I have said in the beginning of this number, that to define what spontaneity is, what deliberation is, what will, propension, appetite, a free agent, and liberty is, and to prove they are well defined, there can be no other proof offered, but every man’s own experience and memory of what he meaneth by such words. For definitions being the beginning of all demonstration, cannot themselves be demonstrated, that is, proved to another man; all that can be done, is either to put him in mind what those words signify commonly in the matter whereof they treat, or if the words be unusual, to make the definitions of them true by mutual consent in their signification. And though this be manifestly true, yet there is nothing of it amongst the Schoolmen, who use to argue not by rule, but as fencers teach to handle weapons, by quickness only of the hand and eye. The Bishop therefore boggles at this kind of proof; and says, (a) “the true natures of things are not to be judged by the private ideas or conceptions of men, but by their causes and formal reasons. Ask an ordinary person what upwards signifies,” &c. But what will he answer, if I should ask him, how he will judge of the causes of things, whereof he hath no idea or conception in his own mind? It is therefore impossible to give a true definition of any word without the idea of the thing which that word signifieth, or not according to that idea or conception. Here again he discovereth the true cause why he and other Schoolmen so often speak absurdly. For they speak without conception of the things, and by rote, one receiving what he saith from another by tradition, from some puzzled divine or philosopher, that to decline a difficulty speaks in such manner as not to be understood. And where he bids us ask an ordinary person what upwards signifieth, I dare answer for that ordinary person he will tell us as significantly as any scholar, and say it is towards heaven; and as soon as he knows the earth is round, makes no scruple to believe there are antipodes, being wiser in that point than were those which he saith to have been of more than ordinary capacities. Again, ordinary men understand not, he saith, the words empty and body; yes, but they do, just as well as learned men. When they hear named an empty vessel, the learned as well as the unlearned mean and understand the same thing, namely, that there is nothing in it that can be seen; and whether it be truly empty, the ploughman and the Schoolman know alike. “I might give”, he says, “a hundred such like instances.” That is true; a man may give a thousand foolish and impertinent instances of men ignorant in such questions of philosophy concerning emptiness, body, upwards, and downwards, and the like. But the question is not whether such and such tenets be true, but whether such and such words can be well defined without thinking upon the things they signified; as the Bishop thinks they may, when he concludeth with these words, “so his proposition is false”.

(b) “His reason, ‘that matter of fact is not verified by other men’s arguments, but by every man’s own sense and memory’, is likewise maimed on both sides. Whether we hear such words or not, is matter of fact, and sense is the proper judge of it; but what these words do, or ought truly to signify, is not to be judged by sense, but by reason.” A man is born with a capacity after due time and experience to reason truly; to which capacity of nature, if there be added no discipline at all, yet as far as he reasoneth he will reason truly; though by a right discipline he may reason truly in more numerous and various matters. But he that hath lighted on deceiving or deceived masters, that teach for truth all that hath been dictated to them by their own interest, or hath been cried up by other such teachers before them, have for the most part their natural reason, as far as concerneth the truth of doctrine, quite defaced or very much weakened, becoming changelings through the enchantments of words not understood. This cometh into my mind from this saying of the Bishop, that matter of fact is not verified by sense and memory, but by arguments. How is it possible that, without discipline, a man should come to think that the testimony of a witness, which is the only verifier of matter of fact, should consist not in sense and memory, so as he may say he saw and remembers the thing done, but in arguments or syllogisms? Or how can an unlearned man be brought to think the words he speaks, ought to signify, when he speaks sincerely, anything else but that which himself meant by them? Or how can any man without learning take the question, “whether the sun be no bigger than a ball, or bigger than the earth”, to be a question of fact? Nor do I think that any man is so simple, as not to find that to be good which he loveth; good, I say, so far forth, as it maketh him to love it. Or is there any unlearned man so stupid, as to think eternity is this present instant of time standing still, and the same eternity to be the very next instant after; and consequently that there be so many eternities as there can be instants of time supposed? No, there is scholastic learning required in some measure to make one mad.

(c) “Then for his assumption, it is as defective as his proposition, that by these words, spontaneity, &c. men do understand as he conceives, &c. No rational man doth conceive a spontaneous action and an indeliberate action to be all one; every indeliberate action is not spontaneous, &c.” Not every spontaneous action indeliberate? This I get by striving to make sense of that which he strives to make nonsense. I never thought the word spontaneity English. Yet because he used it, I make such meaning of it as it would bear, and said it “meant inconsiderate proceeding, or nothing”. And for this my too much officiousness, I receive the reward of being thought by him not to be a rational man. I know that in the Latin of all authors but Schoolmen, actio spontanea signifies that action, whereof there is no apparent cause derived further than from the agent itself; and is in all things that have sense the same with voluntary, whether deliberated or not deliberated. And therefore where he distinguished it from voluntary, I thought he might mean indeliberate. But let it signify what it will, provided it be intelligible, it would make against him.

