III. PART of good and evil? Reason improved by observation. So we have gained nothing by the change of my reason, but three cracked groats for one good shilling. But he hath omitted the principal part of my answer, that is, the "liberty and dominion over their actions," which men of understanding have much more than "children, fools, or madmen;" without which all his capableness of "good and evil consequences," all his "experience" of good and evil, all his calmness and moderation, do signify just nothing. Let a man have as much capacity as Solomon, as much experience as Nestor, as much moderation as Socrates; yet, if he have no power to dispose of himself, nor to order his own actions, but be hurried away by the second causes inevitably, irresistibly, without his own will, it is to as much purpose to admonish him, as when Icarus had his wings melted by the sun, and was tumbling down headlong into the sea, to have admonished him to take heed of drowning. A seasonable admonition may do much good; but that is upon our principles, not upon his. If all events, with all their circumstances, and the certain means to effect them, were precisely determined from eternity, it were high presumption in us to interpose without special warrant. Those means which we judge most convenient, are often not looked upon by God [2 Cor. iv. Almighty; Who doth use to bring light out of darkness, and restore sight by clay and spittle, and preserve men from Matt. x. 39; perishing by perishing. No paragraph escapeth him without some supererogatory absurdities. As here, that a man may "deliberate" without "the use of reason," that brute "beasts" may deliberate, that madness or frenzy is "strength of passion"." 6. -John ix. 6. xvi. 25. &c.] A litter of absurdities. He insisteth longer upon moral praise and dispraise, or moral goodness or badness; but speedeth worse, entangling himself in twenty errors, as these which follow." Metaphysical goodness is but an idle term"-that is good wherewith a man is "pleased"-" good is not of absolute signification to all men"-"nothing is good or evil but in regard of the action proceeding from it, and the person to whom it doth good or hurt"-" Satan is evil to us, but good to God" [Ovid., Metam., viii. 223 sq.Hygin., Fab. xl.-&c.] [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. xiv, p. 115.] 794 II. "if there were laws among beasts, a horse would be as DISCOURSE morally good as man"-" the difference between natural and moral goodness, proceedeth from the" (civil) "law"-" the law is all the right reason that we have"-" we make it right reason by our approbation"-all "actions of subjects, if they be conformable to the law of the land, are morally good""moral praise is from obedience to the law, moral dispraise is from disobedience to the law"-" to say a thing is good, is to say, It is as I, or another, or the state would have it""that is good to every man which is so far good as he can see"-"all the real good, which we call honest and morally virtuous, is that which is not repugnant to the law”—the law is "the infallible rule of moral goodness"-our particular reason is not "right reason"-'the reason of our governor, whom we have set over ourselves, is right reason'-"his laws, whatsoever they be, are in the place of right reason to us❞— "as in play morality consisteth in not renouncing the trump, so all our morality consisteth in not disobeying the laws." Is not here a hopeful litter of young errors, to be all formed out of three penfuls of ink? as if he had been dreaming lately in Error's den. One Anticyra will not afford hellebore enough to cure him perfectly. I was apt to flatter myself awhile, that by "the law" he understood the law of right reason; but I found it too evident, that by right reason he understands. the arbitrary edicts of an elective governor. I could not choose but call to mind that of our laureat poet, "God help the man so wrapt in Error's endless train"!" 'morally The reader might well have expected matter of more edifi- What is cation upon this subject: as, wherein the formal reason of good.' goodness doth consist, in convenience, or in the obtaining of all due perfections; as likewise, the distinction of good, either subjectively, into the goods of the mind, the goods of the body, and the goods of fortune, or formally, into bonum honestum, utile, et delectabile, or, honestly good, profitably good, and delightfully good. That which is honestly good, is desirable in itself, and as it is such. That which is profitably good, is that which is to be desired as conducing to the u [Ibid., pp. 145—147.] [Hor., A. P., 300.] [Spenser, Faery Queen, Canto i. stanza 18.] * [“Αγαθὰ περὶ ψυχὴν περὶ σῶμα KTÓS." See Aristot., Ethic., I. viii. 2.] * [“ Καλόν-συμφέρον ἡδύ." See Aristot., Ethic., II. iii. 7.] III. PART obtaining of some other good. Thirdly, delightfully good is that pleasure, which doth arise from the obtaining of the other goods desired. But he hath quite cashiered the two former sorts of good, that which is honestly good, and that which is profitably good; and acknowledgeth only that which is delightfully good, or that which pleaseth him or me: so as, if our humours differ, goodness must differ; and as our humours change, goodness must change; as the chamelion changeth her colours. Many things are good that please not us, and many things please us that are not good. Thus he hath left no real good in the world, but only that which is relatively good. Thus he hath made the devil himself to become good, and (which is yet worse) "good to God." Thus he hath made horses to be as capable of moral goodness as men, if they had but only "laws." I wonder why he should stick at that. Laws are but commands, and commands may be intimated to horses, as we might see in Bankes his horse, which we might call (upon his principles) an honest, virtuous, and morally good, horse. There is a woe denounced against Isai. v. 20. them who "call evil good and good evil." This is not all; he