider, and the clearer
we understand, the greater is the liberty, and the more the knowledge of
our own liberty. The less we consider, and the more incapable that the
understanding is, the lesser is the liberty, and the knowledge of it.
And where there is no consideration nor use of reason, there is no
liberty at all, there is neither moral good nor evil. Some men, by
reason that their exterior senses are not totally bound, have a trick to
walk in their sleep. Suppose such a one in that case should cast himself
down a pair of stairs or from a bridge, and break his neck or drown
himself; it were a mad jury that would find this man accessary to his
own death. Why? Because it was not freely done, he had not then the use
of reason.
(_l_) “Lastly, he tells us, that ‘the will doth choose of necessity, as
well as the fire burns of necessity’. If he intend no more but this,
that election is the proper and natural act of the will as burning is of
the fire, or that the elective power is as necessarily in a man as
visibility, he speaks truly, but most impertinently; for, the question
is not now of the elective power, _in actu primo_, whether it be an
essential faculty of the soul, but whether the act of electing this or
that particular object, be free and undetermined by any antecedent and
extrinsical causes. But if he intend it in this other sense, that as the
fire hath no power to suspend its burning, nor to distinguish between
those combustible matters which are put unto it, but burns that which is
put unto it necessarily, if it be combustible; so the will hath no power
to refuse that which it wills, nor to suspend its own appetite: he errs
grossly. The will hath power either to will or nill, or to suspend, that
is, neither to will nor nill the same object. Yet even the burning of
the fire, if it be considered as it is invested with all particular
circumstances, is not otherwise so necessary an action as T. H.
imagineth. (_m_) Two things are required to make an effect necessary.
First, that it be produced by a necessary cause, such as fire is;
secondly, that it be necessarily produced. Protagoras, an atheist, began
his book thus: ‘Concerning the Gods, I have nothing to say, whether they
be or they be not’: for which his book was condemned by the Athenians to
be burned. The fire was a necessary agent, but the sentence or the
application of the fire to the book was a free act; and therefore the
burning of his book was free. Much more the rational will is free, which
is both a voluntary agent, and acts voluntarily.
(_n_) “My second reason against this distinction, of liberty from
compulsion but not from necessitation, is new, and demonstrates clearly
that to necessitate the will by a physical necessity, is to compel the
will so far as the will is capable of compulsion; and that he who doth
necessitate the will to evil after that manner, is the true cause of
evil, and ought rather to be blamed than the will itself. But T. H., for
all he saith he is not surprised, can be contented upon better advise to
steal by all this in silence. And to hide this tergiversation from the
eyes of the reader, he makes an empty shew of braving against that
famous and most necessary distinction, between the _elicite_ and
_imperate_ acts of the will; first, because the terms are _improper_;
secondly, because they are _obscure_. What trivial and grammatical
objections are these, to be used against the universal current of
divines and philosophers. _Verborum ut nummorum_, it is in words as it
is in money: use makes them proper and current. A _tyrant_ at first
signified a lawful and just prince; now, use hath quite changed the
sense of it, to denote either a usurper or an oppressor. The word
_præmunire_ is now grown a good word in our English laws, by use and
tract of time; and yet at first it was merely mistaken for a
_præmonere_. The names of Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, were derived at first
from those heathenish deities, the Sun, the Moon, and the warlike god of
the Germans. Now we use them for distinction sake only, without any
relation to their first original. He is too froward, that will refuse a
piece of coin that is current throughout the world, because it is not
stamped after his own fancy. So is he that rejects a good word, because
he understands not the derivation of it. We see foreign words are daily
naturalized and made free denizens in every country. But why are the
terms improper? ‘Because,’ saith he, ‘it attributes command, and
subjection to the faculties of the soul, as if they made a commonwealth
or family among themselves, and could speak one to another.’ Therefore,
he saith, (_o_) they who invented this term of _actus imperatus_,
understood not anything what it signified. No; why not? It seemeth to
me, they understood it better than those who except against it. They
knew there are _mental terms_, which are only conceived in the mind, as
well as _vocal terms_, which are expressed with the tongue. They knew,
that howsoever a superior do intimate a direction to his inferior, it is
still a command. Tarquin commanded his son by only striking off the tops
of the poppies, and was by him both understood and obeyed. Though there
be no formal commonwealth or family either in the body or in the soul of
man, yet there is a subordination in the body, of the inferior members
to the head; there is a subordination in the soul, of the inferior
faculties to the rational will. Far be it from a reasonable man so far
to dishonour his own nature, as to equal fancy with understanding, or
the sensitive appetite with the reasonable will. A power of command
there is, without all question; though there be some doubt in what
faculty this command doth principally reside, whether in the will or in
the understanding. The true resolution is, that the directive command or
counsel is in the understanding; and the applicative command, or empire
for putting in execution of what is directed, is in the will. The same
answer serves for his second impropriety, about the word _elicite_. For
saith he, ‘as it is absurdly said, that to dance is an act allured, or
drawn by fair means, out of the ability to dance; so is it absurdly
said, that to will or choose, is an act drawn out of the power to will’.
