Bodies compounded of those Elements But farther If these Things contribute to some good Effect if by the infinite Revolutions of Matter and Motion the Corruption of one Thing produces the Generation of another how then can the Corruption of any single part be Evil when at the same time it conduces to the Benefit of the whole This is a Rule which Nature it self hath made evident to us and every particular Creature practises it in slighting the Advantage of its Parts in Comparison of the Good of the Whole Thus when any Noxious Humours are redundant in the Body Nature throws them off from the Heart or Bowels or Lungs or Brain and all the parts that are principally concern'd in the functions of Life into the Hands the Feet the Skin or any of the Extream Parts she raises Blisters and causes Putrefactions to remove the Humour and is content to corrupt some parts for the preservation of the whole This is sometimes I say the work of Nature and when it is not so we endeavour to supply it by art For when Physicians and Chyrurgeons draw Sores and Cup and Scarify and Sear and cut off Limbs to save our Lives they only imitate Nature and do that by Medicines which she was able to do without them And yet there is no Wise Man that blames these Methods nor thinks those Pains Evil which he suffers upon such good Accounts From hence it appears that if Bodies subsisted by themselves alone and whatever they endured had no relation at all to the Souls of Men none of the different Changes they undergo would be esteemed Evil So that if there be any real Cause for this Complaint it must be upon the account of the Souls in those Bodies Now some of these are Irrational perfectly of a piece with the Bodies and no more than the animating part of them Their Essence their Power and their Operations subsist in and depend entirely upon and are in inseparable Conjunction with the Body But others are Rational of a Nature superiour to the Body and distinct from it acting upon a free Principle of Motion and Choice a Principle of their own by which they dispose their own Inclinations and Desires as they see fit themselves all which hath been abundantly proved already Now the Irrational Souls have not the least Sign or Footstep of Free-Agency no manner of Tendency or Appetite from within but are only the principle of Life and Activity to the Body and Consequently their Being was ordained by the same Fate and is subject to the same Casualties with the Body They have no Dignity no Merit or Demerit of their own but are more or less valuable according to the Dignity of their respective Bodies and are as irresistibly disposed to their Motions as Shadows are to their Substances It is true indeed This is more peculiarly the Condition of Plants which have only a Vegetative Soul and want the Sensitive one and are not exercised with those Motions that accompany the Desires and vehement Impulses of the Soul But Beasts are in a higher Form and are endued with this also And therefore the Souls of Brutes being considered in a middle State in a Capacity Superiour to Vegetables and yet inferiour to such as Nature hath made free Agents must in all Reason have some Resemblance some Footsteps at least of Appetites and Affections arising from within and such as shall be moved sometimes in Agreement to the Nature of its particular Species and sometimes contrary to it As when a Lion hath that Courage and Fury agreeable to its kind and this is sometimes more and sometimes less than it ought to be And in this respect the Dignities and Degrees of such Souls are different and their Lives are so too according to the Disposition which Fate and Nature hath given them which is such that they are still moved mechanically and by external Impressions For it is necessary that whatever is placed between two Extremes should in some measure partake of each of these Extremes But now the Rational Soul which is a Free Agent and hath an absolute Dominion over her own Desires and Propensions derives its Dignity from Choice she uses the Body indeed but hath all its Appetites and Passions at her Devotion This Soul therefore when she makes use of the Body only as an Instrument of Action and maintains her own Superiority over it is obstructed in all those Operations in which the Body bears a part by the Sufferings and Diseases of the Body but is not it self at all affected with those Pains From whence it was that the great Socrates used to say the Anguish was in the Leg but not in the Mind But if the Soul contract too intimate a Familiarity with the Body and grow fond of it as if it were no longer its Instrument but a part of its self or rather its very self then it communicates in all its Afflictions degenerates into Brute and esteems all the Extravagancies of Anger and Desire its own is enslaved to them descends to little Trickings and is eternally contriving how to compass those Objects and being thus corrupted and diseased in such manner as a Soul is capable of being so stands in need of Physick and strong Remedies to cure these Distempers For it is a Rule in Application that one Contrary is cured by another And thus when the Desire is depraved by Lusciousness and Pleasure and hath conformed it self to the Body too much by the Love of Sensual Enjoyments and Riches and Honours and Preserments and Posts of Authority and the like there is a necessity of meeting with Crosses and Disappointments that so the subsequent Pain in the very same Instances may correct and chastise the Excess of Pleasure we formerly took in them And this is no where more requisite than in Bodily Pains and Pleasures For this is nearest to the Soul and its Torments are received with a quicker and more tender Sense than any other When therefore the Soul hath revolted from her Supreme Commander and forsakes her own Reason abandoning her self to the Body and the World and thinking their Enjoyments and their Happiness her own and by this means grows vitiated and distempered there seems no other way to be left of putting her out of Conceit with these Things and poising the Byass that carried her to them that so she may despise them and condemn her self and return to God and right Reason again and expect all her Happiness from an Obedience to these but by making her sensible both of the Evil of her former Courses and of the Smart that follows them This only can take off the Propensity to that Pleasure which she hath felt in and by them For so long as she continues to find this she continues fond of and fastened down to these Enjoyments And no Nail takes faster hold or fixes Things closer than Pleasure and the Allurements it brings do the Soul to the Objects that occasion it And this
and Vice utterly confounded there is no longer any such ground left for Praise or Dispraise Applause or Reproach Rewards or Punishments the Laws of God and Man instituted for those Purposes and enforced by these Sanctions are evacuated and the very Foundations of them all torn up and quite overturn'd And then do but consider how dismal the Consequences must be for when once we are come to this pass all Order and Society must needs be lost and nothing left us but a Life of Rapine and Violence of Misery and Confusion a Life not of Civilized Men but of Ravenous and Wild Beasts But I expect that the Adversaries of this Opinion will appeal back again to our own Experience and urge afresh What do we not often find our selves by the Tyranny of Ill Men and the over-bearing Torrent of our own Passions and the strong event of Natural Sympathies and Antipathies Do not these compel us to do and suffer many things against our Wills and such as no Man in his Senses would choose if it were in his power to avoid To this my Answer is still the same That notwithstanding all this our Liberty is not destroyed but the Choice upon these Occasions is still free and our own For here are Two things proposed and though the side we take be not eligible for its own sake and when considered absolutely yet it is so with regard to the present streights we are in and when compared with something which we avoid by this means and for this Reason it is that we make choice of it And it is utterly impossible that a Man should be carried to do any thing without the consent of his own Mind for he that seems to do a thing without his own Choice is like a Man that is thrust down a Precipice by some stronger Hand which he cannot resist and this Person is at that time under the circumstance of an Inanimate Creature he does not act at all but is purely passive in the case So that when we really do act though with never so great unwillingness and reluctancy yet still we choose to act after such and such a manner This is further evident from Men's own practice for we find that several Persons take several ways when yet the necessity that lies upon them is the same Some choose to comply with what is imposed upon them for fear of enduring some greater Evil if they refuse it and others again are peremptory in the refusing it as looking upon such compliance to be a greater Evil than any Punishment they can possibly undergo upon the account of their refusal So that even in those Actions that seem most involuntary there is still a place for Liberty and Choice For we must distinguish between what is Voluntary and what is Free That only is Voluntary which would be chosen for its own sake but that is Free when we have power to choose not only for its own sake but for the sake of avoiding some greater Mischief And indeed there are some cases in which we find both something Voluntary and something Involuntary meet for which Reason those are properly called Mix'd Actions that is when what is Eligible upon these Occasions 't is not simply and absolutely so but carries something along with it which we should never choose if we could help