(d) “Neither doth deliberation properly signify ‘the considering of the good and evil sequels of an action to come’; but the considering whether this be a good and fit means, or the best and fittest means, for obtaining such an end.” If the Bishop’s words proceeded not from hearing and reading of others, but from his own thoughts, he could never have reprehended this definition of deliberation, especially in the manner he doth it; for he says, it is the considering whether this or that be a good and fit means for obtaining such an end; as if considering whether a means be good or not, were not all one with considering whether the sequel of using those means be good or evil.

(e) “Much less doth any man conceive with T. H. that ‘deliberation is an act of fancy’, not of reason, common to men of discretion with madmen, natural fools, children, and brute beasts”. I do indeed conceive that deliberation is an act of imagination or fancy; nay more, that reason and understanding also are acts of the imagination, that is to say, they are imaginations. I find it so by considering my own ratiocination; and he might find it so in his, if he did consider his own thoughts, and not speak as he does by rote; by rote I say, when he disputes; not by rote, when he is about those trifles he calleth business; then when he speaks, he thinks of, that is to say, he imagines, his business; but here he thinks only upon the words of other men that have gone before him in this question, transcribing their conclusions and arguments, not his own thoughts.

(f) “Thirdly, neither doth any understanding man conceive, or can conceive, either ‘that the will is an act of our deliberation’ (the understanding and the will are two distinct faculties); or ‘that only the last appetite is to be called our will’.” Though the understanding and the will were two distinct faculties, yet followeth it not that the will and the deliberation are two distinct faculties. For the whole deliberation is nothing else but so many wills alternatively changed, according as a man understandeth or fancieth the good and evil sequels of the thing concerning which he deliberateth whether he shall pursue it, or of the means whether they conduce or not to that end, whatsoever it be, he seeketh to obtain. So that in deliberation there be many wills, whereof not any is the cause of a voluntary action but the last; as I have said before, answering this objection in another place.

(g) “Concerning the fourth point we agree, that ‘he is a free agent, that can do if he will and forbear if he will’. But I wonder how this dropped from his pen? &c. It may be he will say he can do if he will and forbear if he will, but he cannot will if he will.” He has no reason to wonder how this dropped from my pen. He found it in my answer No. III, and has been all this while about to confute it, so long indeed that he had forgot I said it; and now again brings another argument to prove a man is free to will, which is this: “Either the agent can will and forbear to will, or else he cannot do and forbear to do”. There is no doubt a man can will one thing or other, and forbear to will it. For men, if they be awake, are always willing one thing or other. But put the case, a man has a will to-day to do a certain action to-morrow; is he sure to have the same will to-morrow, when he is to do it? Is he free to-day, to choose to-morrow’s will? This is it that is now in question, and this argument maketh nothing for the affirmative or negative.

(h) “But we differ wholly about the fifth point. He who conceives liberty aright, conceives both a ‘liberty in the subject’, to will or not to will, and a ‘liberty to the object’ to will this or that, and a ‘liberty from impediments’. T. H., by a new way of his own, cuts off the ‘liberty of the subject’, as if a stone were free to ascend or descend because it hath no outward impediment; and the ‘liberty towards the object’, as if the needle touched with the loadstone were free to point either towards the north or towards the south, because there is not a barricado in its way.” How does it appear, that he who conceives liberty aright, conceives a liberty in the subject to will or not to will; unless he mean liberty to do if he will, or not to do if he will not, which was never denied? Or how does it follow, that a stone is as free to ascend as descend, unless he prove there is no outward impediment to its ascent; which cannot be proved, for the contrary is true? Or how proveth he, that there is no outward impediment to keep that point of the loadstone, which placeth itself towards the north, from turning to the south? His ignorance of the causes external is not a sufficient argument that there are none. And whereas he saith, that according to my definition of liberty, “a hawk were at liberty to fly when her wings are plucked, but not when they are tied”; I answer that she is not at liberty to fly when her wings are tied; but to say, when her wings are plucked that she wanted the liberty to fly, were to speak improperly and absurdly; for in that case, men that speak English use to say she cannot fly. And for his reprehension of my attributing liberty to brute beasts and rivers; I would be glad to know whether it be improper language, to say a bird or beast may be set at liberty from the cage wherein they were imprisoned or to say that a river, which was stopped, hath recovered its free course; and how it follows, that a beast or river recovering this freedom must needs therefore “be capable of sin and punishment”?

