If, again, the meaning of the question be, Was there something previous to the action, which made it to be necessarily produced? Every who believes that the action was free, will answer to this question in the negative.

man,

I know no other meaning that can be put upon the principle of a sufficient reason, when applied to the determinations of the human will, besides the three I have mentioned. In the first it is evidently false; in the second it is true, but does not affect the question about liberty; in the third, it is a mere assertion of necessity, without proof.

Before we leave this boasted principle, we may see how it applies to events of another kind. When we say that a philosopher has assigned a sufficient reason for such a phenomenon, What is the meaning of this? The meaning surely is, That he has accounted for it from the known laws of nature. The sufficient reason of a phenomenon of nature must therefore be some law or laws of nature, of which the phenomenon is a necessary consequence. But are we sure that, in this sense, there is a sufficient reason for every phenomenon of nature? I think we are not.

For, not to speak of miraculous events, in which the laws of nature are suspended, or counteracted, we know not but that, in the ordinary course of God's providence, there may be particular acts of his administration, that do not come under any general law of nature.

Established laws of nature are necessary for enabling intelligent creatures to conduct their affairs with wisdom and prudence, and prosecute their ends by proper means; but still it may be fit, that some particular events should not be fixed by general laws, but be directed by particular acts of the Divine government, that so his reasonable creatures may have sufficient inducement to supplicate his aid, his protection and direction, and to depend upon him for the success of their honest designs.

We see that, in human governments, even those that are most legal, it is impossible that every act of the administration should be directed by established laws. Some things must be left to the direction of the executive power, and particularly acts of clemency and bounty to petitioning subjects. That there is nothing analogous to this in the Divine government of the world, no man is able to prove.

We have no authority to pray that God would counteract or suspend the laws of nature in our behalf. Prayer, therefore, supposes that he may lend an ear to our prayers, without transgressing the laws of nature. Some have thought, that the only use of prayer and devotion is, to produce a proper temper and disposition in ourselves, and that it has no efficacy with the Deity. But this is a hypothesis without proof. It contradicts our most natural sentiments, as well as the plain doctrine of Scripture, and tends to damp the fervour of every act of devotion.

It was indeed an article of the system of Leibnitz, That the Deity, since the creation of the world, never did any thing, excepting in the case of miracles; his work being made so perfect at first, as never to need his interposition. But, in this, he was opposed, by Sir Isaac Newton, and others of the ablest philosophers, nor was he ever able to give any proof of this tenet.

There is no evidence, therefore, that there is a sufficient reason for every natural event; if, by a sufficient reason, we understand some fixed law, or laws of nature, of which that event is a necessary consequence. But, what shall we say, is the sufficient reason for a truth? For our belief of a truth, I think, the sufficient reason is our having good evidence; but what may be meant by a sufficient reason for its being a truth, I an

not able to guess, unless the sufficient reason of a contingent truth be, That it is true; and, of a necessary truth, that it must be true. This makes a man little wiser.

From what has been said, I think it appears, that this principle of the necessity of a sufficient reason for every thing, is very indefinite in its signification. If it mean, That of every event there must be a cause that had sufficient power to produce it, this is true, and has always been admitted as a first principle in philosophy, and in common life. If it mean that every event must be necessarily consequent upon something (called a sufficient reason) that went before it; this is a direct assertion of universal fatality, and has many strange, not to say absurd, consequences: but, in this sense, it is neither self-evident, nor has any proof of it been offered. And, in general, in every sense in which it has evidence, it gives no new information; and, in every sense in which it would give new information, it wants evidence.

Another argument that has been used to prove liberty of action to be impossible is, That it implies an effect without a cause.'

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To this it may be briefly answered, That a free action is an effect produced by a being who had power and will to produce it; therefore it is not an effect without a cause.

To suppose any other cause necessary to the production of an effect, than a being who had the power and the will to produce it, is a contradiction; for it is to suppose that being to have power to produce the effect, and not to have power to produce it.

But as great stress is laid upon this argument by a late zealous advocate for necessity, we shall consider the light in which he puts it.

He introduces this argument with an observation to which I entirely agree: It is, That to establish this doctrine of necessity, nothing is necessary but that, throughout all nature, the same consequences should invariably result from the same circumstances.

I know nothing more that can be desired to establish universal fatality throughout the universe. When it is proved that, through all nature, the same consequences invariably result from the same circumstances, the doctrine of liberty must be given up.

