_T. H._ First, I conceive that when it cometh into a man’s mind to do or
not to do some certain action, if he have no time to deliberate, the
doing or abstaining necessarily followeth the present thought he had of
the good or evil consequence thereof to himself. As for example, in
sudden anger the action shall follow the thought of revenge, in sudden
fear the thought of escape. Also when a man hath time to deliberate, but
deliberates not, because never anything appeared that could make him
doubt of the consequence, the action follows his opinion of the goodness
or harm of it. These actions I call voluntary. He, if I understand him
aright, calls them spontaneous. I call them voluntary, because those
actions that follow immediately the last appetite, are voluntary. And
here, where there is one only appetite, that one is the last.
Besides, I see it is reasonable to punish a rash action; which could not
be justly done by man, unless the same were voluntary. For no action of
a man can be said to be without deliberation, though never so sudden;
because it is supposed he had time to deliberate all the precedent time
of his life, whether he should do that kind of action or not. And hence
it is, that he that killeth in a sudden passion of anger, shall
nevertheless be justly put to death: because all the time wherein he was
able to consider whether to kill were good or evil, shall be held for
one continual deliberation; and consequently the killing shall be judged
to proceed from election.
[Sidenote: The Bishop’s reply.]
J. D. “This part of T. H.’s discourse hangs together like a sick man’s
dreams. (_a_) Even now he tells us, that ‘a man may have time to
deliberate, yet not deliberate’. By and by he saith, that ‘no action of
a man, though never so sudden, can be said to be without deliberation’.
He tells us, No. XXXIII., that ‘the scope of this section is to show
what is spontaneous’. Howbeit he showeth only what is voluntary; (_b_)
so making voluntary and spontaneous to be all one; whereas before he had
told us, that ‘every spontaneous action is not voluntary, because
indeliberate; nor every voluntary action spontaneous, if it proceed from
fear.’ (_c_) Now he tells us, that ‘those actions which follow the last
appetite, are voluntary; and where there is one only appetite, that is
the last’. But before he told us, that ‘voluntary presupposeth some
precedent deliberation and meditation of what is likely to follow, both
upon the doing and abstaining from the action’. (_d_) He defines
liberty, No. XXIX., to be ‘the absence of all extrinsical impediments to
action’. And yet in his whole discourse he laboureth to make good, that
whatsoever is not done, is therefore not done, because the agent was
necessitated by extrinsical causes not to do it. Are not extrinsical
causes, which determine him not to do it, extrinsical impediments to
action? So no man shall be free to do any thing but that which he doth
actually. He defines a free agent to be ‘him who hath not made an end of
deliberating’ (No. XXVIII.). And yet defines liberty to be ‘an absence
of outward impediments’. There may be outward impediments, even whilst
he is deliberating. As a man deliberates whether he shall play at
tennis: and at the same time the door of the tennis-court is fast locked
against him. And after a man hath ceased to deliberate, there may be no
outward impediments: as when a man resolves not to play at tennis,
because he finds himself ill-disposed, or because he will not hazard his
money. So the same person, at the same time, should be free and not
free, not free and free. And as he is not firm to his own grounds, so he
confounds all things, the mind and the will, the estimative faculty and
the understanding, imagination with deliberation, the end with the
means, human will with the sensitive appetite, rational hope or fear
with irrational passions, inclinations with intentions, a beginning of
being with a beginning of working, sufficiency with efficiency. So as
the greatest difficulty is to find out what he aims at. So as I had once
resolved not to answer this part of his discourse; yet upon better
advice I will take a brief survey of it also; and show how far I assent
unto, or dissent from that which I conceive to be his meaning.
“And first, concerning sudden passions, as anger or the like. (_e_) That
which he saith, that ‘the action doth necessarily follow the thought’,
is thus far true; that those actions which are altogether undeliberated
and do proceed from sudden and violent passions, or _motus primo primi_,
which surprise a man, and give him no time to advise with reason, are
not properly and actually in themselves free, but rather necessary
actions; as when a man runs away from a cat or a custard out of a secret
antipathy.