(i) “The reason for the sixth point is like the former, a phantastical or imaginative reason: ‘How can a man imagine anything to begin without a cause; or if it should begin without a cause, why it should begin at this time, rather than at that time?’ He saith truly, nothing can begin without a cause, that is to be; but it may begin to act of itself without any other cause. Nothing can begin without a cause; but many things may begin without a necessary cause.” He granteth nothing can begin without a cause; and he hath granted formerly that nothing can cause itself. And now he saith, it may begin to act of itself. The action therefore begins to be without any cause, which he said nothing could do, contradicting what he had said but in the line before. And for that that he saith, that “many things may begin not without a cause, but without a necessary cause”; it hath been argued before; and all causes have been proved, if entire and sufficient causes, to be necessary. And that which he repeateth here, namely, that “a free cause may choose his time when he will begin to work”; and that “although free effects cannot be foretold, because they are not certainly predetermined in their causes, yet when the free causes do determine themselves, they are of as great certainty as the other”; it has been made appear sufficiently before that it is but jargon, the words free cause and determining themselves being insignificant, and having nothing in the mind of man answerable to them.

(k) “And now that I have answered T. H.’s arguments, drawn from the private conceptions of men concerning the sense of words, I desire him seriously to examine himself, &c.” One of his interrogatories is this, “whether I find not by experience, that I do many things which I might have left undone if I would”. This question was needless, because all the way I have granted him that men have liberty to do many things if they will, which they left undone because they had not the will to do them. Another interrogatory is this, “whether I do not some things without regard to the direction of right reason, or serious respect of what is honest or profitable”. This question was in vain, unless he think himself my confessor. Another is, “whether I writ not this defence against liberty, only to show I will have a dominion over my own actions”. To this I answer, no: but to show I have no dominion over my will, and this also at his request. But all these questions serve in this place for nothing else, but to deliver him of a jest he was in labour withal: and therefore his last question is, “whether I do not sometimes say, ‘Oh, what a fool was I to do thus and thus!’ or, ‘Oh, that I had been wise!’ or, ‘Oh, what a fool was I to grow old!’”old!’” Subtle questions, and full of episcopal gravity! I would he had left out charging me with blasphemous, desperate, destructive, and atheistical opinions. I should then have pardoned him his calling me fool; both because I do many things foolishly, and because, in this question disputed between us, I think he will appear a greater fool than I.

T. H. For the seventh point, that all events have necessary causes, it is there proved in that they have sufficient causes. Further, let us in this place also suppose any event never so casual, as for example, the throwing ambs-ace upon a pair of dice; and see if it must not have been necessary before it was thrown. For, seeing it was thrown, it had a beginning, and consequently a sufficient cause to produce it; consisting partly in the dice, partly in the outward things, as the posture of the party’s hand, the measure of force applied by the caster, the posture of the parts of the table, and the like. In sum, there was nothing wanting that was necessarily requisite to the producing of that particular cast; and consequently, that cast was necessarily thrown. For if it had not been thrown, there had wanted somewhat requisite to the throwing of it; and so the cause had not been sufficient. In the like manner it may be proved that every other accident, how contingent soever it seem, or how voluntary soever it be, is produced necessarily; which is that J. D. disputes against. The same also may be proved in this manner. Let the case be put for example, of the weather. It is necessary, that to-morrow it shall rain or not rain. If therefore it be not necessary it shall rain, it is necessary it shall not rain. Otherwise it is not necessary that the proposition, it shall rain or it shall not rain, should be true. I know there are some that say, it may necessarily be true, that one of the two shall come to pass, but not singly, that it shall rain or it shall not rain. Which is as much as to say, one of them is necessary, yet neither of them is necessary. And therefore, to seem to avoid that absurdity, they make a distinction, that neither of them is true determinate, but indeterminate. Which distinction either signifies no more than this: one of them is true, but we know not which, and so the necessity remains, though we know it not: or if the meaning of the distinction be not that, it has no meaning. And they might as well have said, one of them is true tytyrice, but neither of them tupatulice.

