II. agent), to choose or to refuse this or that indifferently after DISCOURSE deliberation, free from all antecedent and extrinsecal determination to oned. Election is the proper act of the will; and without indifferency or indetermination, and deliberation, there can be no election, which is a "consultative appetition." And they, and they only, are free agents, who, supposing all things to be present that are requisite to action, can nevertheless either act or forbear to act, at their own choicef: which description hath already been explained, and shall be further in due place. neity. Secondly, voluntary or spontaneous is that, which hath its What is beginning from an inward principle (that is, the will), with spontasome knowledge of the end". Such are the acts of children, fools, and madmen, whilst they want the use of reason; and the sudden acts of passionate persons, whensoever the violence of their passion doth prevent all deliberation. Such are many actions of brute beasts; as the spider's making of her webs to catch flies, the bird's building of her nest therein to lay her eggs; both which proceed " from an inward principle with some knowledge of the end." So then this is the difference between that which is free, and that which is voluntary or spontaneous;-that every free act is also a voluntary or spontaneous act, but every voluntary or spontaneous act is not a free act. The reason is evident ;-because no act is free, except it be done upon deliberation; but many voluntary or spontaneous acts are done without all deliberation, as the acts of brute beasts, fools, children, madmen, and some acts of passionate persons. Secondly, there is no 757 liberty but where there is a possibility towards more than one, and freedom to choose this or that indifferently. But in all those other kinds of voluntary or spontaneous acts, there is an antecedent determination to one, and no indifferency of election. So spontaneity is an appetite of some object, proceeding either from the rational or sensitive will, either antecedently determined or not determined to one, d [See Thom. Aquin., Summ., P. Prima, Qu. lxxxiii. art. 1.] e [“Οντος δὲ τοῦ προαιρετοῦ βουλευτοῦ ὀρεκτοῦ,” κ. T. λ. Aristot., Ethic., III. v. 19.] ["Illa est potentia libera, quæ, omnibus positis quæ requiruntur ad agendum, potest agere et non agere." [Above in the Defence, Numb. [Thom. Aquin., Summ., Prim. Secund., Qu. vi. art. 1. Respondeo.] III. PART either upon deliberation or without deliberation, either with election or without election. What is necessity. The last term is necessity. He himself hath defined " necessary," to be "that which is impossible to be otherwise." 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 neof being and 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 guished. [Qu., Animadv. upon Numb. i. By the way, II. 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 understand themselves. Is his private understanding (which 758 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 (for the fire burnt not the three children in the furnace"), and 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.] |