To prevent all ambiguity, I grant, that, in reasoning, the same consequences throughout all nature, will invariably follow from the same premises because good reasoning must be good reasoning in all times and places. But this has nothing to do with the doctrine of necessity. The thing to be proved, therefore, in order to establish that doctrine, is, That, through all nature, the same events invariably result from the same circumstances.

Of this capital point, the proof offered by that author is, That an event not preceded by any circumstances that determined it to be what it was, would be an effect without a cause. Why so?"For, says he, a cause cannot be defined to be any thing but such previous circumstances as are constantly followed by a certain effect; the constancy of the result making us conclude, that there must be a sufficient reason, in the nature of things, why it should be produced in those circumstances."

I acknowledge that, if this be the only definition that can be given of a cause, it will follow, That an event not preceded by circumstances that determined it to be what it was, would be, not an effect without a cause, which is a contradiction in terms, but an event without a cause, which I hold to be impossible. The matter therefore is brought to this issue, hether this be the only definition that can be given of a cause?

With regard to this point, we may observe, first, That this definition of a cause, bating the phraseology of putting a cause under the category of circumstances, which I take to be new, is the same, in other words, with that which Mr. Hume gave, of which he ought to be acknowledged the inventor. For I know of no author before Mr. Hume, who maintained, that we have no other notion of a cause, but that it is something prior to the effect, which has been found by experience to be constantly followed by the effect. This is a main pillar of his system; and he has drawn very important consequences from this definition, which I am far from thinking this author will adopt.

Without repeating what I have before said of causes in the first of these Essays, and in the second and third chapters of this, I shall here mention some of the consequences that may be justly deduced from this definition of a cause, that we may judge of it by its fruits.

First, It follows from this definition of a cause, that night is the cause of day, and day the cause of night. For no two things have more constantly followed each other since the beginning of the world.

Secondly, It follows from this definition of a cause, that, for what we know, any thing may be the cause of any thing, since nothing is essential to a cause but its being constantly followed by the effect. If this be so, what is unintelligent may be the cause of what is intelligent; folly may be the cause of wisdom, and evil of good; all reasoning from the nature of the effect to the nature of the cause, and all reasoning from final causes, must be given up as fallacious.

Thirdly, From this definition of a cause, it follows, that we have no reason to conclude that every event must have a cause: for innumerable events happen, when it cannot be shown that there were certain previous circumstances that have constantly been followed by such an event. And though it were certain, that every event we have had access to observe had a cause, it would not follow, that every event must have a cause: for it is contrary to the rules of logic to conclude, that, because a thing has always been, therefore it must be; to reason from what is contingent, to what is necessary.

Fourthly, From this definition of a cause, it would follow, that we have no reason to conclude that there was any cause of the creation of this world for there were no previous circumstances that had been constantly followed by such an effect. And, for the same reason, it would follow from the definition, that whatever was singular in its nature, or the first thing of its kind, could have no cause.

Several of these consequences were fondly embraced by Mr. Hume, as necessarily following from his definition of a cause, and as favourable to his system of absolute scepticism. Those who adopt the definition of a cause, from which they follow, may choose whether they will adopt its consequences, or show that they do not follow from the definition.

A second observation with regard to this argument is, That a definition of a cause may be given, which is not burdened with such untoward consequences.

Why may not an efficient cause be defined to be, a being that had power and will to produce the effect? The production of an effect requires active power, and active power being a quality, must be in a being endowed with that power. Power without will produces no effect; but, where these are conjoined, the effect must be produced.

This, I think, is the proper meaning of the word cause, when it is used in metaphysics; and particularly when we affirm, that every thing that

begins to exist must have a cause; and when, by reasoning, we prove, there must be an eternal First Cause of all things.

that

Was the world produced by previous circumstances which are constantly followed by such an effect? or, Was it produced by a Being that had power to produce it, and willed its production?

In natural philosophy, the word cause is often used in a very different sense. When an event is produced according to a known law of nature, the law of nature is called the cause of that event. But a law of nature is not the efficient cause of any event. It is only the rule, according to which the efficient cause acts. A law is a thing conceived in the mind of a rational being, not a thing that has a real existence; and, therefore, like a motive, it can neither act nor be acted upon, and consequently cannot be an efficient cause. If there be no being that acts according to the law, it

produces no effect.