it And Homer very elegantly described this perplexity of Thought and this mixture of Voluntariness and Involuntariness in the Soul when he says to this purpose Great Strife in my divided Breast I find A Will consenting yet unwilling Mind These things I thought fit the rather to enlarge upon because almost all the following Pook depends upon this distinction of the things in our own power For the Design of it being wholly Moral and Instructive he lays the true Foundation here at first and shews us what we ought to place all our Happiness and all our Unhappiness in and that being at our own Disposal and endued with a Principle of Motion from within we are to expect it all from our own Actions For things that move Mechanically and necessarily as they derive their Being from so they owe all their Good and Evil they are capable of to something else and depend upon the Impressions made upon them from without both for the thing it self and for the degree of it But those Creatures that act freely and are themselves the cause of their own Motions and Operations receive all their Good and Evil from these Operations Now these Operations properly speaking with regard to Knowledge and Speculative Matters are their Opinions and Apprehensions of things but with regard to Desirable Objects and Matters of Practice they are the Appetites and Aversions and the Affections of the Soul When therefore we have just Ideas and our Notions agree with the things themselves and when we apply our Desires and our Aversions to such Objects and in such measures as we ought to do then we are properly happy and attain to that Perfection which Nature hath designed us for and made peculiar to us but when we fail in these Matters then we fail of that Happiness and Perfection too Now by our own Works I mean such as are wrought by our selves only and need nothing more to effect them but our own Choice For as to our Actions that concern things without us such as Sciences and Trades and supplying the Necessities of Humane Life and the making our selves Masters of Knowledge and the instructing others in it or any other Employments and Professions that give us Credit and Reputation in the World these are not entirely in our own power but require many Helps and external Advantages in order to the compassing of them But the regulating of our Opinions and our own Choices are properly and entirely our own Works and stand in need of no Foreign Assistances So that our Good and Evil depends upon our selves for this we may be sure of that no Man is accountable for those things that do not come within the compass of his own power But our Bodies Possessions Reputations Preferments and Places of Honour and Authority and in short every thing besides our own Actions are things out of our own power The Reason why these are said to be out of our own Power and Disposal is not because the Mind hath no part in them or contributes nothing towards them for it is plain that both our Bodies and our Estates are put into a better or a worse Condition in proportion to that provident Care the Soul takes of them or the Neglect she is guilty of with regard to them The Soul does also furnish Occasions for the acquiring Credit and Fame and by her Diligence and Wisdom it is that wâ— attain to Posts of Greatness and Government For indeed there could be no such thing as the exercise of Authority especially as the World goes now without the Choice and Consent of the Soul But because these things are not totally at
sometimes to qualifie it for suffering gallantly wheâ— any Accident gives us an Occasion And this may be accomplish'd these two Ways By getting a right Notion of them and By being well prepared against them which is to be done partly by accustoming the Body to Hardship which indeed is of general use and hath enabled even Ignorant and Ill Men to slight Blows and other Pains which we commonly think intolerable and partly too by fixing the Mind in a provident Forecast and distanâ— Expectation of them And all these Things we may certainly do if we please Now if neither Death nor any of those Things we dread most have any Thing that is formidable in their own Nature it is plain neither they nor the Persons that inslict them are the Cause of our Trouble but we our Selves and our own Opinions bring this upon our Selves When therefore the Mind feels it self perplexed with Grief or Fear or any other Passion the Blame is our own and nothing but our Opinions are accountable for such Disorders None but ignorant and undisciplin'd People tax others with their Misfortunes The Young Proficient blames himself but the Philosophâ—r indeed blames neither others nor himself The Connection of this with what went before is so close that if a Conjunction were added and we â—â—ad it thus For none but ignorant and undisciplin'd People tax others with their Misfortunes it had given a very good Reason why we should never lay our Troubles or Fears or Disorders or any other Calamity we fancy our Selves in to any Thing or any Bodies Charge but our own Since this Way of proceeding he says comes from want of being taught better And then to this Character of the Ignorant and Undisciplin'd he adds that of One who is a Beginner only in Philosophy and one who hath attained to a Mastery in it The Perfect Philosopher never thinks any Thing that befalls him Evil nor charges any Body with being the Occasion of his Misfortunes because he lives up to the Dictates of Nature and Reason and is never disappointed in his Pursuits and Desires nor ever overtaken with his Fears He that is but Raw and unfinish'd does indeed sometimes miss of his Desires and falls into the Mischiefs he would flec from because the brutish Inclinations move too strongly in him at such Times And when this happens the first Elements he learn'd which taught him to distinguish Things In and Out of our Power teach him too That he himself and none but he is the true Cause of all his Disappointments and all his Disasters And the Occasion of them all was his mistaking the Things without us and placing a Man 's proper Good and Evil in them But you will say perhaps Since this Young Philosopher knows That our own proper Good and Evil depends upon our own Power and Choice and the accusing himself implies that he knows thus much how comes it to pass that he takes wrong Measures and renders himself liable to this Blame Probably because the Knowledge of Good and Evil is the first step to be made toward Virtue this being the proper Act of Reason But the brutish Appetites do not always presently submit to Reason nor suffer themselves to be easily reduced and tempered by it and especially where it happens as it does very often that Reason is Negligent and Sluggish and the Irrational Part active and perpetually in Motion by which means the Passions gather Strength and usurp an absolute Dominion This was the Case of her in the Play Remorse and Sense of Guilt draw back my Soul But stronger Passion does her Powers controul With Rage transported I push boldly on And see the Precipice I cannot shun So that for some time it is pretty tolerable if Reason can work upon the Passions and either draw them by Force or charm and win them over some soster way For when this is done then the Knowledge of the Intelligent Part is more clear and instructive and proceeds without any Distraction at all No wonder therefore if Men but little trained in Philosophy make some false Steps while their Passions are not yet totally subdued and their Reason does not operate in its full Strength And when they do so they accuse Themselves only as having admitted that Distinction of Things in and out of our own Power though as yet they seem to have but an imperfect Notion of it But they that are Ignorant and absolutely untaught must needs commit a World of Errors both because of that violent Agitation which their Passions are continually in and of the Ignorance of their rational Part which hath not yet learn'd to distinguish real Good and Evil from what is so in appearance only Nor does it take them off from Brutality not so much as in Thought only By Brutality I mean such low and mean Notions as persuade us that our Body is properly our Selves and our Nature or which is yet worse when we think our Riches so as the Covetous do Now while we continue thus ignorant there are several Accounts to be given for our doing amiss We do it because we think all our Good and Evil consists in Things without us and not being at all sensible what is properly the Happiness or Unhappiness of Humane Nature or whence it proceeds we fall foul upon other People and fancy that they who obstruct or deprive us of those External Advantages we so eagerly pursue or that bring upon us any of the Calamities we would avoid are the real Causes of all our Misery Though in truth neither those External Advantages which we call Good nor those Calamities we call Evil are what we take them for but as Circumstances are sometimes ordered may prove the direct contrary For our Folly in this case is just like that of silly Boys that cannot endure their Masters but think them their worst Enemies and the Cause of a World of Misery but value and love those as their Friends indeed that invite them to Play and Pleasure Thus Epictetus hath given a short but exact Character of these three sorts of Persons The Perfect Philosophers are guilty of no Miscarriages for their Understanding is sufficiently accomplished to direct them and the Irrational Part readily submits to those Directions So that here is nothing but Harmony and Compliance and consequently they have no Body to lay any Misery to the Charge of for indeed they cannot labour under any Thing that is truly and properly Misery They cause none to themselves for this were a Contradiction to the Perfection of their Wisdom and Virtue and nothing else causes them any for they do not suppose any External Causes capable of doing it The Ignorant and Untaught err in both these Respects Neither their Reason nor their Passions are rightly disposed And they lay all their Unhappiness to others upon an Erroneous Imagination that it proceeds from Things without us And indeed it is easie and pleasant and fit for ignorant Wretches to shuffle off