(_f_) “Secondly, as for those actions ‘wherein actual deliberation seems
not necessary, because never anything appeared that could make a man
doubt of the consequence’: I do confess, that actions done by virtue of
a precedent deliberation, without any actual deliberation in the
present, when the act is done, may notwithstanding be truly both
voluntary and free acts, yea, in some cases and in some sense, more free
than if they were actually deliberated of in present. As one who hath
acquired by former deliberation and experience a habit to play upon the
virginals, needs not deliberate what man or what jack he must touch, nor
what finger of his hand he must move to play such a lesson; yea, if his
mind should be fixed, or intent to every motion of his hand, or every
touch of a string, it would hinder his play, and render the action more
troublesome to him. Wherefore I believe, that not only his playing in
general, but every motion of his hand, though it be not presently
deliberated of, is a free act, by reason of his precedent deliberation.
So then (saving improprieties of speech, as calling that voluntary which
is free, and limiting the will to the last appetite; and other mistakes,
as that no act can be said to be without deliberation) we agree also for
the greater part in this second observation.
(_g_) “Thirdly, whereas he saith, that ‘some sudden acts proceeding from
violent passions, which surprise a man, are justly punished’; I grant
they are so sometimes; but not for his reason, because they have been
formerly actually deliberated of; but because they were virtually
deliberated of, or because it is our fault that they were not actually
deliberated of, whether it was a fault of pure negation, that is, of not
doing our duty only, or a fault of bad disposition also, by reason of
some vicious habit which we had contracted by our former actions. To do
a necessary act is never a fault, nor justly punishable, when the
necessity is inevitably imposed upon us by extrinsical causes. As if a
child, before he had the use of reason, shall kill a man in his passion;
yet because he wanted malice to incite him to it, and reason to restrain
him from it, he shall not die for it in the strict rules of particular
justice, unless there be some mixture of public justice in the case.
(_h_) “But if the necessity be contracted by ourselves, and by our own
faults, it is justly punishable. As he who by his wanton thoughts in the
day-time doth procure his own nocturnal pollution: a man cannot
deliberate in his sleep, yet it is accounted a sinful act, and
consequently, a free act, that is, not actually free in itself, but
virtually free in its causes; and though it be not expressly willed and
chosen, yet it is tacitly and implicitly willed and chosen, when that is
willed and chosen from whence it was necessarily produced. By the
Levitical law, if a man digged a pit and left it uncovered, so that his
neighbour’s ox or his ass did fall into it, he was bound to make
reparation; not because he did choose to leave it uncovered on purpose
that such a mischance might happen, but because he did freely omit that
which he ought to have done, from whence this damage proceeded to his
neighbour. Lastly, there is great difference between the first motions,
which sometimes are not in our power, and subsequent acts of killing or
stealing, or the like, which always are in our power if we have the use
of reason, or else it is our own fault that they are not in our power.
Yet to such hasty acts done in hot blood the law is not so severe, as to
those which are done upon long deliberation and prepensed malice,
unless, as I said, there be some mixture of public justice in it. He
that steals a horse deliberately, may be more punishable by the law than
he that kills the owner by chance-medley: yet the death of the owner was
more noxious, (to use his phrase), and more damageable to the family,
than the stealth of the horse. So far was T. H. mistaken in that also,
that the right to kill men doth proceed merely from their being noxious
(No. XIV).”
ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE BISHOP’S ANSWER TO MY OPINION ABOUT LIBERTY AND
NECESSITY NO. XXV.
(_a_) “Even now he tells us, that ‘a man may have time to deliberate,
yet not deliberate’. By and by he saith, that ‘no action of a man,
though never so sudden, can be said to be without deliberation’.” He
thinks he hath here caught me in a contradiction; but he is mistaken;
and the cause is, that he observed not that there may be a difference
between deliberation and that which shall be construed for deliberation
by a judge. For a man may do a rash act suddenly without deliberation;
yet because he ought to have deliberated, and had time enough to
deliberate whether the action were lawful or not, it shall not be said
by the judge that it was without deliberation, who supposeth that after
the law known, all the time following was time of deliberation. It is
therefore no contradiction, to say a man deliberates not, and that he
shall be said to deliberate by him that is the judge of voluntary
actions.
(_b_) “Again, where he says, ‘he maketh voluntary and spontaneous
actions to be all one’, whereas before he had told us that ‘every
spontaneous action is not voluntary, because indeliberate; nor every
voluntary action spontaneous, if it proceed from fear’.” He thinks he
hath espied another contradiction. It is no wonder if speaking of
spontaneous, which signifieth nothing else in Latin (for English it is
not) but that which is done deliberately or indeliberately without
compulsion, I seem to the Bishop, who hath never given any definition of
that word, not to use it as he would have me. And it is easy for him to
give it any signification he please, as the occasion shall serve to
charge me with contradiction. In what sense I have used that word once,
in the same I have used it always, calling that spontaneous which is
without co-action or compulsion by terror.
