I have said in the beginning of this number, that to define what
spontaneity is, what deliberation is, what will, propension, appetite, a
free agent, and liberty is, and to prove they are well defined, there
can be no other proof offered, but every man’s own experience and memory
of what he meaneth by such words. For definitions being the beginning of
all demonstration, cannot themselves be demonstrated, that is, proved to
another man; all that can be done, is either to put him in mind what
those words signify commonly in the matter whereof they treat, or if the
words be unusual, to make the definitions of them true by mutual consent
in their signification. And though this be manifestly true, yet there is
nothing of it amongst the Schoolmen, who use to argue not by rule, but
as fencers teach to handle weapons, by quickness only of the hand and
eye. The Bishop therefore boggles at this kind of proof; and says, (_a_)
“the true natures of things are not to be judged by the private ideas or
conceptions of men, but by their causes and formal reasons. Ask an
ordinary person what upwards signifies,” &c. But what will he answer, if
I should ask him, how he will judge of the causes of things, whereof he
hath no idea or conception in his own mind? It is therefore impossible
to give a true definition of any word without the idea of the thing
which that word signifieth, or not according to that idea or conception.
Here again he discovereth the true cause why he and other Schoolmen so
often speak absurdly. For they speak without conception of the things,
and by rote, one receiving what he saith from another by tradition, from
some puzzled divine or philosopher, that to decline a difficulty speaks
in such manner as not to be understood. And where he bids us ask an
ordinary person what upwards signifieth, I dare answer for that ordinary
person he will tell us as significantly as any scholar, and say it is
towards heaven; and as soon as he knows the earth is round, makes no
scruple to believe there are antipodes, being wiser in that point than
were those which he saith to have been of more than ordinary capacities.
Again, ordinary men understand not, he saith, the words _empty_ and
_body_; yes, but they do, just as well as learned men. When they hear
named an empty vessel, the learned as well as the unlearned mean and
understand the same thing, namely, that there is nothing in it that can
be seen; and whether it be truly empty, the ploughman and the Schoolman
know alike. “I might give”, he says, “a hundred such like instances.”
That is true; a man may give a thousand foolish and impertinent
instances of men ignorant in such questions of philosophy concerning
emptiness, body, upwards, and downwards, and the like. But the question
is not whether such and such tenets be true, but whether such and such
words can be well defined without thinking upon the things they
signified; as the Bishop thinks they may, when he concludeth with these
words, “so his proposition is false”.
(_b_) “His reason, ‘that matter of fact is not verified by other men’s
arguments, but by every man’s own sense and memory’, is likewise maimed
on both sides. Whether we hear such words or not, is matter of fact, and
sense is the proper judge of it; but what these words do, or ought truly
to signify, is not to be judged by sense, but by reason.” A man is born
with a capacity after due time and experience to reason truly; to which
capacity of nature, if there be added no discipline at all, yet as far
as he reasoneth he will reason truly; though by a right discipline he
may reason truly in more numerous and various matters. But he that hath
lighted on deceiving or deceived masters, that teach for truth all that
hath been dictated to them by their own interest, or hath been cried up
by other such teachers before them, have for the most part their natural
reason, as far as concerneth the truth of doctrine, quite defaced or
very much weakened, becoming changelings through the enchantments of
words not understood. This cometh into my mind from this saying of the
Bishop, that matter of fact is not verified by sense and memory, but by
arguments. How is it possible that, without discipline, a man should
come to think that the testimony of a witness, which is the only
verifier of matter of fact, should consist not in sense and memory, so
as he may say he saw and remembers the thing done, but in arguments or
syllogisms? Or how can an unlearned man be brought to think the words he
speaks, ought to signify, when he speaks sincerely, anything else but
that which himself meant by them? Or how can any man without learning
take the question, “whether the sun be no bigger than a ball, or bigger
than the earth”, to be a question of fact? Nor do I think that any man
is so simple, as not to find that to be good which he loveth; good, I
say, so far forth, as it maketh him to love it. Or is there any
unlearned man so stupid, as to think eternity is this present instant of
time standing still, and the same eternity to be the very next instant
after; and consequently that there be so many eternities as there can be
instants of time supposed? No, there is scholastic learning required in
some measure to make one mad.
