PART fore necessitation to one is opposite to liberty, but diversion III. is not, nor moral efficacy. Resolution proveth election and liberty. Out of his very first words-"I had once resolved," &c.— I urged two arguments against him. First, all resolution presupposeth deliberation; so much is acknowledged by himself,-that "to resolve is to will after deliberation m" (he knoweth no difference between willing and electing):-but all deliberation of that which is inevitably determined without ourselves (as all events are determined, according to his opinion) is vain; as, it is vain for a condemned person to deliberate whether he should be executed, it is vain for a man to deliberate whether he should grow in stature, or whether he should breathe. The only thing questionable in this argument is the truth of the assumption,-whether it be vain to deliberate of that which is already inevitably determined: to which he answereth not one syllable in terminis, but runs away with a false scent, altogether wide from the purpose ;-" A man” 753 (saith he) "may deliberate of what he shall do, whether the thing be [im]possible or not, in case he know not of the impossibility, though he cannot deliberate what another shall do to him ;" and therefore my three instances “are impertinent, because the question is not what they shall do, but what they shall suffer"." And here he vapoureth marvellously, supposing that he hath me at a huge advantage. Such are commonly all his advantages: much good may they do him. First, he erreth grossly in affirming, that all deliberation is only of what a man will do, or not do; and not at all of what a man will suffer, or not suffer. Deliberation is as well about evil to be eschewed, as about good to be pursued. Men deliberate equally of their doings and of their sufferings, if they be not inevitably determined; but if they be, then neither of the one nor of the other. A martyr or a confessor may deliberate, what torments he will suffer for his religion. Many of those acts whereabout we do usually deliberate, are mixed motions, partly active and partly passive; as all our senses. Secondly, it is a shame for him to distinguish betwen actions and sufferings in this cause, m II. when all the actions of all the free agents in the world, by DISCOURSE his doctrine, are mere sufferings. A free agent is but like a bullet rammed up into the barrel by the outward causes, and fired off by the outward causes; the will serves for no use but to be a touch-hole; and the poor agent hath no more aim or understanding of what he doth, than the arrow which is forced out of the bow towards the mark, without any sense or concurrence in itself. A condemned person may be reprieved, and deliberate about that; but the sentence of the causes produceth a necessity from eternity (as he phraseth it), never to be interrupted or altered. Thirdly, he erreth in this also, that he affirmeth all my three instances to be only of passions or sufferings. Growing up in stature is a vegetative act. Respiration is a sensitive act, or an act of the moving and animal faculty. Some question there hath been, whether respiration were a natural motion, or a voluntary motion, or a mixed motion; but all conclude, that it is an act or motion which is performed whilst we sleep, when we are incapable of deliberation. Lastly, to say that a man may deliberate of a thing that is not possible, if "he know not of the impossibility," will not advantage his cause the value of a rush. For, supposing an universal necessity of all events from eternity, there can be no such case; seeing all men know, that upon this supposition all acts and events are either antecedently and absolutely necessary, or antecedently and absolutely impossible; both which are equally uncapable of deliberation. So the 'impertinence' will prove to be in his answer, not in my instances. My second argument out of his own words was this."To resolve a man's self, is to determine his own will; and if a man determine his own will, then he is free from outward necessity. But T. H. confesseth, that a man may resolve himself:-"I resolved once," &c.; and yet further," To resolve is to will after deliberation." Now "to will after deliberation," is to elect; but that he hateth the very term of electing or choosing, as being utterly destructive to his new-modelled fabric of universal necessity. And for that very reason, he confounds and blunders together the natural, sensitive, and intellectual, appetites. Either the will determineth itself [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. i. p. 26.] PART [T. H.'s objections in its resolution; or both will, and deliberation, and resolution, are pre-determined by a necessary flux of natural causes. If the will determine itself in its resolution, then we have true liberty to will or nill. If both the will, and the deliberation, and the resolution, be pre-determined by outward causes, then it is not the resolution of the will itself, nor of the agent, but of the outward causes; then it was as much determined, that is to say, resolved, before the deliberation, as after; because the deliberation itself, and the whole event of it, particularly the last resolution, was outwardly predetermined from eternity. To this he answereth nothing; but, according to his usual answered.] manner, he maketh three objections. First, "No man can determine his own will, for the will is an appetite," and 'it is not in man's power to have an appetite when he willp.' This argument would much better become the kitchen than the schools to argue