J. D. (a) “His former proof, that all sufficient causes are necessary causes, is answered before (No. XXXI). (b) And his two instances of casting ambs-ace, and raining to-morrow, are altogether impertinent to the question now agitated between us, for two reasons. First, our present controversy is concerning free actions, which proceed from the liberty of man’s will: both his instances are of contingent actions, which proceed from the indetermination or contingent concurrence of natural causes. First, that there are free actions which proceed merely from election, without any outward necessitation, is a truth so evident as that there is a sun in the heavens; and he that doubteth of it, may as well doubt whether there be a shell without the nut, or a stone within the olive. A man proportions his time each day, and allots so much to his devotions, so much to his study, so much to his diet, so much to his recreations, so much to necessary or civil visits, so much to his rest; he who will seek for I know not what causes of all this without himself, except that good God who hath given him a reasonable soul, may as well seek for a cause of the Egyptian pyramids among the crocodiles of Nilus. (c) Secondly, for mixed actions which proceed from the concurrence of free and natural agents, though they be not free, yet they are not necessary. As, to keep my former instance, a man walking through a street of a city to do his occasions, a tile falls from a house and breaks his head. The breaking of his head was not necessary, for he did freely choose to go that way without any necessitation; neither was it free, for he did not deliberate of that accident; therefore it was contingent, and by undoubted consequence, there are contingent actions in the world which are not free. Most certainly by the concurrence of free causes, as God, the good and bad angels, and men, with natural agents, sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident, many events happen, which otherwise had never happened; many effects are produced, which otherwise had never been produced. And admitting such things to be contingent, not necessary, all their consequent effects, not only immediate, but mediate, must likewise be contingent, that is to say, such as do not proceed from a continued connexion and succession of necessary causes; which is directly contrary to T. H.’s opinion.

(d) “Thirdly, for the actions of brute beasts, though they be not free, though they have not the use of reason to restrain their appetites from that which is sensitively good by the consideration of what is rationally good, or what is honest, and though their fancies be determined by nature to some kinds of work; yet to think that every individual action of theirs, and each animal motion of theirs, even to the least murmur or gesture, is bound by the chain of unalterable necessity to the extrinsical causes or objects, I see no ground for it. Christ saith, one of these sparrows doth not fall to the ground without your heavenly Father, that is, without an influence of power from him, or exempted from his disposition; he doth not say, which your heavenly Father casteth not down. Lastly, for the natural actions of inanimate creatures, wherein there is not the least concurrence of any free or voluntary agents, the question is yet more doubtful. For many things are called contingent in respect of us, because we know not the cause of them, which really and in themselves are not contingent, but necessary. Also many things are contingent in respect of one single cause, either actually hindered, or in possibility to be hindered, which are necessary in respect of the joint concurrence of all collateral causes. (e) But whether there be a necessary connexion of all natural causes from the beginning, so as they must all have concurred as they have done, and in the same degree of power, and have been deficient as they have been in all events whatsoever, would require a further examination, if it were pertinent to this question of liberty; but it is not. It is sufficient to my purpose, to have showed that all elective actions are free from absolute necessity: and moreover, that the concurrence of voluntary and free agents with natural causes, both upon purpose and accidentally, hath helped them to produce many effects, which otherwise they had not produced, and hindered them from producing many effects, which otherwise they had produced: and that if this intervention of voluntary and free agents had been more frequent than it hath been, as without doubt it might have been, many natural events had been otherwise than they are. And therefore he might have spared his instance of casting ambs-ace and raining to-morrow. And first, for his casting ambs-ace: if it be thrown by a fair gamester with indifferent dice, it is a mixed action; the casting of the dice is free, but the casting of ambs-ace is contingent. A man may deliberate whether he will cast the dice or not; but it were folly to deliberate whether he will cast ambs-ace or not, because it is not in his power, unless he be a cheater that can cog the dice, or the dice be false dice; and then the contingency, or degree of contingency, ceaseth accordingly as the caster hath more or less cunning, or as the figure or making of the dice doth incline them to ambs-ace more than to another cast, or necessitate them to this cast and no other. Howsoever, so far as the cast is free or contingent, so far it is not necessary: and where necessity begins, there liberty and contingency do cease to be. Likewise his other instance of raining or not raining to-morrow, is not of a free elective act, nor always of a contingent act. In some countries, as they have their stati venti, their certain winds at set seasons; so they have their certain and set rains. The Ethiopian rains are supposed to be the cause of the certain inundation of Nilus. In some eastern countries they have rain only twice a year, and those constant; which the Scriptures call the former and the later rain. In such places not only the causes do act determinately and necessarily, but also the determination or necessity of the event is foreknown to the inhabitants. In our climate, the natural causes celestial and sublunary do not produce rain so necessarily at set times; neither can we say so certainly and infallibly, it will rain to-morrow, or it will not rain to-morrow. Nevertheless, it may so happen that the causes are so disposed and determined, even in our climate, that this proposition, it will rain to-morrow or it will not rain to-morrow, may be necessary in itself; and the prognostics, or tokens, may be such in the sky, in our own bodies, in the creatures, animate and inanimate, as weather glasses, &c., that it may become probably true to us that it will rain to-morrow, or it will not rain to-morrow. But ordinarily, it is a contingent proposition to us; whether it be contingent also in itself, that is, whether the concurrence of the causes were absolutely necessary, whether the vapours or matter of the rain may not yet be dispersed, or otherwise consumed, or driven beyond our coast, is a speculation which no way concerns this question. So we see one reason why his two instances are altogether impertinent; because they are of actions which are not free, nor elective, nor such as proceed from the liberty of man’s will.