confesseth, that "lawmakers are men, and may err, and think that law good for the people which is not";" yet with the same breath he telleth us, that there is no other "right reason" but their "law," which "is the infallible rule of moral goodness"." So right reason and erring reason, a fallible rule and an infallible rule, are all one with him. What? No other rule but this one Lesbian rule, the arbitrary dictates of a governor? What is become of the eternal law, or the rule of justice in God Himself? What is become of the Divine positive law recorded in Holy Scriptures? What is become of the law of nature, imprinted naturally in the heart of every man by the finger of God Himself? What is become of the law of nations, that is, those principles which have been commonly and universally received as laws by all nations in all ages, or at least the most prudent, pious, and civil nations? What is become of that synteresis or noble light of the soul, which God hath z [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. xiv. p. 146.] a [Ibid., p. 147.] b [Συντήρησις, corrupted by the Schoolmen into "synderesis," is the word employed by some of the Greek Fathers, and from them by the Latin (e.g. S. Jerom, Comment. in Ezek. cap.i., who explains it by" scintilla conscientia"), to signify that power, by which the human reason instinctively apprehends the principles of moral truth.] II. given mankind to preserve them from vices? Are they all DISCOURSE gone? all vanished? and is no rule remaining but only the arbitrary edicts of a mortal law-giver, who may command us to turn Turks or Pagans to-morrow, who by his own confession "may err" in his law-giving? Then, not only "power absolutely irresistible doth justify whatsoever it doth," but also the power of mortal man may justify the violation of the laws of the immortal God. But I have shewed him sufficiently, that there are unjust laws, not only towards God, but likewise towards men; that unjust laws do not acquit our active obedience to them from damnable sin; that it is not only lawful but necessary to disobey them; that God Himself Exod.i. 21. hath approved such disobedience, and rewarded it. To conclude, it is not the pleasing of him or me, or some private benefit that may redound from thence to him or me, that makes anything to be truly good, but the meeting of all perfection in it whereof that thing is capable. "Bonum ex integrá causá, malum ex quolibet defectu"-" all requisite perfections must concur to make a thing good, but one only defect makes it evil." Nothing is morally good, nothing is praiseworthy, but that which is truly honest and virtuous. And, on the other side, nothing is morally bad, nothing is dispraiseworthy, but that which is dishonest and vicious. brutes and To wrangle everlastingly, whether those encouragements Rewards of which are given to setting dogs and coyducks and the like be men differ. rewards, were a childish fighting with shadows; seeing it is confessed, that they are not recompenses of honest and virtuous actions, to which the laws did appoint rewards. Swine, that run by a determinate instinct of nature to succour their fellows of the same herd in distress, do not desire a civical crown, like him who saved the life of a citizen; nor the spiders, whose fancies are fitted by nature to the weaving of their webs, deserve the like commendation with Arachne, 795 who attained to her rare arts of weaving by assiduous industry. There is a great difference between natural qualities and moral virtues. Where nature hath bestowed excellent gifts, the chief praise redoundeth to the God of nature. And where the brutes have attained to any such [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. xiv. pp. 148, 149.] [Ovid., Metam., vi. 129–145.] PART rare or beneficial qualities by the instruction of man, the chief praise redoundeth unto him that taught them. The harp was not crowned in the Olympian games, but the harper; nor the horses, but the charioteer. And though the encouragements of men and brutes be sometimes the same thing materially, yet they are not the same thing formally. But where he confoundeth a necessity of specification with a necessity of exercise, and affirmeth that the bees and spiders are necessitated by nature as well as to all their "individual actions" as to their several kinds of works, it deserveth no answer but to be slighted. His opinion doth require that he should say, that they are determined to their individual actions by the second causes and circumstances (though it be untrue); but to say they are determined by nature to each individual act, admitteth no defence. In the last paragraph, I am beholden to him, that he would instruct mef; but I am of his mind, that it would be too great a labour for him. For I approve none of his newfangled principles, and think he might have spent his time better in "meditating" upon somewhat else, that had been more proper for him. I see, that where the inferior faculty doth end, the superior doth begin: as, where the vegetative doth end, there the sensitive doth begin, comprehending all that the vegetative doth and much more; so, where the sensitive ends, the intellectual begins. And should I confine the intellectual soul, which is inorganical, immaterial, impassible, separable, within the bounds of the sensitive, or to the power and proceedings thereof, when I see the understanding doth correct the sense, as about the greatness of the sun? Sense hath nothing to do with universals, but reason hath. Even in memory, which he mentioneth, the intellectual remembrance is another manner of thing than the sensitive memory. But this belongs not to this question; and therefore I pass by it, and leave him to the censure of others. [T. H.'s impertinencies.] CASTIGATIONS OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS;-NUMBER XV. In this section he chargeth me first with a double breach [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. xiv. p. 149.] [Ibid.] |