_T. H._ Lastly, I hold that the ordinary definition of a free agent,
namely, that a free agent is that, which when all things are present
which are needful to produce the effect, can nevertheless not produce
it, implies a contradiction, and is nonsense; being as much as to say,
the cause may be sufficient, that is, necessary, and yet the effect not
follow.
[Sidenote: The Bishop’s reply.]
_J. D._ “This last point is but a corollary, or an inference from the
former doctrine, that ‘every sufficient cause produceth its effect
necessarily’; which pillar being taken away the superstructure must
needs fall to the ground, having nothing left to support it. ‘Lastly, I
hold’, saith he. What he is able to prove, is something: so much reason,
so much trust. But what he holds, concerns himself, not others. But what
holds he? ‘I hold’, saith he, ‘that the ordinary definition of a free
agent implies a contradiction, and is nonsense.’ That which he calls the
‘ordinary definition’ of liberty, is the very definition which is given
by the much greater part of Philosophers and Schoolmen. And doth he
think that all these spake nonsense: or had no more judgment than to
contradict themselves in a definition? He might much better suspect
himself, than censure so many. Let us see the definition itself: ‘A free
agent is that, which when all things are present that are needful to
produce the effect, can nevertheless not produce it.’ I acknowledge the
old definition of liberty, with little variation. But I cannot see this
nonsense, nor discover this contradiction. For (_a_) in these words,
‘all things needful’, or ‘all things requisite’, the actual
determination of the will is not included. But by all things needful or
requisite, all necessary power either operative or elective, all
necessary instruments and adjuments extrinsical and intrinsical, and all
conditions are intended. As he that hath pen, and ink, and paper, a
table, a desk, and leisure, the art of writing, and the free use of his
hand, hath all things requisite to write if he will; and yet he may
forbear if he will. Or as he that hath men, and money, and arms, and
munition, and ships, and a just cause, hath all things requisite for
war; yet he may make peace if he will. Or as the king proclaimed in the
gospel (Matth. xxii. 4): _I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my
fatlings are killed, all things are ready; come unto the marriage_.
According to T. H.’s doctrine, the guests might have told him that he
said not truly, for their own wills were not ready. (_b_) And indeed if
the will were (as he conceives it is) necessitated extrinsically to
every act of willing, if it had no power to forbear willing what it doth
will, nor to will what it doth not will; then if the will were wanting,
something requisite to the producing of the effect was wanting. But now
when science and conscience, reason and religion, our own and other
men’s experience doth teach us, that the will hath a dominion over its
own acts to will or nill without extrinsical necessitation, if the power
to will be present _in actu primo_, determinable by ourselves, then
there is no necessary power wanting in this respect to the producing of
the effect.
“Secondly, these words, ‘to act or not to act, to work or not to work,
to produce or not to produce’, have reference to the effect, not as a
thing which is already done or doing, but as a thing to be done. They
imply not the actual production, but the producibility of the effect.
But when once the will hath actually concurred with all other causes and
conditions and circumstances, then the effect is no more possible nor
producible, but it is in being, and actually produced. Thus he takes
away the subject of the question. The question is, whether effects
producible be free from necessity. He shuffles out ‘effects producible’,
and thrusts in their places ‘effects produced’, or which are in the act
of production. Wherefore I conclude, that it is neither nonsense nor
contradiction to say that a free agent, when all things requisite to
produce the effect are present, may nevertheless not produce it.