Part 27

(_g_) “Thirdly, he chargeth me, that ‘I allow all men to be of his opinion, save only those that conceive in their minds a _nunc stans_, or how eternity is an indivisible point, rather than an everlasting succession.’ But I have given no such allowance.” Surely if the reason wherefore my opinion is false, proceed from this, that I conceive not eternity to be _nunc stans_, but an everlasting succession, I am allowed to hold my opinion till I can conceive eternity otherwise: at least he allows men not till then to be of his opinion. For he hath said, “that the main impediment which keeps men from subscribing to that way of his, is because they conceive eternity to be an everlasting succession, and not one indivisible point”. As for the many other ways which he says are “proposed by divines for reconciling the eternal prescience and decrees of God with the liberty and contingency of second causes”, if they mean such liberty and contingency as the Bishop meaneth, they are proposed in vain; for truth and error can never be reconciled. But “however,” saith he, “though a man could comprehend none of all these ways, yet we must remember that a certain truth ought not to be rejected, because we are not able to understand the reason of it.” For “he knows,” he says, “the loadstone hath an attractive power to draw the iron to it, and yet he knoweth not how it cometh to have such a power.” I know the load-stone hath no such attractive power; and yet I know that the iron cometh to it, or it to the iron; and therefore wonder not, that the Bishop knoweth not how it cometh to have that power. In the next place he saith, I bring nothing to prove that eternity is not an indivisible point, but my own incapacity “that I cannot conceive it”. The truth is, I cannot dispute neither for nor against (as he can do) the positions I understand not. Nor do I understand what derogation it can be to the divine perfection, to attribute to it potentiality, that is (in English) power, and successive duration; for such attributes are often given to it in the Scripture.

(_h_) “He saith moreover, that ‘he understands as little how it can be true which I say, that God is not just, but justice itself, nor eternal, but eternity itself’. It seems, howsoever he be versed in this question, that he hath not troubled his head over-much with reading School-divines, or metaphysicians.” They are unseemly words to be said of God: I will not say, blasphemous and atheistical, which are the attributes he gives to my opinions, because I do not think them spoken out of an evil mind, but out of error: they are, I say, unseemly words to be said of God, that he is not just, that he is not eternal, and (as he also said) that he is not wise; and cannot be excused by any following _but_, especially when the _but_ is followed by that which is not to be understood. Can any man understand how justice is just, or wisdom wise? and whereas justice is an accident, one of the moral virtues, and wisdom another; how God is an accident or moral virtue? It is more than the Schoolmen or metaphysicians can understand; whose writings have troubled my head more than they should have done, if I had known that amongst so many senseless disputes, there had been so few lucid intervals. But I have considered since, where men will undertake to reason out of natural philosophy of the incomprehensible nature of God, that it is impossible they should speak intelligibly, or in other language than metaphysic, wherein they may contradict themselves, and not perceive it; as he does here, when he says, “the attributes of God are not diverse virtues or qualities in him, as they are in the creatures, but really one and the same with the divine essence and amongst themselves, and attributed to God to supply the defect of our capacity”. Attributes are names; and therefore it is a contradiction, to say they are really one and the same with the divine essence. But if he mean the virtues signified by the attributes, as justice, wisdom, eternity, divinity, &c; so also they are virtues, and not one virtue, (which is still a contradiction); and we give those attributes to God, not to shew that we apprehend how they are in him, but to signify how we think it best to honour him.

(_i_) “‘In the next place he will help me to understand,’ he says, ‘how eternity is an indivisible point.’ The divine substance is indivisible; but eternity is the divine substance. The major is evident, because God is _actus simplicissimus_; the minor hath been clearly demonstrated in my answer to his last doubt, and is confessed by all men, that whatsoever is attributed to God is God.” The major is so far from being evident, that _actus simplicissimus_ signifieth nothing. The minor is said by some men, thought by no man; for whatsoever is thought, is understood. And all that he hath elsewhere and here dilated upon it, is as perfect nonsense, as any man ever writ on purpose to make merry with. And so is that whereby he answers to my objection, that a point cannot comprehend all time, which is successive; namely, his distinction, that “a point doth not comprehend all time _formally_, as time is successive; but _eminently_ and _virtually_, as eternity is infinite”. And this, “to-day all eternity is co-existent with this day, and to-morrow all eternity will be co-existent with to-morrow”. It is well that his eternity is now come from a _nunc stans_ to be a _nunc fluens_, flowing from this day to the next, and so on. This kind of language is never found in the Scripture. No, but the thing, saith he, is found there, namely, that God is infinite in all his attributes. I would he could shew me the place where God is said to be infinite in all his attributes. There be places enough to shew that God is infinite in power, in wisdom, mercy, &c: but neither is he said to be infinite in names (which is the English of attributes), nor that he is an indivisible point, nor that a point doth comprehend time eminently and virtually; nor that to-day all eternity is co-existent with to-day, &c. And thus much in answer to his reply upon my answer. That which remaineth, is my reply upon his answer to my positive doctrine on this subject.

MY OPINION ABOUT LIBERTY AND NECESSITY NO. XXV.

_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.