from the lesser to the greater negatively, which is against all rules of logic. Just thus,-a brute beast cannot make a categorical syllogism, therefore a man cannot make one. So here, the sensitive appetite hath no dominion over its own acts, therefore neither hath the rational appetite any dominion over its own acts. Yet this is the only pillar that supporteth his main distinction, which must uphold his castle in the air from tumbling down about his 754 ears. But be what it will be, it hath been sufficiently answered already¶. His second objection hath so little solidity in it, that it is ridiculous ;—" Over whatsoever things there is dominion, those things are not free;" but over a man's actions there is "the dominion of his will." What a medius terminus hath he light upon. This which he urgeth against liberty, is the very essence of liberty. If a man's actions were under the dominion of another man's will, or under the dominion of his extrinsecal causes, then they were not free indeed; but for a man's own actions to be in his own power, or in the power or under the dominion of his own will, that is that which makes them free. [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. i. p. 25.] In the Answer to the Stating of the Question, [above pp. 225, 226.] r 26.] [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. i. p. II. Thirdly, he objects, "If a man determine himself, the DISCOURSE question will yet remain, what determined him to determine himself." If he speak properly, in his own sense of physical determination, by outward causes, he speaketh plain nonsense for if he was so determined by another, then he did not determine himself. But if he mean only this-what did concur with the will in the determination of itself,-I answer, that a friend by persuasion might concur morally, and the understanding by representing might concur intrinsecally, but it hath been demonstrated to him over and over, that neither of these concurrences is inconsistent with true liberty from necessitation and physical determination to one. Something I say afterwards which doth not please him, which he calleth "a talking to" myself "at random'." My aim in present is only to answer his exceptions, a little more punctually than he hath done mine; not at all to call him to an account for his omissions. That part I leave to the reader's own observation. necessary. He telleth me plainly, that I "neither understand" him, What is "nor what the word 'necessary' signifieth, if" I "think" he "holds no other necessity, than that which is expressed in that old foolish rule, 'whatsoever is, when it is, is necessarily so as it is"."" If I understand him not, I cannot help it; I understand him as well as I can, and wish that he understood himself a little better, to make him speak more significantly. Let us see where the fault lies, that he is no better understood. First, he defineth what is necessary;-"that is necessary, which is impossible to be otherwise;"-whence he inferreth, that "necessary, possible, and impossible, have no signification in reference to the time past, or time present, but only the time to come." I think all men will condescend to him thus far, that possibility hath only reference to "the time to come." But for necessity, and impossibility, he overshooteth himself beyond all aim. If a house do actually burn in present, it is "necessary," that is, infallible, that that house do burn in present, and "impossible," that it do not burn. If a man was slain yesterday, it is " neces t [Ibid.] BRAMHALL. III. PART sary," that he is slain to-day, and "impossible," that he should not be slain. His own definition doth sufficiently confute him," that is necessary which is impossible to be otherwise;"-but it is "impossible," that that which is doing in present, or which was done yesterday, should "be otherwise." How hang these things together? Or this that he telleth us, that his "necessary' is a necessary from all eternity," which with him is an everlasting succession. And yet he telleth us, that necessary signifieth nothing in reference to the time past; then how is it "necessary from all eternity?" And here he thrusteth out for rotten a great many of old scholastic terms, as "empty wordsa;" as, "necessary when it is," or, "absolutely and hypothetically necessary," and, "sensus compositus et divisus," and, "the dominion of the will," and, "the determining of itself." I must put him in mind again of the good old woman in Seneca, who complained of the darkness of the room, when the defect was in her own eyesight. I wonder not that he is out of love with distinctions, more than I wonder why a bungling workman regards not a square or a plumb; but if he understood these distinctions a little better, he would not trouble his reader with "that which shall be, shall be," and a bundle of such like impertinencies. He acknowledgeth, that "my Lord of Newcastle's desire, and" my "intreaty, were enough to produce a will in" him to write" his "answer." If they were enough, then he was not necessitated, nor physically predetermined, to write it. We had no more power than to persuade, no natural influence upon his will; and so he was, for us, not only free to write, but free to will also. But "perhaps there were other imaginations of" his "own that contributed their part." Let it be so; yet that was no extrinsecal or absolute determination of his will. And so far was our request from producing his 755 consent, "as necessarily as the fire burnethe," that it did not, it could not, produce it at all, by any natural causal |