“Secondly, our dispute is about absolute necessity; his proofs extend only to hypothetical necessity. Our question is, whether the concurrence and determination of the causes were necessary before they did concur, or were determined. He proves that the effect is necessary after the causes have concurred, and are determined. The freest actions of God or man are necessary, by such a necessity of supposition, and the most contingent events that are, as I have showed plainly, No. III, where his instance of ambs-ace is more fully answered. So his proof looks another way from his proposition. His proposition is, ‘that the casting of ambs-ace was necessary before it was thrown’. His proof is, that it was necessary when it was thrown. Examine all his causes over and over, and they will not afford him one grain of antecedent necessity. The first cause is in the dice: true, if they be false dice there may be something in it; but then his contingency is destroyed: if they be square dice, they have no more inclination to ambs-ace, than to cinque and quatre, or any other cast. His second cause is ‘the posture of the party’s hand’: but what necessity was there that he should put his hands into such a posture? None at all. The third cause is ‘the measure of the force applied by the caster’. Now for the credit of his cause let him but name, I will not say a convincing reason nor so much as a probable reason, but even any pretence of reason, how the caster was necessitated from without himself to apply just so much force, and neither more nor less. If he cannot, his cause is desperate, and he may hold his peace for ever. His last cause is the posture of the table. But tell us in good earnest, what necessity there was why the caster must throw into that table rather than the other, or that the dice must fall just upon that part of the table, before the cast was thrown: he that makes these to be necessary causes, I do not wonder if he make all effects necessary effects. If any one of these causes be contingent, it is sufficient to render the cast contingent; and now that they are all so contingent, yet he will needs have the effect to be necessary. And so it is when the cast is thrown; but not before the cast was thrown, which he undertook to prove. Who can blame him for being so angry with the Schoolmen, and their distinctions of necessity into absolute and hypothetical, seeing they touch his freehold so nearly?