immediate Discoveries of Heaven for the benefit and support of Mankind such as Physick and Architecture and the like we have no more than some faint Shadows and imperfect Images remaining How I say is it possible that these and many other Calamities and monstrous Wickednesses which the present Age is perfectly overrun with should be matter of Pleasure or Contentment And who is there that can take Satisfaction I do not say in seeing or bearing a part in them but so much as to endure the very hearing them named except he be first forsaken of all Humanity and all Goodness Such Doubts as these which give sometimes great Perplexity not only to the Weak and Common Man but to the Thinking and more Accomplished Persons will receive satisfaction if either Epictetus be allowed to have any Authority in what he says or the great Governor of all things be granted to order the World in Wisdom and Justice For our Piety and our Advantage will be sure to terminate in the same Object as Epictetus himself will assure us more fully hereafter In answer therefore to the Objection I say That if all these deplorable Accidents which the Objector hath given so Tragical an Account of be really Evil and such as they are generally esteemed to be it is not possible that either any Good Man should without forfeiting that Character be pleased to have them so nor could the Providence of Almighty God be acquitted from the Imputation of being the cause of Evil to us nor could Men ever prevail with themselves to Honour or Love or pay Adoration to such a Deity For let Men pretend what they will no Arguments in the World are able to produce these Affections for the Author of Misery and Mischief It is a Principle rooted in every Creature as Epictetus will shew you to hate and decline and run away from all things that are prejudicial to it themselves or the cause of other things being so to it But whatever is for its Benefit and productive of its Happiness these things it naturally courts and admires Thus much is certain upon supposition that these Accidents are really Evil but now if notwithstanding our dreadful Apprehensions of them they be in truth no such matter but rather Good as conducing very much to some mighty Benefit and directed to excellent Purposes and that if any Evil do indeed attend these Dispensations this is what the Nature of the things is no way concern'd in but is wholly owing to the Desires and strong Impulses of our own Minds In this case it will by no means follow that he who is well enough pleased all things should be just as they are is either a Vicious or a Barbarous Man nor can we with any colour charge the Evil we find in the World upon these Occasions to Almighty God but must acquit his Providence and acknowledge it to be infinitely Wise and Good Now the Things in which all these seeming Evils are and from whence they spring must be considered in this Condition of Mortality and undergoing the vicissitudes of Generation and Corruption either as Bodies or Souls And of these Souls again some are Irrational of the same Date and Duration with the Body and having none or but very little peculiar Excellence of their own their Office and Power extends no farther than meerly the animating those Bodies to which they belong and therefore all their Motions depend upon and proceed in Conjunction with the Bodies But other Souls are Rational These have an inward principle of Motion and an Essence and Excellence distinct from their Bodies they move by their own Choice and are absolute in the disposing their own Desires and Inclinations Now the Bodies belonging to these being in their own Nature purely Mechanical and deriving their Essence from External Causes are subject to the Motions of Heavenly Bodies which influence their Generation and Corruption and the various Alterations through which they pass But if we come nearer and descend to the Immediate and Material Causes then they are moved and affected by a mutual Operation upon one another For this is agreeable to all the Reason in the World that Temporary and Corruptible things should depend upon the Eternal for their Subsistence and be obedient to their Influences Mechanical Beings upon such as are endued with a Faculty of Self-Motion and those that are contained within others upon the Ambients that contain them This is the constant Method and Rule of Nature that these should follow the others Superiour to them as having no Principle of Motion in themselves no Faculty of Choosing no Power of Determining their Deâ—ires or Affections of their Nature no Merit or Demerit from Choice or Actions but are only Good or Evil in respect and proportion to their Causes Just as the Shadows of Bodies do not choose their Sides or Shapes as they please but are necessarily determined by their Causes and their Circumstances and are never the worse or the better for those Determinations Now as to Bodies whatever Changes they undergo this Variety can be no Ill to them whether they be Compound or Simple Bodies First of all because it is what the Condition of their Nature hath made them liable to They are bound in Laws irrevocable which they may neither controul nor resist and consequently can receive no Harm by whatever they impose as having no Power to do otherwise For Ignorance would be no Evil nor the most brutish and extravagant Conversation nor would the Rational Soul be one whit the worse for either had not Nature endued her with a Faculty of Discerning and Understanding the Truth and given her a Power over the brutish Appetites by which she is enabled to subdue and over-rule them Secondly Because the Compound Bodies which consist of simple Ingredients that are of contrary Qualities such as are perpetually strugling with and usurping upon one another by Diseases and Excess of Humours are sometimes strengthned by throwing off the corrupt Parts and sometimes by Decay and Death are delivered from all that Trouble and Pain and mutual Strife of contrary Qualities in them And in this Case each of the Simples is restored to its primitive Mass and recovers it self from that Weakness which was occasioned by this Opposition of contrary Humours For as each of the Ingredients in Composition made some Impression upon its Opposite so it likewise continually received some from it and suffered by it But now when the Simples are changed according to the Changes of the contrary Qualities they return again to their own primitive Being Thus Water evaporates into the Air from whence it came and Air is turned into Fire from whence it originally was And I cannot suppose any Evil in Things of this kind though Inundations or Fires or any the most violent Changes in Nature should be the Effect of these Inequalities in the Elements that compose the Universe or though Pestilences and Earthquakes should destroy and dash in pieces the
in that all Things that happen are so ordained of God as that Nature and Choice have both their due and as is most beneficial to Mankind every Wise Man certainly will think himself obliged to be well content Things should be just as they are unless you will suppose him to envy the Giving every Thing its Due and the Recovering such as are Distempered and need sharp Remedies he will most sincerely love and honour and adore this Excellent Physician and look upon him as the World 's great and only Benefactor Now that Calamitous Circumstances are a sort of Remedies and that the Administration of proper Physick where the case requires it is good both to the Body and Soul no Body I presume will take upon them to dispute But what course shall we take to perswade Men that this very Distemper it self of Soul or Body this miserable Condition that renders such painsul Applications necessary is Good and not Evil and that the Author of it is not the Cause of Evil to us To this purpose I shall briefly recollect what was observed before That Diseases are not Evil to the Body it self as being by Nature made subject to them and tending to a dissolution of the Compound Resolving each of its Parts and Restoring the Simple Elements to their proper Masses the Releasing them from a strange place where they were kept in Bondage and putting an end to the perpetual Combat of opposite Qualities among them Neither can the Disease of the Body be Evil to the Soul for it hath been already shewn to be its Physick and its Cure And thus Experience often shews it to be But granted that Sickness and Corruption were injurious to one particular Body yet still it appears to be for the advantage of the Soul that owns that Body and to the Constitution of the Universe in general of the Elements of which it is formed and the infinite Râ—volutions of Matter and Motion which are therefore Infinite because the Destroying of one thing becomes the Production of another Well therefore may the wise Governour of all things not value a Creature which was by Nature corruptible and a particular inconsiderable Corruption confined to a single instance when the whole Creation is benefited and the Better Ends are served and the Eternal Revolution of Things are continued and kept up by this means But perhaps you will say though all this should be admitted with regard to the Body yet what shall we account for the Diseases of the Soul The frail and distempered State she is in can neither be for the good of her self that languishes under it nor does it contribute any Advantage to