PART either III. What is necessity. either upon deliberation or without deliberation, either with election or without election. The last term is necessity. He himself hath defined necessary," to be "that which is impossible to be otherwise1." Here is a definition without either matter or form, genus or differentia, without any thing in it that is essential, or so much as positive, a very periphrase or circumlocution, and (which is worst) not convertible or reciprocal with the thing defined. Many things may be "necessary" respectively, which are not "impossible to be otherwise;" as to let blood in a pleurisy. A horse is necessary for a long voyage; yet it is not impossible for a man to perform it on foot. And, on the other side, many things are "impossible to be otherwise," which are not "necessary" in that sense wherein we take necessity in this question: as that which is necessary upon science or prescience, and that which is necessary upon condition or supposition. As, if Thomas write, then he lives; yet neither his writing nor his living is absolutely necessary. So, "whatsoever is, when it is, is necessarily so as it is," or "impossible to be otherwise." None of these necessities have any place in this controversy. None of these sorts of necessity are opposite to true liberty. T. H. calls this rule-" Whatsoever is, when it is, is necessarily so as it is,"-an "old foolish rule" (yet it is delivered by Aristotle, and received ever since in the world), upon his own authority, without ever examining it, or understanding it. "Satis pro imperio." So then necessity (as it is proper to this question) I conceive may be thus fitly described,— necessity is a manner or propriety of being or of acting, whereby that which is, or acteth, cannot possibly but be and act, nor be or act otherwise than it doth, by reason of an antecedent, extrinsecal, and inevitable determination to one. Necessity I say, of being or of acting, because there is a double neand acting cessity," in essendo et in operando," and both considerable distin- in this cause. That which is necessarily, may act freely, as God Almighty without Himself; and that which is freely of being guished. i [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. i. p. 26.] By the way, [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. i. [See Thom. Aquin., in Sentent., P. I. Dist. xliii. Qu. ii. art. 1.] p. 26.] or contingently, as fire kindled by the help of a tinderbox, DISCOURSE or by the stumbling of a horse upon the pavement of a street, may act and burn necessarily. Here he may see, if he please, how necessity and will or spontaneity may meet together;—because that which is antecedently and extrinsecally determined to one, may agree well enough with my appetite, or the appetite of another;-but necessity and liberty can never meet together; because that which is antecedently and extrinsecally determined to one, cannot possibly be free, that is, undetermined to one, nor capable of election, which must be inter plura, nor a fit subject for deliberation. foundeth He urgeth, that, "seeing" I" say necessity and spontaneity [T. H. conmay meet together," he "may say that necessity and will may liberty and stand together." He doth but betray his own ignorance, will.] and intolerable boldness, to censure all the world for that which he never read nor understood. We all say in like manner, that "necessity and will may stand together;" for will and spontaneity are the same thing. But necessity and liberty can never stand together. If he will shut his eyes against the light, he may stumble as often as he pleaseth. sumptuous received He saith, he "doth not fear that it will be thought too hot [His prefor" his "fingers, to shew the vanity of such words as these, rejection of intellectual appetite, conformity of the appetite to the object, terms rational will, elective power of the rational will, reason is of art.] the root of liberty, reason representeth to the will"." Reader, behold once more the unparalleled presumption of this man. Words and terms are not by nature, but by imposition. And who are fit to impose terms of art but artists, who understand the art? Thus were all these terms imposed. Again, "verborum ut nummorum"-"words are as money is:" the most current is the best. This was the current language of all schools of learning, which we learned from our tutors and professors: but a private man starteth up, not bred in the Schools, who opposeth his own authority to the authority of the whole world, and cries down the current coin, that is, the generally received terms of art. Where is his commission? What is his reason? Because he doth not understand them, he guesseth, that they did not [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. iii. [Ibid., pp. 35, 36.] Π p. 35.] III. PART understand themselves. Is his private understanding (which 758 is filled up to the brim with prejudice and presumption) fit to be the public standard and seal of other men's capacities? They who will understand School terms, must learn and study them; which he never did. Those things that are excellent and rare, are always difficult. He who shall affirm, that all the famous divines and philosophers in the world for so many succeeding ages did speak nonsense, deserveth to be contemned. His respect to weak capacities must not serve his turn. "Nullæ sunt occultiores insidiæ, quam hæ quæ latent in simulatione officii." If he could shew any author before himself, wherein these terms were not used, or wherein his new terms were used, it were something. There is no art in the world which hath not proper terms; which none understand but they who understand that art. Necessity upon sup position, what it is. But "cui bono?" If we should be so mad to quit all received school terms and distinctions, and lose all the advantage which we