§417The author of the letter, who undoubtedly displays much ardour and penetration, sometimes goes a little too far, as when he claims to prove that there is as much reality and force in rest as in motion, according to the fifth corollary of the second proposition. He asserts that the will of God is no less positive in rest than in motion, and that it is not less invincible. Be it so, but does it follow that there is as much reality and force in each of the two? I do not see this conclusion, and with the same argument one would prove that there is as much force in a strong motion as in a weak motion. God in willing rest wills that the body be at the place A, where it was immediately before, and for that it suffices that there be no reason to prompt God to the change. But when God wills that afterwards the body be at the place B, there must needs be a new reason, of such a kind as to determine God to will that it be in B and not in C or in any other place, and that it be there more or less promptly. It is upon these reasons, the volitions of God, that we must assess the force and the reality existent in things. The author speaks much of the will of God, but he does not speak much in this letter of the reasons which prompt God to will, and upon which all depends. And these reasons are taken from the objects.

I observe first, indeed, with regard to the second corollary of the first proposition, that it is very true, but that it is not very well proven. The writer affirms that if God only ceased to will the existence of a being, that being would no longer exist; and here is the proof given word for word:

'Demonstration. That which exists only by the will of God no longer exists once that will has ceased.' (But that is what must be proved. The writer endeavours to prove it by adding:) 'Remove the cause, you remove the effect.' (This maxim ought to have been placed among the axioms which are stated at the beginning. But unhappily this axiom may be reckoned among those rules of philosophy which are subject to many exceptions.) 'Now by the preceding proposition and by its first corollary no being exists save by the will of God. Therefore, etc.' There is ambiguity in this expression, that nothing exists save by the will of God. If one means that things [392] begin to exist only through this will, one is justified in referring to the preceding propositions; but if one means that the existence of things is at all times a consequence of the will of God, one assumes more or less what is in question. Therefore it was necessary to prove first that the existence of things depends upon the will of God, and that it is not only a mere effect of that will, but a dependence, in proportion to the perfection which things contain; and once that is assumed, they will depend upon God's will no less afterwards than at the beginning. That is the way I have taken the matter in my Essays.

Nevertheless I recognize that the letter upon which I have just made observations is admirable and well deserving of perusal, and that it contains noble and true sentiments, provided it be taken in the sense I have just indicated. And arguments in this form may serve as an introduction to meditations somewhat more advanced.

[393] * * * * *

REFLEXIONS ON THE WORK THAT MR. HOBBES PUBLISHED IN ENGLISH ON 'FREEDOM, NECESSITY AND CHANCE'

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§1As the question of Necessity and Freedom, with other questions depending thereon, was at one time debated between the famous Mr. Hobbes and Dr. John Bramhall, Bishop of Derry, in books published by each of them, I have deemed it appropriate to give a clear account of them (although I have already mentioned them more than once); and this all the more since these writings of Mr. Hobbes have hitherto only appeared in English, and since the works of this author usually contain something good and ingenious. The Bishop of Derry and Mr. Hobbes, having met in Paris at the house of the Marquis, afterwards Duke, of Newcastle in the year 1646, entered into a discussion on this subject. The dispute was conducted with extreme restraint; but the bishop shortly afterwards sent a note to My Lord Newcastle, desiring him to induce Mr. Hobbes to answer it. He answered; but at the same time he expressed a wish that his answer should not be published, because he believed it possible for ill-instructed persons to abuse dogmas such as his, however true they might be. It so happened, however, that Mr. Hobbes himself passed it to a French friend, and allowed a young Englishman to translate it into French for the benefit of this friend. This young man kept a copy of the English original, and published it later in England without the author's knowledge. Thus the bishop was obliged to reply to it, and Mr. Hobbes to make a rejoinder, and to [394] publish all the pieces together in a book of 348 pages printed in London in the year 1656, in 4to., entitled, Questions concerning Freedom, Necessity and Chance, elucidated and discussed between Doctor Bramhall, Bishop of Derry, and Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. There is a later edition, of the year 1684, in a work entitled Hobbes's Tripos, where are to be found his book on human nature, his treatise on the body politic and his treatise on freedom and necessity; but the latter does not contain the bishop's reply, nor the author's rejoinder. Mr. Hobbes argues on this subject with his usual wit and subtlety; but it is a pity that in both the one and the other we stumble upon petty tricks, such as arise in excitement over the game. The bishop speaks with much vehemence and behaves somewhat arrogantly. Mr. Hobbes for his part is not disposed to spare the other, and manifests rather too much scorn for theology, and for the terminology of the Schoolmen, which is apparently favoured by the bishop.

§2One must confess that there is something strange and indefensible in the opinions of Mr. Hobbes. He maintains that doctrines touching the divinity depend entirely upon the determination of the sovereign, and that God is no more the cause of the good than of the bad actions of creatures. He maintains that all that which God does is just, because there is none above him with power to punish and constrain him. Yet he speaks sometimes as if what is said about God were only compliments, that is to say expressions proper for paying him honour, but not for knowing him. He testifies also that it seems to him that the pains of the wicked must end in their destruction: this opinion closely approaches that of the Socinians, but it seems that Mr. Hobbes goes much further. His philosophy, which asserts that bodies alone are substances, hardly appears favourable to the providence of God and the immortality of the soul. On other subjects nevertheless he says very reasonable things. He shows clearly that nothing comes about by chance, or rather that chance only signifies the ignorance of causes that produce the effect, and that for each effect there must be a concurrence of all the sufficient conditions anterior to the event, not one of which, manifestly, can be lacking when the event is to follow, because they are conditions: the event, moreover, does not fail to follow when these conditions exist all together, because they are sufficient conditions. All which amounts to the same as I have said so many times, that everything comes to pass as a result of determining reasons, the knowledge [395] whereof, if we had it, would make us know at the same time why the thing has happened and why it did not go otherwise.

§3But this author's humour, which prompts him to paradoxes and makes him seek to contradict others, has made him draw out exaggerated and odious conclusions and expressions, as if everything happened through an absolute necessity. The Bishop of Derry, on the other hand, has aptly observed in the answer to article 35, page 327, that there results only a hypothetical necessity, such as we all grant to events in relation to the foreknowledge of God, while Mr. Hobbes maintains that even divine foreknowledge alone would be sufficient to establish an absolute necessity of events. This was also the opinion of Wyclif, and even of Luther, when he wrote De Servo Arbitrio; or at least they spoke so. But it is sufficiently acknowledged to-day that this kind of necessity which is termed hypothetical, and springs from foreknowledge or from other anterior reasons, has nothing in it to arouse one's alarm: whereas it would be quite otherwise if the thing were necessary of itself, in such a way that the contrary implied contradiction. Mr. Hobbes refuses to listen to anything about a moral necessity either, on the ground that everything really happens through physical causes. But one is nevertheless justified in making a great difference between the necessity which constrains the wise to do good, and which is termed moral, existing even in relation to God, and that blind necessity whereby according to Epicurus, Strato, Spinoza, and perhaps Mr. Hobbes, things exist without intelligence and without choice, and consequently without God. Indeed, there would according to them be no need of God, since in consequence of this necessity all would have existence through its own essence, just as necessarily as two and three make five. And this necessity is absolute, because everything it carries with it must happen, whatever one may do; whereas what happens by a hypothetical necessity happens as a result of the supposition that this or that has been foreseen or resolved, or done beforehand; and moral necessity contains an obligation imposed by reason, which is always followed by its effect in the wise. This kind of necessity is happy and desirable, when one is prompted by good reasons to act as one does; but necessity blind and absolute would subvert piety and morality.