the Creation in common So that the Author and Ordainer of this state must needs be the Cause of Evil to her and he that is content she should be thus deprived and seâ—s and suffers her Sicknesses must needs be an Ill-natur'd Being and therefore as to this particular the Difficulty remains still the same Now in answer to this Scruple I beg leave to refresh your Memory with what was discoursed before concerning the Cause of Evil and Vice to the Soul while we were explaining Epictetus's Distinction between what is and what is not in our own power viz. That the Good and Happiness of the Soul consists in Prudent Regular Desires and Aversions and that the Evil and Misery of it proceeds from such as are Vicious and Exorbitant Now I hope the Desires and Aversions have been sufficiently proved to be in our own Disposal and if so then we our selves are the Cause of our own Vices and Virtues This is the true ground of all that Commendation which is thought due to Good Men that their Happiness and Excellence is the Effect of their own free Choice for which reason the Greeks call Virtue by a Name which bears some Affinity to that which imports Choosing And for the same Reason Wicked Men are Condemned and Reproached because they are such through their own Sloath and Baseness of Soul when it was in their own power to be otherwise But now if these Matters proceeded from any External Causes this Virtue or Vice would be no longer Choice but blind Chance or fatal Necessity And consequently our Evil and Misery can with no colouâ— of Reason and Justice be charged upon Almighty God May we not indeed drive this Argument a great deal farther and urge that even Vice which is properly the Disease of the Soul is not positively and in all respects Evil but is it self in some degree necessary to the very Being of Virtue among Men For as our Bodies if Nature had not made them capable of Sickness and Infirmities could not properly be said at any time to enjoy a state of Health because in truth this would not be Health but a simple and fix'd Disposition above the power of Frailties and Diseases such as the Celestial Beings enjoy So the Virtues proper to Humane Souls such as Temperance and Justice and Prudence and all the rest of that Glorious Catalogue would be no such thing unless the Soul were of such a Nature as is liable to be depraved For at this rate she would be graced not with the Virtues of a Man but with the Perfections of an Angel or a God whose peculiar Excellence it is that they can never be seduced or deviate into Vice But is rooted in the very Nature of Men and Humane Virtues that they may degenerate and be corrupted If then Human Virtues in the Soul and if the Health of the Body though neither of them absolutely Uniform and Inflexible be yet Good and if the Order of Nature required that beside the First Simple and Fix'd Beings others of a Middle and of Inferior Nature should derive themselves from the great Original and common Source of all Good then there was likewise a necessity that there should be Depravations of such good things as are subject to be Depraved which have not any positive and absolute Existence of their own but only a sort of additional one cast in to those that have And in this the exceeding Goodness of God is very remarkable that he hath ordained the Dissolution of the Body which as I said does as necessarily follow upon Matter and Motion as the Shadow attends upon its Substance this Dissolution he hath made even a good thing both with regard to the Bodies so Diseased and Dissolved as they are restored back again to their Primitive Elements and so the Simples out of which they are compounded are renewed and with regard to the Souls that own and use them as they are cured and made better by this Means and also to the Universe in common by reason of that infinite Succession of Changes and Motions which these Dissolutions as I shewed before keep continually on Foot But as for Vice the Evil of the Soul and indeed the only thing which when well considered proves to be Evil of this he utterly acquits himself and hath no
Sun and Moon to the Good Principle but putting all the Stars into the Possession of the Evil and deriving them from a Bad Cause The Light of the Moon they do not agree to be borrowed from the Sun but think it a Collection or Constellation of Souls which she draws up like so many Vapours from the Earth between Change and Full and then translates them by degrees into the Sun from the Full to the next New Moon In short they have a World of extravagant Fancies which do not so much as deserve to be reckoned among Fables and yet they are by no means content to have them look'd upon as Fabulous nor do they use them as Figures or Hieroglyphicks so as to signifie something else of more substantial Goodness but will needs have them believed to be strictly and literally true Thus the Image they give us of Evil is a Monster compounded of five several Creatures a Lion a Fish an Eagle and some other two Things I do not well remember what but all these put together are supposed to make a very ravenous and formidable Composition Such abominable Impiety against God are these Notions and Principles chargeable with and yet which is still more amazing the Persons that advance them profess to take Sanctuary in these Opinions out of a more than common Respect and a profounder Reverence to the Divine Perfections than the rest of the World as they think express They could not bear the imputing any Evil to God and to avoid this Inconvenience they have found out a particular Principle and Cause of all Evil a Principle equal in Honor and Power to the Good or rather indeed Superior and more Potent than He. For in all the Attempts that have been made hitherto to corrupt the World and render it miserable Evil seems plainly to have got the better For they represent Evil upon all Occasions taking Advantage against Good and contriving all manner of Ways not to let it go This is constantly the bold and daring Aggressor while Good in the mean while gives way to and mingles it self with Evil would fain compound the Matter and for any thing that yet appears hath discovered nothing in its whole Management but Fear and Folly and Injustice Thus while they abhor to call God the Cause of Evil they make him nothing but Evil in the most exquisite Degree and according to that vulgar Proverb leap out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire But besides these vile Profanations of the Majesty of God this System of Philosophy does as much as in it lies tear up the very Roots of all Virtue and moral Instruction by destroying and utterly taking away all that Liberty of Choice which God and Nature have given us For besides those Attributes of Eternity and Immortality it does also ascribe to this Principle of Evil a compulsive Power over our Wills and that so very absolute and strong that it is not only out of our own Disposal whether we will commit Wickedness or no but such as even God himself is not able to controul or over-power In the mean while it must be confest that this is a very idle and extravagant Imagination For if our Souls are violently thrust and born down into Murder or Adultery or any other that are reputed the most grievous Crimes and commit these merely by the Impulse of some stronger Power without any Consent or voluntary Concurrence of their own then are they clear of all Guilt And this is a Matter so evident and acknowledged that all Laws both Divine and Humane acquit Persons in Cases of Violence and such a Force as they could not resist and where it is plain they acted against their Will And indeed there is not nor can be any Sin at all in such Actions where Mens own Minds are supposed to have no Concern but to proceed upon Necessity and Constraint and such as could not be resisted by them Now if these wise Philosophers while they were at a loss where to fix the true Cause of these Things considered as Evils bethought themselves of this Remedy and set up such a Principle of Evil as you have heard to resolve the Difficulty they have done their own Business effectually and by a very pleasant Blunder over-turned their whole Scheme at once For if it follows likewise upon the Supposal of such a Constraint put upon the Wills of Men by that Principle that nothing they do is any longer Evil then observe how pleasant a Conclusion they have brought their Matters to for the Consequence lies plainly thus If there be such a Thing as a Principle of Evil then there is no such Thing as Evil in the World and if there be no such Thing as Evil then there cannot possibly be any such Thing as a Principle of Evil and so upon the whole Matter they have left themselves neither a Principle of Evil nor any Evil at all Since therefore this is discovered to be but a rotten Foundation if any conscious of its weakness shall presume to affirm that God is the Author of Evil as well as Good the Falshood and Impiety of this Assertion will ask but little Time and Pains to evince it For how indeed can we suppose it possible that that Opinion should be true which casts such unworthy Aspersions upon him who is the Author and Giver of all Truth And first which way can one conceive that God whose very Essence is perfect and immutable Goodness should produce Evil out of himself For since Evil and Good are contrary to each other as our Adversaries themselves grant How can we imagine one Contrary to be the Production of another Besides He that produces any thing out of himself does it by being the Cause of its existing by having the Cause within himself and having some Likeness to it in his own Nature and so if you respect him as the Cause the Producing and the Produced are in some degree the same So that the Promoters of this Opinion seem not to have attended to the manifest Dishonour they put upon God by making him not only the Cause and Author of Evil but to be the first and original Evil in his own Nature Since therefore there is no such Thing as a Common Principle of Evil and since God is not the Author and Cause of it what Account shall we give of its coming into the World For it is impossible any Thing should have a Beginning without a Cause And the best Course we can take for this will be first to explain what we mean by Evil and then enquire into its Original for the Causes of Things will very hardly be found till their Natures are first known Now as to that Evil which they suppose who profess to believe a Common Principle of Evil and many of those that dispute this Question understand we may be bold to pronounce that there is no such Thing in Nature For they pretend that this Evil hath a positive Subsistence of