“But though his instance of raining to-morrow be impertinent, as being no free action, yet because he triumphs so much in his argument, I will not stick to go a little out of my way to meet a friend. For I confess the validity of the reason had been the same, if he had made it of a free action, as thus: either I shall finish this reply to-morrow, or I shall not finish this reply to-morrow, is a necessary proposition. But because he shall not complain of any disadvantage in the alteration of his terms, I will for once adventure upon his shower of rain. And first, I readily admit his major, that this proposition, either it will rain to-morrow or it will not rain to-morrow, is necessarily true: for of two contradictory propositions, the one must of necessity be true, because no third can be given. But his minor, that ‘it could not be necessarily true, except one of the members were necessarily true’, is most false. And so is his proof likewise, that ‘if neither the one nor the other of the members be necessarily true, it cannot be affirmed that either the one or the other is true’. A conjunct proposition may have both parts false, and yet the proposition be true; as, if the sun shine it is day, is a true proposition at midnight. And T. H. confesseth as much, No. XIX. ‘If I shall live I shall eat, is a necessary proposition, that is to say, it is necessary that that proposition should be true whensoever uttered. But it is not the necessity of the thing, nor is it therefore necessary that the man shall live or that the man shall eat’. And so T. H. proceeds: ‘I do not use to fortify my distinctions with such reasons’. But it seemeth he hath forgotten himself, and is contented with such poor fortifications. And though both parts of a disjunctive proposition cannot be false; because if it be a right disjunction, the members are repugnant, whereof one part is infallibly true; yet vary but the proposition a little to abate the edge of the disjunctions, and you shall find in that which T. H. saith to be true, that it is not the necessity of the thing which makes the proposition to be true. As for example, vary it thus: I know that either it will rain to-morrow or that it will not rain to-morrow, is a true proposition: but it is not true that I know it will rain to-morrow, neither is it true that I know it will not rain to-morrow; wherefore the certain truth of the proposition doth not prove that either of the members is determinately true in present. Truth is a conformity of the understanding to the thing known, whereof speech is an interpreter. If the understanding agree not with the thing, it is an error; if the words agree not with the understanding, it is a lie. Now the thing known, is known either in itself or in its causes. If it be known in itself as it is, then we express our apprehension of it in words of the present tense; as the sun is risen. If it be known in its cause, we express ourselves in words of the future tense; as to-morrow will be an eclipse of the moon. But if we neither know it in itself, nor in its causes, then there may be a foundation of truth, but there is no such determinate truth of it that we can reduce it into a true proposition. We cannot say it doth rain to-morrow, or it doth not rain to-morrow; that were not only false but absurd. We cannot positively say it will rain to-morrow, because we do not know it in its causes, either how they are determined or that they are determined. Wherefore the certitude and evidence of the disjunctive proposition is neither founded upon that which will be actually to-morrow, for it is granted that we do not know that; nor yet upon the determination of the causes, for then we would not say indifferently either it will rain or it will not rain, but positively it will rain, or positively it will not rain. But it is grounded upon an undeniable principle, that of two contradictory propositions the one must necessarily be true. (f) And therefore to say, either this or that will infallibly be, but it is not yet determined whether this or that shall be, is no such senseless assertion that it deserved a tytyrice tupatulice, but an evident truth which no man that hath his eyes in his head can doubt of.

(g) “If all this will not satisfy him, I will give one of his own kind of proofs; that is, an instance. That which necessitates all things, according to T. H. (No. XI), is the decree of God, or that order which is set to all things by the eternal cause. Now God himself, who made this necessitating decree, was not subjected to it in the making thereof; neither was there any former order to oblige the first cause necessarily to make such a decree; therefore this decree being an act ad extra, was freely made by God without any necessitation. Yet nevertheless this disjunctive proposition is necessarily true: either God did make each a decree, or he did not make such a decree. Again, though T. H.’s opinion were true, that all events are necessary, and that the whole Christian world are deceived who believe that some events are free from necessity; yet he will not deny, but if it had been the good pleasure of God, he might have made some causes free from necessity; seeing that it neither argues any imperfection, nor implies any contradiction. Supposing therefore that God had made some second causes free from any such antecedent determination to one; yet the former disjunction would be necessarily true: either this free undetermined cause will act after this manner, or it will not act after this manner. Wherefore the necessary truth of such a disjunctive proposition doth not prove that either of the members of the disjunction singly considered, is determinately true in present; but only that the one of them will be determinately true to-morrow.

(a) “His former proof, that all sufficient causes are necessary causes, is answered before (No. XXXI).” When he shall have read my animadversions upon that answer of his, he will think otherwise, whatsoever he will confess.

(b) “And his two instances of casting ambs-ace, and of raining to-morrow, are altogether impertinent to the question, for two reasons.” His first reason is, “because”, saith he, “our present controversy is concerning free actions, which proceed from the liberty of man’s will; and both his instances are of contingent actions, which proceed from the indetermination, or contingent concurrence of natural causes”. He knows that this part of my discourse, which beginneth at No. XXV, is no dispute with him at all, but a bare setting down of my opinion concerning the natural necessity of all things; which is opposite, not only to the liberty of will, but also to all contingence that is not necessary. And therefore these instances were not impertinent to my purpose; and if they be impertinent to his opinion of the liberty of man’s will, he does impertinently to meddle with them. And yet for all he pretends here, that the question is only about liberty of the will; yet in his first discourse (No. XVI), he maintains that “the order, beauty, and perfection of the world doth require that in the universe should be agents of all sorts, some necessary, some free, some contingent”. And my purpose here is to show by those instances, that those things which we esteem most contingent are nevertheless necessary. Besides, the controversy is not whether free actions which proceed from the liberty of man’s will, be necessary or not; for I know no action which proceedeth from the liberty of man’s will. But the question is, whether those actions which proceed from the man’s will, be necessary. The man’s will is something, but the liberty of his will is nothing. Again, the question is not whether contingent actions which proceed from the indetermination or contingent concurrence of natural causes, (for there is nothing that can proceed from indetermination), but whether contingent actions be necessary before they be done; or whether the concurrence of natural causes, when they happen to concur, were not necessitated so to happen; or whether whatsoever chanceth, be not necessitated so to chance. And that they are so necessitated, I have proved already with such arguments as the Bishop, for aught I see, cannot answer. For to say, as he doth, that “there are free actions which proceed merely from election, without any outward necessitation, is a truth so evident as that there is a sun in the heavens”, is no proof. It is indeed as clear as the sun, that there are free actions proceeding from election; but that there is election without any outward necessitation, is dark enough.

