to his last doubt, and is confessed by all men,-that "what- DISCOURSE soever is in God, is God." Lastly, he saith, he "conceives not how it can be said, that an infinite point, wherein is no succession, can comprehend all time, which is successive." I answer, that it doth not comprehend it formally, as time is successive, but eminently and virtually, as eternity is infinite. To-day all eternity is co-existent with this day. To-morrow all eternity will be co-existent with to-morrow. And so in like manner with all the parts of time, being itself without parts. He saith, he "finds not these phrases in the Scripture." No, but he may find the thing in the Scripture ;-that God is infinite in all His attributes, and not capable of any imperfection. I. boastful sion.] And so, to shew his antipathy against the School-men, that [T. H.'s he hath no liberty or power to contain himself, when he conclumeets with any of their phrases or tenets, he falls into another paroxysm or fit of inveighing against them; and so concludes his answer with a 'plaudite' to himself, because he hath defeated both my "squadrons" of arguments, and "reserves of distinctions." "Dicite, Io pæan; et io, bis dicite, pæan." But because his eyesight was weak, and their backs were towards him, he quite mistook the matter. Those whom he see routed and running away, were his own scattered forces. [V. THE REMAINDER OF T. H.'S ANSWER.] NUMBER XXV. MY OPINION ABOUT LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. tions done T. H.-First, I conceive that when it cometh into a man's [i. of acmind, to do or not to do some certain action, if he have no without detime to deliberate the doing or abstaining, [he] necessarily liberation.] followeth the present thought he had of the good or evil consequence thereof to himself. ["Hujus autem" (Dei) "Essentiæ simplicitas ac sinceritas tanta est, quod non est in Ed aliquid quod non sit Ipsa; sed idem est habens et quod habetur." As, for example, in sudden Pet. Lomb., Sent., lib. I. dist. viii. qu. v. [Ovid., Art. Amąt., ii. 1.] PART [Reply.] 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 any thing 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. And hence Besides, I see 'tis 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 'tis supposed he had time to deliberate all the precedent time of his life, whether he should do that kind of action or not. it is, that he that killeth in a sudden passion of anger, shall 713 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. J. D.-This part of T. H. his discourse hangs together like a sick man's dreams. 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, Numb. xxxiii, that the scope of this section is to shew what is spontaneous. Howbeit he sheweth only what is voluntary, 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.' 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." J [Ibid.] h[Below, p. 175.] i [Above, Numb. viii. p. 45.] He defines liberty, Numb. xxix, to be "the absence of all ex- Discoursg trinsecal 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 extrinsecal causes not to do it. Are not extrinsecal causes, which determine him not to do it, "extrinsecal impediments to action?" So no man shall be free to do anything but that which he doth actually. He defines a free agent to be "him, who hath not made an end of deliberating" (Numb. 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 shew 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. [Of actions done in That which he saith, that "the action doth necessarily follow sudden the thought," is thus far true, that those actions, which are passions.] 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. [Below p. 166.] 1 [Below p. 165.] BRAMHALL. M PART Secondly, as for those actions," wherein actual deliberation III. seems not necessary, because never anything appeared that [Of actions done with could make a man doubt of the consequence," I do confess, out present that actions done by virtue of a precedent deliberation, with delibera tion.] [Actions done in passion justly punished, because done through past or present choice.] out any actual deliberation in the present when the act is 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 faults, 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 extrinsecal 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. But if the necessity be contracted by ourselves, and by our own faults, it is justly punishable. As he who by his wanton 1. thoughts in the day-time, doth procure his own nocturnal Discourse 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 [Exod. that his neighbour's ox or his ass did fall into it, he was bound xxi.33, 34.] 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 m." NUMBER XXVI. T. H.-Secondly, I conceive, when a man deliberates [ii. Of ac whether he shall do a thing or not do a thing, that he does with delinothing else but consider, whether it be better for himself to beration.] do it or not to do it; and to consider an action is to imagine the consequences of it, both good and evil: from whence is to be inferred, that deliberation is nothing but alternate imagination of the good and evil sequels of an action, or [T. H.] Numb. xiv. [above, p. 86.] |