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PROP.

Now, to these arguments I oppose, and shall endeaX. vour briefly to demonstrate, the three following proAn answer positions.

and Spino

to Mr. 1st. That every effect cannot possibly be the proHobbes's duct of external causes; but there must of necessity za's argu- be somewhere a beginning of operation, or a power of acting, without being antecedently acted upon; possibility and that this power may be, and is, in man.

ments a

gainst the

of liberty.

That there must be

somewhere

ning of

operation.

2dly. That thinking and willing neither are, nor can be, qualities and affections of matter, and consequently are not included under the laws thereof.

3dly. That even supposing the soul not to be a distinct substance from body, but that thinking and willing could be, and were indeed, only qualities or affections of matter, yet even this would not at all affect the present question, nor prove freedom of will to be impossible.

1st. Every effect cannot possibly be the product of external causes, but there must of necessity be a begin- somewhere a beginning of operation, or a power of acting without being antecedently acted upon; and this power may be, and is, in man. The several parts of this proposition have been already proved in the second and ninth general head of this discourse, and in that part of this tenth head which is concerning the possibility of the power of self-motion being communicated to created beings. I shall not therefore here repeat the proofs; but only apply them to Spinoza's and Mr. Hobbes's arguments, so far as is necessary to show the weakness of what they have said upon this head, in opposition to the possibility of liberty or freedom of will. Now, the manner of their arguing upon this head, is this. That every effect must needs be owing to some cause; and that cause must produce the effect* ne

* Quicunque unquam effectus productus sit, productus est a causa necessaria. Nam quod productum est, causam habuit integram, hoc est, omnia ea quibus suppositis effectum non sequi intelligi non possit: ea vera causa necessaria est.-Hobbes Philosophia prima, cap. 9.

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cessarily, because, if it be a sufficient cause, the effect PROP cannot but follow; and if it be not a sufficient cause it will not be at all a cause of that thing. Thus, for instance,* whatever body is moved, must be moved by some other body, which itself likewise must be moved by some third, and so on without end. That the will,† in like manner, of any voluntary agent, must of necessity be determined to some external cause, and not by any power of determining itself, inherent in itself; and that external cause must be determined necessarily by some other cause, external to it; and so on without end. From all which it evidently appears, that all that these men urge against the possibility of freedom extends equally to all other beings (not excepting the Supreme) as well as to men; and Spinoza in express words confesses it.‡ Wherefore, consequently, whatever noise they make of the strength and demonstrative force of their arguments, all that they say amounts at last to no more but this one most absurd conclusion; that there neither is anywhere, nor can possibly be, any principle of motion, or beginning of operation at all; but every thing is caused necessarily, by an eternal chain of de

Corpus motum vel quiescens, ad motum vel quietem determinari debuit ab alio corpore, quod etiam ad motum vel quietem determinatum fuit ab alio, et illud iterum ab alio, et sic in infinitum.— Spinoza Ethic. par. II. prop. 13. lemma 3.

+ Unaquæque volitio non potest existere, neque ad operandum determinari, nisi ab alia causa determinetur, et hæc rursus ab alia, et sic porro in infinitum.-Id Ethic. par. I. prop. 32. demonstr.

I conceive nothing taketh beginning from itself, but from the action of some immediate agent without itself; and that therefore, when first a man had an appetite or will to something, to which, immediately before, he had no appetite or will, the cause of his will is not the will itself, but something else not in his own disposing.Hobbes's Debate with Bishop Bramhall, p. 289.

In mente nulla est absoluta sive libera voluntas; sed mens ad hoc vel illud volendum determinatur a causa, quæ etiam ab alia determinata est, et hæc iterum ab alio, et sic in infinitum.-Spinoza, Ethic. par. II. prop. 48.

Hinc sequitur, Deum non operari ex libertate voluntatis.-Ethic. par. I. coroll. ad prop. 32.

G

X.

PROP. pendent causes and effects, without any independent original. All their arguments, therefore, on this head are already answered in the second and ninth general heads of this discourse; (where I proved that there must of necessity be an original, independent, and free principle of motion or action; and that, to suppose an endless succession of dependent causes and effects, without any original or first and self-actuating principle, is supposing a series of dependent things to be from eternity produced by nothing, which is the very same absurdity and contradiction as to suppose things produced by nothing at any definite time; the ability of nothing to produce any thing being plainly the same in time or in eternity.) And I have moreover proved, ex abundanti, in the foregoing part of this tenth head, that the power of beginning motion is not only possible and certain in itself, but also possible to be communicated to finite beings, and that it actually is in man.

That think.

ing and willing neither are nor

can be af.

matter.

