A Treatise of the Laws of Nature. Richard Cumberland
is evident, that after Reasons, or Motives, not in Mens Power, are offered to them to act, and they cannot help thinking it right to act upon them, and are in their last Judgment determined to act upon them, (and the Event shews that they do act upon them;) they can yet deliberate with themselves before they act, and can suspend the Action without any external Motive whatsoever; which clearly shews, that the Action proceeds from Will and Choice, and is voluntary, not necessary.
“My Adversary himself allows, That Choice and Preference imply Doubt and Deliberation; which tho’ not true, as I have shewn; yet, on the other side, it is true, that Deliberation and Suspension imply Will and Choice: For it is, I think, Demonstration, that, if the Motives of acting are such as impell the Mind necessarily to act, i.e. to act, not by Will, but by Necessity, then there can be no Suspension of Action; but the Moment that the Mind is impelled, it must act, just as a Balance moves the Instant that the Weight is hung upon it: Necessity has no Regard to Time, but, if it acts at all, acts equally in every Moment of Time; and, if it is the immediate efficient Cause, or Power of Action, must act as soon as it takes place, or impells the Mind; and I would desire to be told, what Power of the Mind it is, (if it is not that which we call Will,) which is able perpetually to resist, without the Assistance of any external Motive, the Operations of Necessity by Suspension of Actions. That this Suspension is caus’d by the Will, and, consequently, that the Action following is voluntary, may farther appear by there being no Suspension, or Deliberation, where the Actions, or Effects, are not voluntary, as whether the Pulse, or Heart, should beat, and in the case of the Actions of Madmen, of Men in a Fever, or under a violent Surprise, or Passion; the more of Necessity there is, there is always the less of Deliberation and Suspension; and, if the Motive necessarily produces the Action, it produces it also instant aneously. This Argument may be worth Consideration; and to it I shall subjoin the Opinion of the great Aristotle; who thus argues;
“‘Deliberation and Choice is one and the same Thing; for that which was deliberated upon is the Matter of Choice.—Now the elective Faculty, being deliberative, and that which desires those Things which are in our Power, the Choice itself is the deliberative Desire of those Things which are in our Power: For, judging upon Deliberation, we afterwards desire what we deliberated upon.’200
“And the learned Alexander Aphrodisius says;
“‘Certainly Man hath not the Power of Deliberation in vain, as it must be, if he acts by Necessity. But it plainly appears, that Man alone hath, by Nature, this Power above the rest of Animals, that he is not like them led merely by Sense, but is endued with Reason, whereby to judge of Objects. By which Reason examining the Objects of Sense, if he finds them to be really what at first they appear’d to be, he assents to the Evidence of his Senses, and pursues the Objects of them. But, if he finds them different from what they appeared, he does not continue in his Conception of them, being convinc’d by Reason, upon Consideration, of the Falsity of them. Wherefore we deliberate only about such Things, as are in our Power to do, or not: And, when we act without Deliberation, we often repent and blame our-selves for our Inconsideration. Also, if we see others act unadvisedly, we reprehend them as guilty of a Fault, and the Ground of our Consultation with others is, that Things are in our own Power.’201
“Let us proceed, farther to explain the Doctrine of Chrysippus and the Stoicks, whose Notions, concerning Human Liberty, have been much mistaken and misrepresented.
“Chrysippus says, ‘Fate is the Reason of the World, or the Law of Providence, by which all Things in the World are govern’d.’202 And Gellius tells us, that Chrysippus held, that the ‘Order and Reason and Necessity of Fate was a Motive of Action, to the general and efficient Causes of it; but that every one’s own Will and Dispositions directed the Exertion of our Minds and Purposes, and the Actions of them.’203 And Diogenianus the Peripatetic, writing against Chrysippus, says, ‘It is manifest, from the Distinction which he (Chrysippus) makes, that the Cause (of Action) which is in us, is exempt from Fate.’204 And he cites Chrysippus as declaring, ‘That it is evident, that many Things are done by our own Power, but yet, nevertheless, that these Things are connected with Fate, by which the Universe is govern’d.’205
“Whence it appears, that the learned Dr. Cudworth is mistaken, when he says, that the antient Stoicks, Zeno and Chrysippus, asserted, that God acted necessarily in the general Frame of Things in the World; from whence, by a Series of Causes (they thought) doth unavoidably result whatsoever is done in it. Which Fate is a Concatenation of Causes, all in themselves necessary.206
“For which Opinion, concerning these two most eminent Stoicks, the learned Doctor produceth not the least Evidence. That which deceived him, and hath also deceived others, both antients (as Cicero and Gellius observe) and moderns, is, their Notion of a Series and Concatenation of Causes; which Causes, tho’ they were supposed necessarily to produce each other, yet they were not supposed, to proceed necessarily from God, the original and first Cause, but to be derived from the perfect Wisdom of his Nature, and his Will, as Seneca, the Stoick, has informed us: And were not thought to be the efficient Causes of human Actions, (which they expressly exempted from the Coercion of them,) but were only understood, to be Motives, or secondary Causes; whilst they placed the principal and efficient Cause of Action within the Mind itself: So that the Necessity of this Stoical Chain of Causes was only supposed, to operate in the Production of external providential Events, consequential to Mens Actions, which were taught to be voluntary and in their own Power. And it plainly appears, from the Words of Balbus, the Stoick, mention’d by Cicero (de nat. Deor. L. 2.) that the antient Stoicks agreed with the Platonicks, in asserting the free and voluntary Motion, Exertion, or Agency, of the human Mind. To proceed therefore;
“Cicero, in the Person of Velleius, represents the Stoical Notion of Fate to be, ‘That all Events proceed from the eternal Truth and Connection of Causes.’207 Diogenes Laertius says it was their Opinion, ‘That Fate is the Connection of the Causes of Things, or that Reason, by which the World is govern’d.’208
“Seneca (the Stoick) says; ‘Fate is nothing else, but the Connection of Causes.’209
“Marcus Antoninus the Emperor, and Stoical Philosopher, frequently expresses his Notion of Fate in like manner.210 But that in this Fate, or Chain of Causes, the Power of Action in Men was contain’d, and was (υπὲρ μὸρον) exempt from the Necessity of Fate, we are assur’d (from Plutarch211) was the common Opinion of Stoicks and Platonists. And Tacitus, speaking of the Stoicks, says, ‘They attribute, indeed, a Fatality unto Things, but not as proceeding from the Motion of the Planets, (which was the Astrological Notion only,) but from the Principle and Connection of natural Causes: And yet they leave the Conduct of our Life to our own Choice, which being chosen, a certain Order of Events (they think) follows.’212
“Alcinous sets forth Plato’s Opinion of Fate, in the following Manner: ‘He understands Fate to be this; That, if any Person chooseth such a sort of Life, and will do such and such Actions, such and such Consequences will follow. Wherefore the Soul is unrestrain’d, and hath it in its own Power to act, or not, and in this respect (of any particular Action) is not compelled: But the Consequence of it’s Action will be effected by Fate: As for Example, if Paris will carry away Helen, which it is in his Power to do, or not, the Event will be, that the Grecians will make War against the Trojans for her.’213
“Hierocles