who knows and is sensible of the Difference between them when he does it But this Misfortune happens generally from a blind Admiration of some apparent Good which so dazles our Eyes that either we do not at all discover the Evil it is attended with or if we do discern that yet we see the Thing through false Opticks such as magnifie the Good and lessen the Evil to the Eye Now it is a frequent and a reasonable Choice when we are content to take a greater Good with the Incumbrance of a less Evil As for Instance When we suffer an Incision or a Cupping and account the Evil of these Pains much too little to counterballance the Good there is in that Health which they restore to us Once more yet That all Things desire Good is farther plain from hence That supposing Evil to have a real Being and a Power of Acting whatever it did would be for its own Advantage that is in other Words for its own Good And thus much they who ascribe a Being and Operation to it confess for they pretend that it pursues after Good would fain detain it and uses all possible Endeavours not to let it go And if Evil be the Object of no Desire then is it not any primary and designed Nature But since the Condition of it is in all Particulars according to the Description here given of it it is most truly said to be an Accidental and Additional Thing superinducive to something that did subsist before but to have no Subsistence of its own Well says the Objector I allow what you say We will suppose that Evil is only an Accident a Defect and Privation of Good and an additional Disappointment of the first and original Intent of Nature And what of all this How are we advanced in the Question before us For let this be what or after what manner you please still it must have some Cause otherwise How in the Name of Wonder did it ever find the way into the World How then will you get out of this Maze You allow God to be the Cause of all Things you must grant that Evil hath some Cause and yet you tell me that God is infinitely Good and so cannot be that Cause This Objection hath been already considered and spoken to both at the Beginning of the Book where we explained this Author's Distinction of the Things that are or are not in our own Power and also in the Comment upon the XIII Chapter upon Occasion of those words Trouble not your self with wishing that Things may be just as you would have them c. But however I will speak to it once more here too and that briefly as follows God who is the Source and Original Cause of all Goodness did not only produce the highest and most excellent Things such as are good in themselves nor only those that are of a Rank something inferiour to these and of a middle Nature but the Extremes too such as are capable of falling and apt to be perverted from that which is agreeable to Nature to that which we call Evil. Thus As after those incorruptible Bodies which are always regular in their Motions and immutably good others were created subject to Change and Decay so likewise it was with Souls the same Order was observed with these too for after them which were unalterably fixed in Good others were produced liable to be seduced from it And this was done both for the greater illustration of the Wise and Mighty Creator that the Riches of his Goodness might be the more clearly seen in producing good things of all sorts as many as were capable of subsisting and also that the Universe might be full and perfect when Beings of all kinds and all Proportions were contained in it For this is a Perfection to want nothing of any kind And also to vindicate the Highest and the Middle sort which never decline or deviate from their Goodness from that Contempt which always falls upon the Lowest of any sort and such these had been if the Corruptible and Mortal things had not been Created and Supported the others Dignity by their own want of it And Corruptible they must be for it could never be that while the First and the Middle sort of Bodies continued as they are some Immutable both as to their Nature and their Operations others Immutable indeed as to their Substance but Mutable in their Motion it could not be I say that the Lowest and Sublunary Bodies should ever hold out while the violent Revolutions of the Heavenly ones were perpetually changing their Substance and putting them into unnatural Disorders For these Reasons certainly and perhaps for a great many others more important than these which are Secrets too dark and deep for us these Sublunary Bodies were made and this Region of Mortality where the Perverted Good hath its Residence For there was a Necessity that the lowest sort of Good should have a Being too and such is that which is liable to Change and Depravation Hence also there is no such thing as Evil in the Regions above us for the nature of Evil being nothing else but a Corruption of the Meanest and most Feeble Good can only subsist where that Mean and Mutable Good resides For this Reason the Soul which considered by her self is a Generous and Immutable Being is tainted with no Evil while alone in a State of Separation but being so contrived by Nature as to dwell in this lower World and be intimately united to Mortal Bodies for so the good Providence of our great Father and Creator hath ordered it making these Souls a Link to tye the Spiritual and Material World together joyning the Extreams by the common Bonds of Life it seems to bear a part in all those Distempers and Decays which Evil subjects our Bodies to by disturbing their natural Habit and Frame Though indeed I cannot think this to be Evil strictly speaking but rather Good since the Effect of it is so For by this means the simple Elements of which these Bodies are compounded come to be set free from a great Confinement and severed from other parts of Matter of a different Constitution with which they were interwoven and entangled before and so getting loose from the perpetual Combat between contrary Qualities are restored to their proper Places and their primitive Mass again in order to acquiring new Life and Vigour And if this proceeding be the occasion of perpetual Change yet neither is that Evil because every thing is resolved at last into what it was at the beginning For Water though evaporated into Air yet is by degrees congealed into Water again and so even particular Beings lose nothing by those Vicissitudes But that which ought to be a Consideration of greater Moment is that the Dissolution of Compound Bodies and the mutual change of Simple ones into each other contributes to the Advantage of the Universe in general by making the Corruption of one thing to become
the Rise and Birth of another And by this perpetual Round it is that Matter and Motion have been sustained all this while Now it is obvious to any observing Man that both Nature and Art as was urged heretofore do frequently neglect a part when the detriment of that in particular may conduce to the good of the whole The former does it as often as our Rheums and Ulcerous Humours are thrown off from the Vitals and turned into Sores or Swellings in any of the Extream Parts And Art imitates this Method of Nature as oft as a Limb is seared or lopped off for the preservation of the Body So that upon the whole Matter these Shocks and Corruptions of Bodies deserve rather to be esteemed Good than Evil and the Cause of them the Cause of Good and not Evil Events For those Sublunary Bodies that are Simples suffer no Injury because they are subject to no Decay or Destruction And for the Evil that the Parts seems to undergo this hath been shewn to have more Good than Evil in it both in Simples and Compounds even when considered in it self but if taken with respect to the Benefit which other Creatures reap by it then it is manifestly Good So that the Distempers and Decays of Bodies take them which way you will are not Evil but produce great Good But if any one shall be scrupulous upon this occasion and quarrel with that being called Good which is confessed to be no better than a perverting of the course of Nature let not this Nice Caviller take upon him however to call it Evil in the gross Sense and common Acceptation of the Word by which we understand something utterly repugnant and irreconcileable to Good But let him rather call it a Necessity or Hardship as being not desirable for its own sake but having some tendency and contributing to that which is so For were it simply and absolutely Evil it could never be an Instrument of Good to us Now that which I mean by Necessary though it have not Charms enough of its own to recommend it yet does it deserve to be accounted Good for leading us to that which is Good and that which can become a proper Object of our Choice under any Circumstance is so far forth Good Thus we choose Incisions and Burnings and Amputations nay we are content to pay dear for them and acknowledge our selves obliged both by the Prescription and the painful Operation all which were most ridiculous