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.

And thus you see how the inconveniences, which his Lordship objecteth must follow upon the holding of necessity, are avoided, and the necessity itself demonstratively proved. To which I could add, if I thought it good logic, the inconvenience of denying necessity, as that it destroyeth both the decrees and the prescience of God Almighty; for whatsoever God hath purposed to bring to pass by man, as an instrument, or foreseeth shall come to pass; a man, if he have liberty, such as his Lordship affirmeth, from necessitation, might frustrate, and make not to come to pass, and God should either not foreknow it, and not decree it, or he should foreknow such things shall be, as shall never be, and decree that which shall never come to pass.

This is all that hath come into my mind touching this question since I last considered it. And I humbly beseech your Lordship to communicate it only to my Lord Bishop. And so praying God to prosper your Lordship in all your designs, I take leave, and am, My most noble and most obliging Lord, Your most humble servant, THOMAS HOBBES.

Rouen, Aug. 20, 1652.*

* In the first edition of 1654 this date is 1646.

AN

ANSWER

TO A BOOK PUBLISHED BY

DR. BRAMHALL,

LATE BISHOP OF DERRY;

CALLED THE

"CATCHING OF THE LEVIATHAN."

TOGETHER WITH AN

HISTORICAL NARRATION CONCERNING

HERESY,

AND THE PUNISHMENT THEREOF.

TO THE READER.

As in all things which I have written, so also in this piece, I have endeavoured all I can to be perspicuous; but yet your own attention is always necessary. The late Lord Bishop of Derry published a book called The Catching of the Leviathan, in which he hath put together divers sentences picked out of my Leviathan, which stand there plainly and firmly proved, and sets them down without their proofs, and without the order of their dependance one upon another; and calls them atheism, blasphemy, impiety, subversion of religion, and by other names of that kind. My request unto you is, that when he cites my words for erroneous, you will be pleased to turn to the place itself, and see whether they be well proved, and how to be understood. Which labour his Lordship might have saved you, if he would have vouchsafed as well to have weighed my arguments before you, as to have shown you my conclusions. His book containeth two chapters, the one concerning Religion,

the other concerning Politics. Because he does not so much as offer any refutation of any thing in my Leviathan concluded, I needed not to have answered either of them. Yet to the first I here answer, because the words atheism, impiety, and the like, are words of the greatest defamation possible. And this I had done sooner, if I had sooner known that such a book was extant. He wrote it ten years since, and yet I never heard of it till about three months since; so little talk there was of his Lordship's writings. If you want leisure or care of the questions between us, I pray you condemn me not upon report. To judge and not examine is not just.

Farewell.

T. HOBBES.