(_a_) “The third pretence was out of moral philosophy misunderstood,
that outward objects do necessitate the will.” I cannot imagine how the
question, whether outward objects do necessitate or not necessitate the
will, can any way be referred to moral philosophy. The principles of
moral philosophy are the laws; wherewith outward objects have little to
do, as being for the most part inanimate, and which follow always the
force of nature without respect to moral laws. Nor can I conceive what
purpose he had to bring this into his reply to my answer, wherein I
attribute nothing in the action of outward objects to morality.
(_b_) “His first exception is, that ‘it is not material that the power
of outward objects do proceed from our own faults, if such faults of
ours proceed not from causes in our own power’. Well, but what if they
do proceed from causes that are in our own power, as in truth they do?
Then his answer is a mere subterfuge.” But how proves he that in truth
they do? ‘Because else,’ saith he, ‘they are not our faults at all.’
Very well reasoned. A horse is lame from a cause that was not in his
power: therefore the lameness is no fault in the horse. But his meaning
is, it is no injustice unless the causes were in his own power. As if it
were not injustice, whatsoever is willingly done against the law;
whatsoever it be, that is the cause of the will to do it.
(_c_) “Next he confesseth, that it is in our power by good endeavours to
alter those vicious habits which we had contracted, and to get the
contrary habits.” There is no such confession in my answer. I said,
prayer, fasting, &c., may alter our habits. But I never said that the
will to pray, fast, &c. is in our own power. “‘True,’ saith he, ‘but
then the contrary habit doth necessitate the one way, as well as the
former habit did the other way.’ By which very consideration it appears,
that that which he calls a necessity, is no more but a proclivity. If it
were a true necessity, it could not be avoided, nor altered by our
endeavours.” Again he mistakes: for I said that prayer, fasting, &c.
when they alter our habits, do necessarily cause the contrary habits;
which is not to say, that the habit necessitates, but is necessitated.
But this is common with him, to make me say that which out of reading,
not out of meditation, he useth to say himself. But how doth it appear,
that prayer and fasting, &c. make but a proclivity in men to do what
they do? For if it were but a proclivity, then what they do they do not.
Therefore they either necessitate the will, or the will followeth not. I
contend for the truth of this only, that when the will followeth them,
they necessitate the will; and when a proclivity followeth, they
necessitate the proclivity. But the Bishop thinks I maintain, that that
also is produced necessarily, which is not produced at all.
(_d_) “He adds, ‘that we are not moved to prayer or any other action,
but by outward objects, as pious company, and godly preachers, or
something equivalent’. Wherein are two other mistakes: first, to make
godly preachers and pious company to be outward objects, which are
outward agents; secondly, to affirm that the will is not moved but by
outward objects. The will is moved by itself, &c”. The first mistake, he
urgeth that I call preachers and company objects. Is not the preacher to
the hearer the object of his hearing? No, perhaps he will say, it is the
voice which is the object; and that we hear not the preacher, but his
voice; as before he said, the object of sight was not the cause of
sight. I must therefore once more make him smile with a great paradox,
which is this; that in all the senses, the object is the agent; and that
it is, when we hear a preacher, the preacher that we hear; and that his
voice is the same thing with the hearing and a fancy in the hearer,
though the motion of the lips and other organs of speech be his that
speaketh. But of this I have written more largely in a more proper
place.
My second mistake, in affirming that the will is not moved but by
outward objects, is a mistake of his own. For I said not, the will is
not moved, but we are not moved: for I always avoid attributing motion
to any thing but body. The will is produced, generated, formed, and
created in such sort as accidents are effected in a corporeal subject;
but moved it cannot be, because it goeth not from place to place. And
whereas he saith, “the will is moved by itself,” if he had spoken
properly as he ought to do, and said, the will is made or created by
itself, he would presently have acknowledged that it was impossible. So
that it is not without cause men use improper language, when they mean
to keep their errors from being detected. And because nothing can move
that is not itself moved, it is untruly said that either the will or any
thing else is moved by itself, by the understanding, by the sensitive
passions, or by acts or habits; or that acts or habits are infused by
God. For infusion is motion, and nothing is moved but bodies.
(_e_) “He answers, that I prove Ulysses was not necessitated to weep,
nor the philosopher to strike, but I do not prove that they were not
necessitated to forbear. He saith true; I am not now proving, but
answering.” By his favour, though he be answering now, he was proving
then. And what he answers now, maketh nothing more toward a proof than
was before. For these words, “the rational will hath power to slight the
most appetible objects, and to control the most unruly passions,” are no
more, being reduced into proper terms, than this: the appetite hath
power to be without appetite towards most appetible objects, and to will
contrary to the most unruly will; which is jargon.
(_f_) “He objects that ‘liberty is in no danger, but to be lost; but I
say it cannot be lost; therefore’, he infers, ‘that it is in no danger
at all.’ I answer, first, that liberty is in more danger to be abused,
than lost, &c.; secondly, liberty is in danger likewise to be weakened
by vicious habits; thirdly, it may be totally lost.” It is true that a
man hath more liberty one time than another, and in one place than
another; which is a difference of liberty as to the body. But as to the
liberty of doing what we will, in those things we are able to do it
cannot be greater one time than another. Consequently outward objects
can no ways endanger liberty, further than it destroyeth it. And his
answer, that liberty is in more danger to be abused than lost, is not to
the question, but a mere shift to be thought not silenced. And whereas
he says liberty is diminished by vicious habits, it cannot be understood
otherwise than that vicious habits make a man the less free to do
vicious actions; which I believe is not his meaning. And lastly, whereas
he says that “liberty is lost, when reason is lost; and that they who by
excess of study, or by continual gormandising, or by extravagant
passion, &c., do become sots, have consequently lost their liberty”: it
requireth proof. For, for any thing that I can observe, mad men and
fools have the same liberty that other men have, in those things that
are in their power to do.