to be done if we thought these things Evil. And yet I own this is but a Qualified and an Inferior Good not strictly and properly so but only in a Second and Subordinate Sense Yet so that the Creator of these things is by no means the Cause of Evil but of a necessary and meaner Good but a Good still for such we ought to esteem it since it is derived from the same Universal Fountain of Goodness though embased with some Allays and Abatements And thus much I hope may be thought sufficient in Vindication of the Nature and Cause of that Evil which Bodies are concern'd in Nothing indeed can so truly be called Evil as the Lapses and Vices of the Soul of Man and of these too much hath been said before but however we will resume the Discourse upon this Occasion and enquire afresh both into the Nature and the Cause of them And here we shall do well to take notice That the Soul is of a more excellent Nature which dwell in the Regions above us are immutably fixed in Goodness and wholly unacquainted with any Evil. There are also the Souls of Brutes of a Baser alloy than ours and standing in the middle as it were between the Vegetative Souls of Plants and our Rational ones These so far forth as they are Corporeal are liable to that Evil to which Bodies are subject but so far as concerns their Appetites and Inclinations they bear some resemblance to the Humane and the Evil they are in this respect obnoxious to is in proportion the same so that one of these will be sufficiently explained by giving an account of the other Now the Humane Soul is in a middle Station between the Souls above and those below it partakes of the Qualities of both of those more Excellent ones in the Sublimity of its Nature and the Excellence of its Understanding Of the Brutal and inferiour ones by its strict affinity to the Body and Animal Life Of both these it is the common Band by its Vital Union with the Body and by its Habitual Freedom assimilates it self sometimes to the one sort and sometimes to the other of these Natures So long as it dwells above and entertains it self with Noble and Divine Speculations it preserves its Innocence and is fixed in Goodness but when it begins to flag and droop when it sinks down from that blissful Life and grovels in the Filth of the World which by Nature it is equally apt to do then it falls into all manner of Evil. So that its own Voluntary Depression of its self into this Region of Corruption and Mortality is the true Beginning and proper Cause of all its Misery and Mischief For though the Soul be of an Amphibious Disposition yet it is not forced either upwards or downwards but acts purely by an internal Principle of its own and is in perfect Liberty Nor ought this to seem incredible in an Agent which Nature hath made Free since even those Brutes that are Amphibious dwell sometimes in the Water and sometimes upon dry Ground without being determined to either any otherwise than by their own Inclination Now when the Soul debases her self to the World and enters into a near Intimacy with the Corruptible Body and esteems this to be the other consistent part of the Humane Nature then it leads the Life of Brutes and exerts it self in such Operations only as they are capable of It s Intellectual part degenerates into Sense and Imagination and its Affections into Anger and Concupiscence By these the wretched Mortal attains to Knowledge just of the same pitch with that of other Animals such as puts him upon seeking fresh Supplies for a Body that is continually wasting and upon continuing the World by Posterity to fill the place of one that must shortly leave it and upon making the best Provision he can for his own Preservation and Defence in the mean while For these Cares are what no Mortal would have were he not endued with Sensual Faculties and Passions For what Man that is any thing Nice and Considering would endure to spend so many Days and Years upon the support of this Body when the Burden of the whole Matter comes to no more than always filling and always emptying if Sensual Inclinations did not whet his Appetite Or who could undergo the tedious fatigue by which Succession is kept up if vehement Desires did not perpetually kindle new Flames and the prospect of Prosperity make us more easie to be warmed by
degree comparable to this Freedom of the Will For in truth there is no Thing no Priviledge in this lower World so desirable And there is no Body so stupid and lost as to wish that he were a Brute or a Plant rather than a Man And therefore since God displayed the Abundance of his Goodness and Power in giving Perfections inferior to this how inconsistent would it have been with that Bounty of his not to have bestowed this most excellent Priviledge upon Mankind Besides as hath been intimated formerly take away this Undetermined Propension of the Soul by which it inclines it self to Good or Evil and you undermine the very Foundations of all Virtue and in effect destroy the Nature of Man For if you suppose it impossible to be perverted to Vice you have no longer any such thing as Justice or Temperance or any other Virtue left the observing of these things may be the Excellence of an Angel or a God but impeccable and indefectable Goodness can never be the Virtue of a Man From whence it is plain that there was a necessity of leaving the Soul in a capacity of being Corrupted and of committing all that Evil consequent to such Depravation because otherwise a Gap had been left in the Creation there could have been no Medium between the Blessed Spirits above and Brutes below no such thing as Humane Nature nor Humane Vertue in the World So then we allow that this Self-determining Power by which Men are depraved is a thing of God's own Creation and appointment and yet consider withal how necessary this is to the Order and Beauty of the Universe and how many good Effects it hath In other respects we can by no means admit that he should be traduced as the Cause and Author of Evil upon this account When a Surgeon lays on a Drawing Plaister to ripen a Swelling or Cuts or Sears any part of our Bodies or lops off a Limb no Man thinks he takes these Methods to make his Patient worse but better because Reason tells us that Men in such Circumstances are never to be cured by less painful Applications Thus the Divine Justice in his deserved Vengeance suffers the Passions of the Soul to rage and swell so high because he knows the condition of our Distemper and that the smarting sometimes under the wild Suggestions of our own furious Appetites is the only way to bring us to a better Sense of our Extravagance and to recover us of our Phrensy 'T is thus that we suffer little Children to burn their Fingers that we may deter them from playing with Fire And for the same Reasons many wise Educators of Youth do not think themselves oblig'd to be always thwarting the Inclinations of those under their Charge but sometimes connive at their Follies and give them a loose there being no way so effectual for the purging of these Passions as to let them sometimes be indulged that so the Persons may be cloyed and nauseate and grow Sick of them And in these Cases it cannot be said that either those Parents and Governors or the Justice of God is the Cause of Evil but rather of Good because all this is done with a Vertuous Intent For whatever tends to the Reformation of Manners or confirming the Habits of Virtue may be as reasonably called Virtuous as those things that are done in order to the Recovery and Continuance of Health may be called wholsome For Actions do principally take their denomination and quality from the End to which they are directed So that although God were in some measure the Cause of this necessity we are in of deviating from Goodness vet cannot Moral Evil be justly laid at his Door But how far he is really the cause of our Deflection from our Duty I shall now think it becomes me to enquire God does not by any Power or immediate Act of his own cause that Aversion from Good which the Soul is guilty of when it Sins but he only gave her such a power that she might turn her self to Evil that so such a Species of free Agents might fill avoid Space in the Universe and many good effects might follow which without such an Aversion could never have been brought about God indeed is truly and properly the Cause of this Liberty of our Wills but then this is a Happiness and a Priviledge infinitely to be preferred above whatever else the World thinks most valuable and the Operation of it consists in receiving Impressions and determining it self thereupon not from any Constraint but by its own mere Pleasure Now that a Nature thus qualified is Good I cannot suppose there needs any proof we have the Confession of our Adversaries themselves to strengthen us in the Belief of it For even they who set up a Principle of Evil declare they do it because they cannot think God the Author of Evil and these very Men do not only acknowledge the Soul to be of his forming but they talk big and pretend that it is a part of his very Essence and yet notwithstanding all this they own it capable of being vitiated but so as to be vitiated by its self only For this is the manifest consequence of their other Tenets that it depends upon our own Choice whether we will overcome Evil or be overcome by it that the Vanquished in this Combat are very justly punished and the Victors largely and deservedly rewarded Now the truth is when they talk at this rate they do not well consider how directly these Notions contradict that irresistible necessity to Sin which they elsewhere make the Soul to lye under But however whether the Soul be depraved by its own Foolish Choice or whether by some fatal Violence upon it from without still the being naturally capable of such depravation is agreed on all Hands for both sides confess it to be actually depraved which it could never be without a natural Capacity of being so Therefore they tell us the First Original Good is never tainted with Evil because his Nature is above it and inconsistent with any such Defect as are also the other Goodnesses in the next degreee of Perfection to him such as in their Cant are called the Mother of Life the Creator and the Aeones So then these Men acknowledge the depravable Condition of the Soul they profess God to be the Maker of it and to have set it in this Condition and yet it is plain they think the nature of the Soul depravable as it is Good and not Evil because at the same time that they ascribe this Freedom of the Will to God they are yet superstitiously fearful of ascribing any Evil to him And this I think may very well suffice for the Nature and Origin of Evil. Let us now apply our selves to consider the Passage before us and observe how artificially Epictetus hath comprised in a very few Words the substance of those Arguments which we have here drawn out to so great a length