This author takes it for granted, that every voluntary action of man was determined to be what it was by the laws of nature, in the same sense as mechanical motions are determined by the laws of motion; and that every choice, not thus determined, "is just as impossible, as that a mechanical motion should depend upon no certain law or rule, or that any other effect should exist without a cause."

It ought here to be observed, that there are two kinds of laws, both very properly called laws of nature, which ought not to be confounded. There are moral laws of nature, and physical laws of nature. The first are the rules which God has prescribed to his rational creatures for their conduct. They respect voluntary and free actions only; for no other actions can be subject to moral rules. These laws of nature ought to be always obeyed, but they are often transgressed, by men. There is therefore no impossibility in the violation of the moral laws of nature, nor is such a violation an effect without a cause. The transgressor is the cause, and is justly accountable for it.

The physical laws of nature are the rules according to which the Deity commonly acts in his natural government of the world; and, whatever is done according to them, is not done by man, but by God, either immediately or by instruments under his direction. These laws of nature neither restrain the power of the Author of nature, nor bring him under any obliga tion to do nothing beyond their sphere. He has sometimes acted contrary to them, in the case of miracles, and perhaps often acts without regard to them, in the ordinary course of his providence. Neither miraculous events, which are contrary to the physical laws of nature, nor such ordinary acts of the Divine administration as are without their sphere, are impossible, nor are they effects without a cause. God is the cause of them, and to him only they are to be imputed.

That the moral laws of nature are often transgressed by man is undeni able. If the physical laws of nature make his obedience to the moral laws to be impossible, then he is, in the literal sense, born under one law, bound unto another, which contradicts every notion of a righteous government of the world.

But though this supposition were attended with no such shocking consequence, it is merely a supposition; and until it be proved that every choice or voluntary action of man is determined by the physical laws of nature, this argument for necessity is only the taking for granted the point to be proved.

Of the same kind is the argument for the impossibility of liberty, taken from a balance, which cannot move but as it is moved by the weights put

into it. This argument, though urged by almost every writer in defence of necessity, is so pitiful, and has been so often answered, that it scarce deserves to be mentioned.

Every argument in a dispute, which is not grounded on principles granted by both parties, is that kind of sophism which logicians call petitio principii; and such, in my apprehension, are all the arguments offered to prove that liberty of action is impossible.

It may farther be observed, that every argument of this class, if it were really conclusive, must extend to the Deity, as well as to all created beings; and necessary existence, which has always been considered as the prerogative of the Supreme Being, must belong equally to every creature and to every event, even the most trifling.

This I take to be the system of Spinosa, and of those among the ancients who carried fatality to the highest pitch.

I before referred the reader to Dr. Clarke's argument, which professes to demonstrate, that the First Cause is a free agent. Until that argument shall be shown to be fallacious, a thing which I have not seen attempted, such weak arguments as have been brought to prove the contrary ought to have little weight.

CHAPTER X.

THE SAME SUBJECT.

WITH regard to the second class of arguments for necessity, which are intended to prove, that liberty of action would be hurtful to man, I have only to observe, that it is a fact too evident to be denied, whether we adopt the system of liberty or that of necessity, that men actually receive hurt from their own voluntary actions, and from the voluntary actions of other men; nor can it be pretended, that this fact is inconsistent with the doctrine of liberty, or that it is more unaccountable upon this system than upon that of necessity.

In order, therefore, to draw any solid argument against liberty from its hurtfulness, it ought to be proved, That, if a man were a free agent, he would do more hurt to himself, or to others, than he actually does.

To this purpose it has been said, That liberty would make men's actions capricious; that it would destroy the influence of motives; that it would take away the effect of rewards and punishments; and that it would make man absolutely ungovernable.

These arguments have been already considered in the fourth and fifth chapters of this Essay; and, therefore, I shall now proceed to the third class of arguments for necessity, which are intended to prove, that, in fact, men are not free agents.

The most formidable argument of this class, and, I think, the only one that has not been considered in some of the preceding chapters, is taken from the prescience of the Deity.

God foresees every determination of the human mind. It must therefore be what he foresees it shall be; and therefore must be necessary. This argument may be understood three different ways, each of which we shall consider, that we may see all its force.

The necessity of the event may be thought to be a just consequence, either barely from its being certainly future, or barely from its being foreseen, or from the impossibility of its being foreseen, if it was not necessary.