(_c_) “Now he tells us, that ‘those actions which follow the last
appetite are voluntary, and where there is one only appetite, that is
the last’. But before he told us, that ‘voluntary presupposeth some
precedent deliberation and meditation of what is likely to follow, both
upon the doing and abstaining from the _action_’.” This is a third
contradiction he supposeth he hath found, but is again mistaken. For
when men are to judge of actions, whether they be voluntary or not, they
cannot call that action voluntary, which followed not the last appetite.
But the same men, though there were no deliberation, shall judge there
was, because it ought to have been, and that from the time that the law
was known to the time of the action itself. And therefore both are true,
that voluntary may be without, and yet presupposed in the law not to be
without deliberation.
(_d_) “He defines liberty (No. XXIX.) to be ‘the absence of all
extrinsical impediments to action’. And yet in his whole discourse he
laboureth to make good, that whatsoever is not done, is therefore not
done, because the agent was necessitated by extrinsical causes not to do
it. Are not extrinsical causes which determine him not to do it,
extrinsical impediments to action?” This definition of liberty, that it
is “the absence of all extrinsical impediments to action”, he thinks he
hath sufficiently confuted by asking whether the extrinsical causes,
which determine a man not to do an action, be not extrinsical
impediments to action. It seems by his question he makes no doubt but
they are; but is deceived by a too shallow consideration of what the
word _impediment_ signifieth. For impediment or hinderance signifieth an
opposition to endeavour. And therefore if a man be necessitated by
extrinsical causes not to endeavour an action, those causes do not
oppose his endeavour to do it, because he has no such endeavour to be
opposed; and consequently extrinsical causes that take away endeavour,
are not to be called impediments; nor can any man be said to be hindered
from doing that, which he had no purpose at all to do. So that this
objection of his proceedeth only from this, that he understandeth not
sufficiently the English tongue. From the same proceedeth also that he
thinketh it a contradiction, to call a free agent him that hath not yet
made an end of deliberating, and to call liberty an absence of outward
impediments. “For,” saith he, “there may be outward impediments, even
while he is deliberating.” Wherein he is deceived. For though he may
deliberate of that which is impossible for him to do; as in the example
he allegeth of him that deliberateth whether he shall play at tennis,
not knowing that the door of the tennis-court is shut against him; yet
it is no impediment to him that the door is shut, till he have a will to
play; which be hath not till he hath done deliberating whether he shall
play or not. That which followeth of my confounding mind and will; the
estimative faculty and the understanding; the imagination and
deliberation; the end and the means; the human will and the sensitive
appetite; rational hope or fear, and irrational passions; inclinations
and intentions; a beginning of being and a beginning of working;
sufficiency and efficiency: I do not find in anything that I have
written, any impropriety in the use of these or any other English words;
nor do I doubt but an English reader, who hath not lost himself in
School-divinity, will very easily conceive what I have said. But this I
am sure, that I never confounded beginning of being with beginning of
working, nor sufficiency with efficiency; nor ever used these words,
sensitive appetite, rational hope, or rational fear, or irrational
passions. It is therefore impossible I should confound them. But the
Bishop is either mistaken, or else he makes no scruple to say that which
he knows to be false, when he thinks it will serve his turn.
(_e_) “That which he saith, that ‘the action doth necessarily follow the
thought’, is thus far true; that those actions which are altogether
undeliberated, and do proceed from violent passions, &c, are not
properly, and actually in themselves free, but rather necessary actions,
as when a man runs away from a cat or a custard.” Thus far he says is
true. But when he calls sudden passions _motus primo primi_, I cannot
tell whether he says true or not, because I do not understand him; nor
find how he makes his meaning ever the clearer by his example of a cat
and a custard, because I know not what he means by a secret antipathy.
For what that antipathy is he explaineth not by calling it secret, but
rather confesseth he knows not how to explain it. And because he saith,
it is _thus far true_, I expect he should tell me also how far it is
false.
(_f_) “Secondly, as for those actions wherein actual deliberation seems
not necessary, ‘because never anything appeared that could make a man
doubt of the consequence’; I do confess that actions done by virtue of a
precedent deliberation, without any actual deliberation for the present,
may notwithstanding be truly voluntary and free acts.” In this he agrees
with me. But where he adds, “yea, in some cases, and in some sense more
free, than if they were actually deliberated of in present”, I do not
agree with him. And for the instance he bringeth to prove it, in the man
that playeth on an instrument with his hand it maketh nothing for him.