(_c_) “Then for his assumption, it is as defective as his proposition,
that by these words, spontaneity, &c. men do understand as he conceives,
&c. No rational man doth conceive a spontaneous action and an
indeliberate action to be all one; every indeliberate action is not
spontaneous, &c.” Not every _spontaneous_ action _indeliberate_? This I
get by striving to make sense of that which he strives to make nonsense.
I never thought the word _spontaneity_ English. Yet because he used it,
I make such meaning of it as it would bear, and said it “meant
inconsiderate proceeding, or nothing”. And for this my too much
officiousness, I receive the reward of being thought by him not to be a
rational man. I know that in the Latin of all authors but Schoolmen,
_actio spontanea_ signifies that action, whereof there is no apparent
cause derived further than from the agent itself; and is in all things
that have sense the same with voluntary, whether deliberated or not
deliberated. And therefore where he distinguished it from voluntary, I
thought he might mean indeliberate. But let it signify what it will,
provided it be intelligible, it would make against him.
(_d_) “Neither doth deliberation properly signify ‘the considering of
the good and evil sequels of an action to come’; but the considering
whether this be a good and fit means, or the best and fittest means, for
obtaining such an end.” If the Bishop’s words proceeded not from hearing
and reading of others, but from his own thoughts, he could never have
reprehended this definition of deliberation, especially in the manner he
doth it; for he says, it is the considering whether this or that be a
good and fit means for obtaining such an end; as if considering whether
a means be good or not, were not all one with considering whether the
sequel of using those means be good or evil.
(_e_) “Much less doth any man conceive with T. H. that ‘deliberation is
an act of fancy’, not of reason, common to men of discretion with
madmen, natural fools, children, and brute beasts”. I do indeed conceive
that deliberation is an act of imagination or fancy; nay more, that
reason and understanding also are acts of the imagination, that is to
say, they are imaginations. I find it so by considering my own
ratiocination; and he might find it so in his, if he did consider his
own thoughts, and not speak as he does by rote; by rote I say, when he
disputes; not by rote, when he is about those trifles he calleth
business; then when he speaks, he thinks of, that is to say, he
imagines, his business; but here he thinks only upon the words of other
men that have gone before him in this question, transcribing their
conclusions and arguments, not his own thoughts.
(_f_) “Thirdly, neither doth any understanding man conceive, or can
conceive, either ‘that the will is an act of our deliberation’ (the
understanding and the will are two distinct faculties); or ‘that only
the last appetite is to be called our will’.” Though the understanding
and the will were two distinct faculties, yet followeth it not that the
will and the deliberation are two distinct faculties. For the whole
deliberation is nothing else but so many wills alternatively changed,
according as a man understandeth or fancieth the good and evil sequels
of the thing concerning which he deliberateth whether he shall pursue
it, or of the means whether they conduce or not to that end, whatsoever
it be, he seeketh to obtain. So that in deliberation there be many
wills, whereof not any is the cause of a voluntary action but the last;
as I have said before, answering this objection in another place.
(_g_) “Concerning the fourth point we agree, that ‘he is a free agent,
that can do if he will and forbear if he will’. But I wonder how this
dropped from his pen? &c. It may be he will say he can do if he will and
forbear if he will, but he cannot will if he will.” He has no reason to
wonder how this dropped from my pen. He found it in my answer No. III,
and has been all this while about to confute it, so long indeed that he
had forgot I said it; and now again brings another argument to prove a
man is free to will, which is this: “Either the agent can will and
forbear to will, or else he cannot do and forbear to do”. There is no
doubt a man can will one thing or other, and forbear to will it. For
men, if they be awake, are always willing one thing or other. But put
the case, a man has a will to-day to do a certain action to-morrow; is
he sure to have the same will to-morrow, when he is to do it? Is he free
to-day, to choose to-morrow’s will? This is it that is now in question,
and this argument maketh nothing for the affirmative or negative.