2dly. Thinking and willing neither are, nor can be, qualities or affections of matter; and consequently are not concluded under the laws thereof. That it is possible there* may be immaterial subfections of Stances, the notion not implying a contradiction in itself, hath already been shown under the present general proposition. Further, that thinking and willing are powers entirely different from solidity, figure, and motion, and if they be different, that then they cannot possibly arise from them, or be compounded of them, hath likewise been already proved under the eighth general head of this discourse. It follows, therefore, that thinking and willing may possibly be, nay, that they certainly and necessarily are, faculties or powers of immaterial substances; seeing they cannot possibly be qualities or affections of matter, unless we will confound (as some have done,) the ideas of things; and mean by matter, not what that word in all other cases signifies, a solid substance capable of division, figure, and motion, and of whatever properties can arise from

X.

the modifications of these, but substance in general, PROP. capable of unknown powers or properties entirely different from these, and from whatever can possibly result from these. In which confused sense of the word, could matter be supposed never so capable of thinking and willing, yet, in that sense, (as I shall show presently,) it would signify nothing at all to the purpose or advantage of our adversaries. In the meantime, how great an absurdity it is to suppose thinking and willing to be qualities or affections of matter, in the proper and usual sense of the word, may sufficiently appear, without any foreign argument, from the senselessness of Mr. Hobbes's own explication of the nature and original of sensation and consciousness. The immediate cause of sensation,* saith he, is this; the object, or something flowing from it, presseth the outermost part of the organ, and that pressure is communicated to the innermost parts of the organ, where, by the resistance or reaction of the organ, causing a pressure outwards contrary to the pressure of the object inwards, there is made up a phantasm, or image; which phantasm, saith he, is the sensation itself, Again; the cause of sensation, saith he, is an object pressing

Ex quo intelligitur, sensionis immediatam causam esse in eo, quod sensionis organum primum et tangit et premit. Si enim organi pars extima prematur; illa cedente, premetur quoque pars quæ versus interiora illi proxima est ; et ita propagabitur pressio, sive motus ille, per partes organi omnes, usque ad intimam.- -Quoniam autem motui ab objecto per media ad organi partem intimam propagato, fit aliqua totius organi resistentia sive reactio, per motum ipsius organi internum naturalem; fit propterea conatui ab objecto, conatus ab organo contrarius. Ut, cùm conatus ille ad intima, ultimus actus sit eorum qui fiunt in actu sensionis ; tum demum ex ea reactione aliquandiu durante, ipsum existant phantasma; quod, propter conatum versus externa, semper videtur tanquam aliquid situm extra organum.-Hobbes de Sensione et Motu Animali.

+ Phantasma est sentiendi actus.-Id. Ibid.

Causa sensionis est externum corpus sive objectum quod premit organum proprium; et premendo, (mediantibus nervis et membranis,) continuum efficit motum introrsum ad cerebrum et inde ad

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PROP. the organ, which pressure is by means of the nerves conveyed to the brain, and so to the heart, where, by the resistance or counterpressure of the heart, outwards, is made an image or phantasm which is sensation. Now, what is there in all this, that does in any the least measure tend to explain or make intelligible the real and inward nature of sense or consciousness? The object, by communicating a pressure through the organ to the sensory, does indeed raise a phantasm or image, that is, make a certain impression on the brain; but wherein consists the power of perceiving this impression, and of being sensible of it? or what similitude hath this impression to the sense itself, that is, to the thought excited in the mind? why, exactly the very same that a square has to blueness, or a triangle to sound, or a needle to the sense of pain; or the reflecting of a tennis-ball to the reason and understanding of a man. So that Mr. Hobbes's definition of sensation,that it is itself, the inmost and formal nature of it, nothing but the phantasm or image made in the brain by the pressure communicated from the object, -is, in other words, defining blueness to be the image of a square, or sound the picture of a triangle, or pain the similitude of a sharp-pointed needle. I do not here misrepresent him in the least. For he himself expressly confesses,* that all sensible qualities, such as colour, sound, and the like, are in the objects themselves nothing but motion; and, because

cor; unde nascitur cordis resistentia et contra-pressio seu ȧvriTuTía, sive conatus cordis liberantis se a pressione per motum tendentem extrorsum ; qui motus propterea apparet tanquam aliquid externum : atque apparitio hæc, sive phantasma, est id quod vocamus sensionem.-Leviathan. cap. 1.

* Quæ qualitates omnes nominari solent sensibiles, et sunt in ipso objecto nihil aliud præter materiæ motum, quo objectum in organa sensuum diversimode operatur. Neque in nobis aliud sunt, quam diversi motus. Motus enim nihil generat præter motum.

Leviathan, cap. 1.

† See Four Defences of a letter to Mr. Dodwell.

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