For it proveth only, that the habit maketh the motion of his hand more
ready and quick; but it proveth not that it maketh it more voluntary,
but rather less; because the rest of the motions follow the first by an
easiness acquired from long custom; in which motion the will doth not
accompany all the strokes of the hand, but gives a beginning to them
only in the first. Here is nothing, as I expected, of how far that which
I had said, namely, that the action doth necessarily follow the thought,
is false; unless it be “improprieties of speech, as calling that
voluntary which is free, and limiting the will to the last appetite; and
other mistakes, as that no act can be said to be without deliberation”.
For improprieties of speech, I will not contend with one that can use
_motus primo primi_, _practice practicum_, _actus elicitus_, and many
other phrases of the same kind. But to say that free actions are
voluntary; and that the will which causeth a voluntary action, is the
last appetite; and that that appetite was immediately followed by the
action; and that no action of a man can be said in the judgment of the
law, to be without deliberation: are no mistakes, for anything that he
hath proved to the contrary.
(_g_) “Thirdly, whereas he saith, that ‘some sudden acts, proceeding
from violent passions which surprise a man, are justly punished’; I
grant they are so sometimes, but not for his reason, &c.” My reason was,
“because he had time to deliberate from the instant that he knew the
law, to the instant of his action, and ought to have deliberated”, that
therefore he may be justly punished. The Bishop grants they are justly
punished, and his reason is, “because they were virtually deliberated
of”, or, “because it is our fault they were not actually deliberated
of”. How a man does deliberate, and yet not actually deliberate, I
understand not. If virtual deliberation be not actual deliberation, it
is no deliberation. But he calleth virtual deliberation, that which
ought to have been, and was not; and says the same that he condemns in
me. And his other reason, namely, because it is our fault that we
deliberated not, is the same that I said, that we ought to have
deliberated, and did not. So that his reprehension here, is a
reprehension of himself, proceeding from that the custom of
School-language hath made him forget the language of his country. And to
that which he adds, “that a necessary act is never a fault, nor justly
punishable, when the necessity is inevitably imposed upon us by
extrinsical causes”, I have sufficiently answered before in diverse
places; shewing that a fault may be necessary from extrinsical causes,
and yet voluntary; and that voluntary faults are justly punishable.
(_h_) “But if the necessity be contracted by ourselves, it is justly
punishable. As he who by his wanton thoughts in the day time, doth
procure his own nocturnal pollution.” This instance, because it maketh
not against anything I have held, and partly also because it is a
stinking passage, (for surely if, as he that ascribes eyes to the
understanding, allows me to say it hath a nose, it stinketh to the nose
of the understanding); this sentence I pass over, observing only the
canting terms, _not actually free in itself_, but _virtually free in its
causes_. In the rest of his answer to this No. XXV, I find nothing
alleged in confutation of anything I have said, saving that his last
words are, that “T. H. is mistaken in that also, that the right to kill
men doth proceed merely from their being noxious” (No. XIV.). But to
that I have in the same No. XIV. already answered. I must not pass over,
that a little before he hath these words: “If a child, before he have
the use of reason, shall kill a man in his passion, yet because he
wanted malice to incite him to it, and reason to restrain him from it,
he shall not die for it, in the strict rules of particular justice,
unless there be some mixture of public justice in the case”. The Bishop
would make but an ill judge of innocent children, for such are they
that, for want of age, have not use enough of reason to abstain from
killing. For the want of reason proceeding from want of age, does
therefore take away the punishment, because it taketh away the crime,
and makes them innocent. But he introduceth another justice, which he
calleth _public_; whereas he called the other _particular_. And by this
public justice, he saith, the child though innocent may be put to death.
I hope we shall never have the administration of public justice in such
hands as his, or in the hands of such as shall take counsel from him.
But the distinction he makes is not by himself understood. There are
public causes, and private causes. Private are those, where the parties
to the cause are both private men. Public are those, where one of the
parties is the commonwealth, or the person that representeth it, and the
cause criminal. But there is no distinction of justice into public and
private. We may read of men that, having sovereign power, did sometimes
put an innocent to death, either upon a vow; as Jepthah did in
sacrificing his daughter; or when it hath been thought fit that an
innocent person should be put to death to save a great number of people.
But to put to death a child, not for reason of state, which he
improperly calls public justice, but for killing a man, and at the same
time to acknowledge such killing to be no crime, I think was never heard
of.