(c) “Secondly, for mixed actions, which proceed from the concurrence of free and natural agents, though they be not free, yet they are not necessary, &c.” For proof of this he instanceth in a tile, that falling from a house breaks a man’s head, neither necessarily nor freely, and therefore contingently. Not necessarily, “for”, saith he, “he did freely choose to go that way without any necessitation”. Which is as much as taking the question itself for a proof. For what is else the question, but whether a man be necessitated to choose what he chooseth? “Again”, saith he, “it was not free, because he did not deliberate whether his head should be broken or not”; and concludes “therefore it was contingent; and by undoubted consequence, there are contingent actions in the world which are not free”. This is true, and denied by none; but he should have proved, that such contingent actions are not antecedently necessary by a concurrence of natural causes; though a little before he granteth they are. For whatsoever is produced by a concurrence of natural causes, was antecedently determined in the cause of such concurrence, though, as he calls it, contingent concurrence; not perceiving that concurrence and contingent concurrence are all one, and suppose a continued connection and succession of causes which make the effect necessarily future. So that hitherto he hath proved no other contingence than that which is necessary.

(d) “Thirdly, for the actions of brute beasts, &c, to think each animal motion of theirs is bound by the chain of unalterable necessity, I see no ground for it.” It maketh nothing against the truth, that he sees no ground for it. I have pointed out the ground in my former discourse, and am not bound to find him eyes. He himself immediately citeth a place of Scripture that proveth it, where Christ saith, one of these sparrows doth not fall to the ground without your heavenly Father; which place, if there were no more, were a sufficient ground for the assertion of the necessity of all those changes of animal motion in birds and other living creatures, which seem to us so uncertain. But when a man is dizzy with influence of power, elicit acts, permissive will, hypothetical necessity, and the like unintelligible terms, the ground goes from him. By and by after he confesseth that “many things are called contingent in respect of us, because we know not the cause of them, which really and in themselves are not contingent, but necessary”; and errs therein the other way; for he says in effect, that many things are, which are not; for it is all one to say, they are not contingent, and they are not. He should have said, there be many things, the necessity of whose contingence we cannot or do not know.

(e) “But whether there be a necessary connexion of all natural causes from the beginning, so as they must all have concurred as they have done, &c, would require a further examination, if it were pertinent to this question of liberty; but it is not. It is sufficient to my purpose to have showed, &c.” If there be a necessary connexion of all natural causes from the beginning, then there is no doubt but that all things happen necessarily, which is that that I have all this while maintained. But whether there be or no, he says, it requires a further examination. Hitherto therefore he knows not whether it be true or no, and consequently all his arguments hitherto have been of no effect, nor hath he showed anything to prove, what he purposed, that elective actions are not necessitated. And whereas a little before he says, that to my arguments to prove that sufficient causes are necessary, he hath already answered; it seemeth he distrusteth his own answer, and answers again to the two instances of casting ambs-ace, and raining or not raining to-morrow; but brings no other argument to prove the cast thrown not to be necessarily thrown, but this, that he does not deliberate whether he shall throw that cast or not. Which argument may perhaps prove that the casting of it proceedeth not from free will, but proves not anything against the antecedent necessity of it. And to prove that it is not necessary that it should rain or not rain to-morrow; after telling us that the Ethiopian rains cause the inundation of Nilus: that in some eastern countries they have rain only twice a year, which the Scripture, he saith, calleth the former and the latter rain; (I thought he had known it by the experience of some travellers, but I see he only gathereth it from that phrase in Scripture of former and latter rain); I say, after he has told us this, to prove that it is not necessary it should rain or not rain to-morrow he saith that “in our climate the natural causes, celestial and sublunary, do not produce rain so necessarily at set times, as in the eastern countries; neither can we say so certainly and infallibly, it will rain to-morrow, or it will not rain to-morrow”. By this argument a man may take the height of the Bishop’s logic. “In our climate the natural causes do not produce rain so necessarily at set times, as in some eastern countries. Therefore they do not produce rain necessarily in our climate, then when they do produce it”. And again, “we cannot say so certainly and infallibly, it will rain to-morrow or it will not rain to-morrow; therefore it is not necessary either that it should rain, or that it should not rain to-morrow”: as if nothing were necessary the necessity whereof we know not. Another reason, he saith, why my instances are impertinent, is because “they extend only to an hypothetical necessity”, that is, that the necessity is not in the antecedent causes; and thereupon challengeth me for the credit of my cause to name some reason, “how the caster was necessitated from without himself to apply just so much force to the cast, and neither more nor less; or what necessity there was why the caster must throw into that table rather than the other, or that the dice must fall just upon that part of the table, before the cast was thrown”. Here again, from our ignorance of the particular causes that concurring make the necessity he inferreth, that there was no such necessity at all; which indeed is that which hath in all this question deceived him, and all other men that attribute events to fortune. But I suppose he will not deny that event to be necessary, where all the causes of the cast, and their concurrence, and the cause of that concurrence are foreknown, and might be told him, though I cannot tell him. Seeing therefore God foreknows them all, the cast was necessary; and that from antecedent causes from eternity; which is no hypothetical necessity.

