Part 31

(_c_) “Then for his assumption, it is as defective as his proposition, that by those words spontaneity, &c, men do understand as he conceives. No rational man doth conceive a _spontaneous_ action and an _indeliberate_ action to be all one. Every _indeliberate_ action is not _spontaneous_; the fire considers not whether it should burn, yet the burning of it is not _spontaneous_. Neither is every _spontaneous_ action _indeliberate_; a man may deliberate what he will eat, and yet eat it _spontaneously_. (_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. The physician doth not deliberate whether he should cure his patient, but by what means he should cure him. Deliberation is of the means, not of the end. (_e_) Much less doth any man conceive with T. H. that deliberation is an _imagination_, or an act of fancy not of reason, common to men of discretion with madmen, and natural fools, and children, and brute beasts. (_f_) Thirdly, neither doth any understanding man conceive, or can conceive, 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’. So no man should be able to say, this is my will, because he knows not whether he shall persevere in it or not. (_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. What is now become of his absolute necessity of all things, if a man be free to do and to forbear anything? Will he make himself guilty of the _nonsense_ of the Schoolmen, and run with them into contradictions for company? It may be he will say, he can do if he will, and forbear if he will, but he cannot will if he will. This will not serve his turn; for if the cause of a free action, that is, the will to do it be determined, then the effect, or the action itself is likewise determined; a determined cause cannot produce an undetermined effect; either the agent can will and forbear to will, or else he cannot do and forbear to do. (_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 was 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 to hinder it. Yea, he cuts off the _liberty from inward impediments_ also; as if a hawk were at liberty to fly when her wings are plucked, but not when they are tied. And so he makes _liberty from extrinsical impediments_ to be complete liberty; so he ascribes _liberty_ to brute beasts, and _liberty_ to rivers, and by consequence makes beasts and rivers to be capable of sin and punishment. Assuredly Xerxes, who caused the Hellespont to be beaten with so many stripes, was of this opinion. Lastly, T. H.’s reason, that ‘it is custom, or want of ability, or negligence, which makes a man conceive otherwise’, is but a begging of that which he should prove. Other men consider as seriously as himself, with as much judgment as himself, with less prejudice than himself, and yet they can apprehend no such sense of these words. Would he have other men feign they see fiery dragons in the air, because he affirms confidently that he sees them, and wonders why others are so blind as not to see them?

(_i_) “The reason for the sixth point is like the former, a fantastical 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, and do begin without necessary causes. A free cause may as well choose his time when he will begin, as a necessary cause be determined extrinsically when it must begin. And 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. As when I see a bell ringing, I can conceive the cause of it as well why it rings now, as I know the interposition of the earth to be the cause of the eclipse of the moon, or the most certain occurrent in the nature of things.

(_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 without prejudice to examine himself, and those natural notions which he finds in himself, (not of words, but of things; these are from nature, those are by imposition), whether he doth not find by experience, that he doth many things which he might have left undone if he would, and omits many things which he might have done if he would; whether he doth not some things out of mere animosity and will, without either regard to the direction of right reason or serious respect of what is honest or profitable, only to show that he will have a dominion over his own actions; as we see ordinarily in children, and wise men find at some times in themselves by experience; (and I apprehend this very defence of necessity against liberty to be partly of that kind); whether he is not angry with those who draw him from his study, or cross him in his desires; (if they be necessitated to do it, why should he be angry with them, any more than he is angry with a sharp winter, or a rainy day that keeps him at home against his antecedent will?); whether he doth not sometimes blame himself, and say, ‘O what a fool was I to do thus and thus’, or wish to himself, ‘O that I had been wise’, or, ‘O that I had not done such an act’. If he have no dominion over his actions, if he be irresistibly necessitated to all things that he doth, he might as well wish, ‘O that I had not breathed,’ or blame himself for growing old, ‘O what a fool was I to grow old’.”

ANIMADVERSIONS UPON THE ANSWER TO NO. XXXIII.

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.

NO. XXXIV.