(_h_) “But we differ wholly about the fifth point. He who conceives
liberty aright, conceives both a ‘liberty in the subject’, to will or
not to will, and a ‘liberty to the object’ to will this or that, and a
‘liberty from impediments’. T. H., by a new way of his own, cuts off the
‘liberty of the subject’, as if a stone were free to ascend or descend
because it hath no outward impediment; and the ‘liberty towards the
object’, as if the needle touched with the loadstone were free to point
either towards the north or towards the south, because there is not a
barricado in its way.” How does it appear, that he who conceives liberty
aright, conceives a liberty in the subject to will or not to will;
unless he mean liberty to do if he will, or not to do if he will not,
which was never denied? Or how does it follow, that a stone is as free
to ascend as descend, unless he prove there is no outward impediment to
its ascent; which cannot be proved, for the contrary is true? Or how
proveth he, that there is no outward impediment to keep that point of
the loadstone, which placeth itself towards the north, from turning to
the south? His ignorance of the causes external is not a sufficient
argument that there are none. And whereas he saith, that according to my
definition of liberty, “a hawk were at liberty to fly when her wings are
plucked, but not when they are tied”; I answer that she is not at
liberty to fly when her wings are tied; but to say, when her wings are
plucked that she wanted the liberty to fly, were to speak improperly and
absurdly; for in that case, men that speak English use to say she cannot
fly. And for his reprehension of my attributing liberty to brute beasts
and rivers; I would be glad to know whether it be improper language, to
say a bird or beast may be set at liberty from the cage wherein they
were imprisoned or to say that a river, which was stopped, hath
recovered its free course; and how it follows, that a beast or river
recovering this freedom must needs therefore “be capable of sin and
punishment”?
(_i_) “The reason for the sixth point is like the former, a phantastical
or imaginative reason: ‘How can a man imagine anything to begin without
a cause; or if it should begin without a cause, why it should begin at
this time, rather than at that time?’ He saith truly, nothing can
_begin_ without a cause, that is _to be_; but it may _begin to act_ of
itself without any other cause. Nothing can _begin_ without a cause; but
many things may _begin_ without a necessary cause.” He granteth nothing
can _begin_ without a cause; and he hath granted formerly that nothing
can cause itself. And now he saith, it may begin _to act_ of itself. The
action therefore _begins to be_ without any cause, which he said nothing
could do, contradicting what he had said but in the line before. And for
that that he saith, that “many things may begin not without a cause, but
without a necessary cause”; it hath been argued before; and all causes
have been proved, if entire and sufficient causes, to be necessary. And
that which he repeateth here, namely, that “a free cause may choose his
time when he will begin to work”; and that “although free effects cannot
be foretold, because they are not certainly predetermined in their
causes, yet when the free causes do determine themselves, they are of as
great certainty as the other”; it has been made appear sufficiently
before that it is but jargon, the words _free cause_ and _determining
themselves_ being insignificant, and having nothing in the mind of man
answerable to them.
(_k_) “And now that I have answered T. H.’s arguments, drawn from the
private conceptions of men concerning the sense of words, I desire him
seriously to examine himself, &c.” One of his interrogatories is this,
“whether I find not by experience, that I do many things which I might
have left undone if I would”. This question was needless, because all
the way I have granted him that men have liberty to do many things if
they will, which they left undone because they had not the will to do
them. Another interrogatory is this, “whether I do not some things
without regard to the direction of right reason, or serious respect of
what is honest or profitable”. This question was in vain, unless he
think himself my confessor. Another is, “whether I writ not this defence
against liberty, only to show I will have a dominion over my own
actions”. To this I answer, no: but to show I have no dominion over my
will, and this also at his request. But all these questions serve in
this place for nothing else, but to deliver him of a jest he was in
labour withal: and therefore his last question is, “whether I do not
sometimes say, ‘Oh, what a fool was I to do thus and thus!’ or, ‘Oh,
that I had been wise!’ or, ‘Oh, what a fool was I to grow old!’” Subtle
questions, and full of episcopal gravity! I would he had left out
charging me with _blasphemous, desperate, destructive, and atheistical_
opinions. I should then have pardoned him his calling me _fool_; both
because I do many things foolishly, and because, in this question
disputed between us, I think he will appear a greater fool than I.