And whereas to my argument to prove, that ‘raining to-morrow if it shall then rain, and not raining to-morrow if it shall then not rain’, was therefore necessary, because ‘otherwise this disjunctive proposition, it shall rain or not rain to-morrow, is not necessary’, he answereth that “a conjunct proposition may have both parts false, and yet the proposition be true; as, if the sun shine it is day, is a true proposition at midnight”: what has a conjunct proposition to do with this in question, which is disjunctive? Or what be the parts of this proposition, if the sun shine, it is day? It is not made of two propositions, as a disjunctive is; but is one simple proposition, namely, this, the shining of the sun is day. Either he has no logic at all, or thinks they have no reason at all that are his readers. But he has a trick, he saith, to abate the edge of the disjunction, by varying ther proposition thus, “I know that it will rain to-morrow, or that it will not rain to-morrow, is a true proposition”; and yet saith he, “it is neither true that I know it will rain to-morrow, neither is it true that I know it will not rain to-morrow”. What childish deceit, or childish ignorance is this; when he is to prove that neither of the members is determinately true in a disjunctive proposition, to bring for instance a proposition not disjunctive? It had been disjunctive if it had gone thus, I know that it will rain to-morrow, or I know that it will not rain to-morrow; but then he had certainly known determinately one of the two.

(f) “And therefore to say, either this or that will infallibly be, but it is not yet determined whether this or that shall be, is no such senseless assertion that it deserved a tytyrice tupatulice”. But it is a senseless assertion, whatsoever it deserve, to say that this proposition, it shall rain or not rain, is true indeterminedly, and neither of them true determinedly; and little better, as he hath now qualified it, “that it will infallibly be, though it be not yet determined whether it shall be or no”.

(g) “If all this will not satisfy him, I will give him one of his own kinds of proof, that is, an instance. That which necessitates all things, according to T. H. is the decree of God, &c.” His instance is, “that God himself made this necessitating decree, and therefore this decree, being an act ad extra, was freely made by God, without any necessitation”. I do believe the Bishop himself believeth that all the decrees of God have been from all eternity, and therefore he will not stand to this, that God’s decrees were ever made; for whatsoever hath been made, hath had a beginning. Besides, God’s decree is his will; and the Bishop hath said formerly, that the will of God is God, the justice of God, God, &c. If therefore God made a decree, according to the Bishop’s opinion God made himself. By which we may see, what fine stuff it is that proceedeth from disputing of incomprehensibles. Again he says, “if it had been the good pleasure of God, he might have made some causes free from necessity; seeing that it neither argues any imperfection, nor implies any contradiction”. If God had made either causes or effects free from necessity, he had made them free from his own prescience; which had been imperfection. Perhaps he will say, that in these words of his, the decree, being an act ad extra, was freely made by God, I take no notice of that act ad extra, as being too hot for my fingers. Therefore now I take notice of it, and say that it is neither Latin, nor English, nor sense.

NO. XXXV.

T. H. The last thing, in which also consisteth the whole controversy, namely, that there is no such thing as an agent, which, when all things requisite to action are present, can nevertheless forbear to produce it, or (which is all one) that there is no such thing as freedom from necessity; is easily inferred from that which hath been before alleged. For if it be an agent, it can work; and if it work, there is nothing wanting of what is requisite to produce the action; and consequently the cause of the action is sufficient; and if sufficient, then also necessary, as hath been proved before.