of Men be so disposed as to express this Persuasion of a Wise and Good Providence so as not to fly out into peevish Murmurings and Complaints nor think that Almighty God hath done us wrong in any of his Dispensations But this is a Temper we can never attain to so long as we expect Happiness and dread Misery from any thing but our selves The Management of our own Will must be our only Care and all our Desires and Aversions restrained to the Objects of Choice and then we need never be disappointed in our Hopes nor surprized by our Fears But this must needs happen to all that place their Happiness and Misery in the Enjoyment or the Want of any external Advantages and such Disappointments and Surprizes will necessarily carry them to a Detestation of that which they look upon as the cause of such Misfortunes And they will very hardly refrain from speaking ill of that Power which might have prevented their Misery but took no care to do it For every Creature naturally desires Good and abhorrs Evil and therefore not only the Things themselves but the Causes of them are shunned and hated courted and admired in proportion as they really are or as we apprehend them to be Good or Evil. There is no such thing in Nature nor can there be as that a Man should take delight in and bear a true Affection to the Person whom he looks upon to have done him some real Injury or Hurt any more than he can be fond of that Hurt or Injury it self And since all Good naturally attracts our Love and Desire and all Evil provokes our Aversion we must needs be affected alike both to the Things themselves and the Causes of them to us And though we be mistaken in our Notions of Good and Evil yet that we shall proceed according to our apprehensions of these Things as if they were really so and cannot restrain our selves from hating and reviling the Authors of our Calamity or the Deceivers of our Hope he proves from hence That the strictest Ties of Nature and Duty and Affection are generally found too feeble Engagements to keep Men in Temper or moderate their Resentments Thus we see greedy and impatient Children perpetually railing at their Fathers for keeping them out of their Estates which they account their Good or for inflicting some Severities upon them which they think Evil as when they chastise their Follies or deny them their Liberty And thus Oedipus his two Sons Polynices and Eteocles forgetting that they were Brothers quarrell'd and kill'd one another for the Crown in which they were Rivals Thus the Farmer when his Seed-time or his Harvest happens ill if it rain too much or too little or if any other cross accident come to his Crop presently rails and murmurs against the Gods or if he have the modesty to hold his tongue yet he is sure to fret and curse inwardly Thus Mariners when they want a fair Wind and though they are bound to different Ports and must sail with different Winds one perhaps wishes for a Northern another for a Southerly Gale and the same can never serve or please them all yet they swear and rant at Providence as if it were obliged to take care of them only and neglect all those whose Business requires it should blow in the Quarter where it does So likewise Merchants are never content When they are to buy they would have great plenty and a low Market but when it is their turn to sell then they wish for scarcity and a rising Price And if either of these happen otherwise they grow discontented and accuse Providence And in general when Men bury their Wives or Children or have something very dear taken from them or fall into some disaster they feared they grow angry at the Disposer of these Events For we are naturally inclined to honour and respect the Persons that oblige and gratifie us and as nothing excites these Resentments in us so soon or so powerfully as our own advantage so nothing gives such an effectual disgust and so irreconcilable a disrespect as the apprehension that any Person hath contributed to our loss and disadvantage So that a Man in taking care to fix his Desires and his Aversions upon right Objects does at the same time secure his Piety and Reverence for God for this Man's Hopes are always answered his Fears always vanish into nothing for he neither hopes nor fears any thing out of his own power is consequently always pleased and under no Temptations to accuse Providence for any thing that can possibly happen to him But the Man that gives his Desires a Loose and expects his Fate from enternal Accidents is a Slave to all the World He lies at the mercy of every Man's Opinion of Health and Sickness Poverty and Riches Life and Death Victories and Defeats nay even the Wind and the Rain the Haâ—l and the Meteors and in short every Cause and every Effect in Nature is his Master For except every one of these fall out just according to his mind his Desires must be frustrated and his Fears accomplished What a Weather-cock of a Man is this How uneasie and unsetled his Life How tedious and troublesome must he be to himself How dissatisfied in his Breast and how impious in his Reflections upon Providence So that in short there is no one Circumstance wanting that can conduce to the rendring such a one miserable Having thus laid the Foundations of Religion in true Notions of the Divine Nature in a contented Submission to all Events and in a firm Persuasion of a Wise and Good Providence that disposes them as we see and having moreover shewn the necessity of despising the World and depending upon our own Will and the Objects of it for all the Happiness and Misery we are capable of he proceeds now to direct us what methods we should take to express our Reverence and Honour for the Gods Some of those that are generally practised and become universal it is highly probable that God himself instituted declaring as some Histories inform us he did what Services would be most acceptable to Him and this with a gracious Design of bringing us better acquainted with Himself and likewise to sanctifie and enlarge our Enjoyments that our Offerings might envite his Blessings and his Bounty and for giving back a little we might receive the more As therefore we hold our selves bound in the first place to set apart that Soul which we received from him to his Service and to consecrate it by refined and holy Thoughts by worthy and reverend Ideas of his Majesty and a regular uncorrupt Life so it should be our next care to purifie and dedicate this Body too which came to us from the same hand and carefully to wash away all the seen or hidden Blemishes and Pollutions which it may have contracted When the Soul and its Instrument are thus clear from all their Stains let us come decently cloathed into
are Masters of all these things This is the very Reason why the Laws of God and Man and the Judgment of all Wise Men make our own Freedom and Choice the Standard to measure our Actions by They look upon the Intention as a thing absolutely in our own power and pronounce of our Vices and our Vertues according to this and not according to the quality of our Actions themselves For they are not absolutely ours but are specified and distinguished become formally good or evil by our own Will and our own Choice The action of Killing is always the same considered strictly in it self but when this action is involuntary it is excused and pardoned because in such cases it is not properly ours nor in our own power Nay when done in a just Cause or in a legal way it is not only excused but applauded and highly commendable So that the formal Good or Evil of our Actions does not depend upon the Actions themselves but upon the Intention the Choice the Freedom and Power that we have in them and which give them their moral Qualities accordingly By all this it appears that Epictetus took the right Method when he began his Instructions with this consideration of things within our own power and advised us to make it the general rule of all our Conduct since all the Excellency and all the Dishonesty of our Actions all the Happiness and Misery of our Lives depends upon it But when he says in general Terms That all things may be distinguished into Two sorts some that are and some that are not in our own power we must not so understand him as if all things whatsoever were meant by it but only such as are within us or any way concern us For at that rate there would be no proportion at all betwixt the Two Opposite Parts which ought to be observed and is necessary to make a just Division And this Proportion I say would be quite lost if all things whatsoever both those that are contained in the World and those that are above and out of the World were set in opposition to the few in comparison that are within our own power But now in regard some People quarrel with this