might reap by the labours and experience of so many great wits, what advantage would this be to him? None at all at long running. Whatsoever be the terms, the state of the question must be the same. And those very reasons, which convince him now in the old language of the Schools, would convince him likewise in the new language which he desireth to introduce, after it was formed and generally understood. All the benefit that he could make of it, would be only a little time, between the suppression of the one and the introduction of the other, wherein he might juggle, and play hocus pocus under the cloak of homonomies, and ambiguous expressions. And that is the reason why he is so great a friend to definitions, and so great an enemy to distinctions. Whereas I affirmed, that "necessity of supposition may consist with true liberty'," he objecteth, that all necessity is upon supposition; as, "the fire burneth necessarily,..upon supposition that the ordinary course of nature be not hindered by God [Dan. iv. (for the fire burnt not the three children in the furnace"), and 27.] [“ Περὶ δὲ τὸ χαλεπώτερον ἀεὶ καὶ τέχνη γίνεται καὶ ἀρετή.” Ethic., II. ii. 10.] Aristot., Tull., [as quoted by St. Augustin, but without a reference.] [Id., Pro Milone, c. xii.-"Illud Cassianum, Cui bono fuerit."] II. upon "supposition that fuel be put unto it." His supposition DISCOURSE -"if the ordinary course of nature be not hindered"—is impertinent, and destructive to his own grounds. For though it be true, that those things which are impossible to the second causes, as to make "a camel go through the eye of a Mark x. [25,] 27. needle,” are "all possible with God;" yet, upon his opinion, that all things are necessary from eternity, God hath tied His own hands, and nothing is possible to God, which is not absolutely necessary and impossible to be otherwise. His other instance of "putting fuel" to the fire-is a necessary supposition to the continuance or duration of the fire, but not to the acting or burning of the fire. So long as there is fire, it doth and must burn. When all requisites to action are present, the will is free still to choose or refuse. When all things requisite to action are present to the fire, it cannot choose but burn, and cannot do otherwise. Thirdly, I answer, that there is a two-fold necessity upon supposition; the one a necessity upon an antecedent extrinsecal supposition. This cannot consist with liberty, because it implieth an antecedent determination, and the thing supposed was never in the power of the agent. The other is a necessity upon a consequent supposition, where the thing supposed is in the power of the free agent, or depends upon something, or supposeth something, that is in his power; this is very well consistent with true liberty. As, for example, if T. H. do run, then it is necessary that he moves. This necessity is no impediment at all to liberty, because the thing supposed, that is, to run or not to run, is in the power of the free agent. If a man's will be determined antecedently by extrinsecal causes to choose such a woman for his wife, and her will to choose him for a husband, then it is necessary that they elect one another. This necessity is upon an antecedent supposition, and is utterly destructive to liberty, because the determination of the extrinsecal causes is not in the power of the free agent. Lastly, T. H. his two instances of the fire are altogether impertinent. For, first, the fire is a natural necessary agent; and therefore no supposition, antecedent or consequent, can make it free. Secondly, God's hindering the ordinary course of nature is an antecedent supposition; [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. iii. p. 36.] 8 PART and if the fire were a free agent, it were sufficient to destroy the liberty thereof, as to that act. III. Man is not a passive as the sword in He saith, that "it seemeth" I "understand not, what these words 'free' and 'contingent'-mean;" because I "put 756 causes among those things that operate freely." What doth the man mean? Are not free agents "causes?" If they be not, how do they act? I understand these words-"free" and "contingent,"-as they ought to be understood; and as the world hath understood them for two thousand years. As for his new nicknaming of free and contingent agents, I heed it not. He hath "shewed," that this liberty, whereof we treat, is common to brute beasts and inanimate creatures with man", as well as he could shew it, or can shew it, or ever will be able to shew it; that is, just as much as he hath "shewed," that the sea burneth. If it were not for this confounding of terms, and a company of trifling homonymies, he would have nothing to say or do. "When a man" (saith he) "doth any thing freely, many instrument, other concurrent agents work necessarily; as [when] the man moveth the sword freely, the sword woundeth necessarily." A his hand. free agent may have concurrent agents, but his instance in a sword is very impertinent, which is but an instrument, yea, a passive instrument; and though it have an aptitude in itself, from the sharpness and the weight thereof, yet the determination of the action, and the efficacy or causation, ought to be ascribed to the principal agent. The sword did not wound, but the man wounded with the sword. Admit the sword may be said in some sense to concur actively to the cutting, certainly it concurs only passively to the motion. But he would make us believe that the man is no more active than his sword, and hath no more power to suspend or deny his concurrence than the sword, because a man doth "not move himself," or at least, not move himself "originally "." I have heard of some who held an opinion, that the soul of man was but like the winding up of a watch, and when the string was run out, the man died, and there the soul deter |