His objection is yet more improper than the expression. The art of
dancing rather resembles the understanding than the will. That drawing
which the Schools intend, is clear of another nature from that which he
conceives. By _elicitation_, he understands a persuading or enticing
with flattering words, or sweet alluring insinuations, to choose this or
that. But that _elicitation_ which the Schools intend, is a deducing of
the power of the will into act; that drawing which they mention, is
merely from the appetibility of the object, or of the end. As a man
draws a child after him with the sight of a fair apple, or a shepherd
draws his sheep after him with the sight of a green bough: so the end
draws the will to it by a metaphorical motion. What he understands here
by an ability to dance, is more than I know, or any man else, until he
express himself in more proper terms; whether he understand the
locomotive faculty alone, or the art or acquired habit of dancing alone,
or both of these jointly. It may be said aptly without any absurdity,
that the act of dancing is drawn out (_elicitur_) of the locomotive
faculty helped by the acquired habit. He who is so scrupulous about the
received phrases of the Schools, should not have let so many improper
expressions have dropt from his pen; as in this very passage, he
confounds the _compelling_ of a voluntary action, with the _commanding_
of a voluntary action, and _willing_ with _electing_, which, he saith,
‘are all one’. Yet _to will_ properly respects the end, _to elect_ the
means.
(_p_) “His other objection against this distinction of the acts of the
will into _elicite_ and _imperate_, is obscurity. ‘Might it not,’ saith
he, ‘have been as easily said in English, a voluntary action.’ Yes, it
might have been said as easily, but not as truly, nor properly.
Whatsoever hath its original from the will, whether immediately or
mediately, whether it be a proper act of the will itself, as to elect,
or an act of the understanding, as to deliberate, or an act of the
inferior faculties or of the members, is a voluntary action: but neither
the act of reason, nor of the senses, nor of the sensitive appetite, nor
of the members, are the proper acts of the will, nor drawn immediately
out of the will itself; but the members and faculties are applied to
their proper and respective acts by the power of the will.
“And so he comes to cast up the total sum of my second reason with the
same faith that the unjust steward did make his accounts (Luke xvi).
‘The sum of J. D.’s distinction is,’ saith he, ‘that a voluntary act may
be done on compulsion,’ (just contrary to what I have maintained), ‘that
is to say, by foul means: but to will that or any act, cannot be but by
allurement or fair means.’ I confess the distinction is mine, because I
use it; as the sun is mine, or the air is mine, that is common to me
with all who treat of this subject. (_q_) But his mistakes are so thick,
both in relating my mind and his own, that the reader may conclude he is
wandered out of his known way. I will do my duty to show him the right
way. First, no acts which are properly said to be compelled, are
voluntary. Secondly, acts of terror, (which he calls foul means), which
are sometimes in a large improper sense called compulsory actions, may
be, and for the most part are, consistent with true liberty. Thirdly,
actions proceeding from blandishments or sweet persuasions, (which he
calls fair means), if they be indeliberated, as in children who want the
use of reason, are not presently free actions. Lastly, the strength of
consequent and deliberated desires doth neither diminish guilt, nor
excuse from punishment, as just fears of extreme and imminent dangers
threatened by extrinsical agents often do; because the strength of the
former proceeds from our own fault, and was freely elected in the causes
of it; but neither desires nor fears, which are consequent and
deliberated, do absolutely necessitate the will.