Distinction even when limited in the most cautious manner that can be and will allow us to have nothing at all in our own power And among these some assert that all our Actions Appetites and Passions proceed from Necessity and not from Choice and others make us like Stones put into motion that act mechanically by chance and without any purpose or design at all though what hath been said already upon our natural Power and the Place which our Choice and Free-Will hath and the Necessity that so it must be might suffice yet perhaps it may not be amiss to consider the Objections of those Men who would rob us of this Liberty and Power and to refute them particularly Now if by this mechanical and forced sort of Action without purpose and by pure chance they intend to say that we propose to our selves no end at all in what we do it is by no means true or if it would hold in some cases yet it is evident there are very many instances in which it will not For all Arts and Sciences nay all Natures and Beings have constantly some particular aim and end fixed to them to which they direct their Endeavours perpetually and make every action in some degree subservient And it may be said in general That there is no one Act no one Motion of any Living Creature in the whole World but is performed out of a prospect of some real or at least some seeming Good Even where the Object is Evil this Observation holds for the avoiding of that Evil is for the attaining some Good and the advantagâ— we may find in escaping from it But if this acting by Chance and without any Purpose be so understood that what we desire may prove impossible to be compassed or incapable of answering our end or hurtful when we have attained it as we say sometimes that a Man took a Medicine without any thought or to no purpose which did him no good or perhaps did him harm Neither does this Sense destroy our Free-Will for we maintain that those Desires and Aversions are in our Power which concern not only things that may be attained and turn to our Benefit when they are so but those too which cannot and which are prejudicial to us when we have them And for this Reason we affirm that our Errors and our Vices are as truly the effects of this Liberty and Choice as our greatest Vertues themselves are Those who pretend that our Opinions and Desires and in general speaking all our Choices and Intentions are necessary and not at our own Disposals as proceeding from Motives without us and not beginning of our own accord within us argue for their Opinion several ways Some of them make the Wants of Humane Nature the ground of this Necessity for we all know that a Man in extremity of Hunger or Thirst or Cold desires Meat and Drink and Warmth whether he will or no and a Person upon a Sick Bed cannot help desiring Health and Ease Some lay all upon the nature of the thing it self which is the Object of our Opinion or Desire or Aversion and contend that this excites our Passions and affects our Minds by its own Power and Evidence whether we are consenting to it or not Who is there for instance that hath attained to the least knowledge in Arithmetick and does not readily allow and firmly believe that twice Two make Four And which way shall we call such an Opinion as this the effect of Freedom and Choice and not rather of absolute Constraint arising from the evidence of the thing assented to and the impossibility of its being otherwise So again when a Man hath entertain'd a Notion of any Goodness or Excellence when he apprehends a thing to be Lovely or Prositable or the direct contrary does he not presently naturally desire the one sort and decline the other For the best Philosophers are agreed that the Object of our Desire and the final cause are the first Motives and that which sets all the rest on work And if this be true how shall we challenge that as our own Act and Deed which is so absolutely the effect of Constraint and Necessity imposed by the nature and quality of things without us that stir our Affections accordingly without any Disposal or Consent of ours Others rather think that the Disposition of the Person designing is the cause of all this necessity for this say they must needs be wrought upon according as it stands inclined nor is it in ones own Choice whether he will desire those things or not which his own Nature and Temper and Custom strongly determine him to Thus the Temperate Person finds in himself â—n habitual desire of such Actions and such Conversation as are
despight of all Dangers and Discouragements is our own Good for it is the Good of our Souls which are truly and properly our selves And this Advantage is considerable enough to be set against many Troubles and Losses and Banishments and Disgraces nay it is sufficient not only to be set against but to over-balance them all because the Good of this does so very much exceed the Evil that seems to be in them For if a Man think himself obliged to choose a Greater Good when attended only with a Less Evil how is it possible that he should be discouraged and uneasie under the expectation of some cross Accidents that sometimes follow upon Vertuous Actions when the Good of these Actions is truly and properly his own but the Evil of those Accidents is only something remote and not His Especially too when this is by no means a superficial and notional Distinction but such a real Difference as his whole Practice and Behaviour shews him sensible of This is the very Reason that Men of Virtue and Wisdom have made it their Glory to choose Good with the greatest Dangers that they have done it chearfully and sacrificed their very Lives for it and accounted their Sufferings upon such an Account matter of the greatest Joy to them So did * This Person was Son to Creon King of Thebes and upon an Answer of the Oracle that a Plague which then infested the City could not be removed till the Race of Cadmus were all extinct He who was the only remainder of that Family slew himself Of the same nature was that Act of Curtius and the Decii so much celebrated by the Roman Poets and Historians Menoeceus particularly and all those other Heroes famed in Story who have voluntarily devoted themselves and died for the Service and Sake of their Country Now Epictetus couches his Advice here under one of the Meanest and most Insignificant Instances that can be partly to illustrate what he says by an Example taken from common Conversation and so to gain the Assent of his Hearers to the truth of what he would infer from it and partly too as himself hath told us before to put his Scholars upon exercising their Virtue in Lesser Trials that so from Trivial Matters they may rise by degrees to others of greater Difficulty and Consequence And the Success of this Method hath been already shewn to depend upon Reasons which need not be repeated here But his Design is also that we should be careful to apply these things to Affairs of Moment in proportion as the Hazards of them are more discouraging and in those Occasions always to take our Measures from the Nature of the thing whether it be what is agreeable to Decency and our Duty and what those Hardships are that usually accompany it And after such Prospect taken to settle our Minds in this Resolution that if the worst happen yet we will bear it with Temper and Moderation For this is the way to maintain the Character of Vertuous and Rational Men this must let us into all the Advantages of doing well and defend us from all that Perplexity that unexpected Events commonly betray Men to For he that is troubled and Discomposed and fancies himself unhappy in what he suffers it is plain either had not sufficiently considered what he went about before he engaged in it or if he did foresee all this then his Disorder is the Effect of Effeminacy and Cowardice which makes him give out and repent his Undertaking And both these Failings are highly Criminal and contrary to the Rules of Nature and Right Reason CHAP. X. That which gives Men Disquiet and makes their Lives Miserable is not the Nature of things as they really are but the Notions and Opinions which they form to themselves concerning them Thus even Death which we look upon as the most perplexing and dreadfu hath in truth nothing of Terror in it For if it had Socrates must needs have feared it as much as we But our Opinion that it is Evil is the only thing that makes it so Therefore whenever we meet with Obstructions and Perplexities or fall into Troubles and Disorders let us be Just and not lay the blame where it is not due but impute it all to our own Selves and our prejudicate Opinions COMMENT WE were told before what Means would be Proper and Effectual for the preserving an Even and Composed Temper of Mind in the midst of all those Hardships that frequently attend our best Actions That this might be accomplished by the Power of Premeditation by representing these Inconveniences as sure to happen and when we had made the worst of it convincing our Selves that such Notions were worth our Undertaking even with all those Incumbrances Now that Rule proceeded upon the Work of our own Minds but there is another here fetch'd from the Nature of the Things themselves and the Consideration of those Difficulties and Dangers that use to give us Disturbance And here he changes his Method and confirms what he says not by some slight and trivial Instances as he did before but by Death the greatest and most confounding one to Humane Nature that can be For if the Argument hold good in this case it must needs be a great deal stronger with regard to all the rest which are by our own Confession less dismal and affrighting To this purpose then he tells us That those Things which we apprehend to be Evil and which for that Reason discompose our Spirits because we think our Selves miserable under them are really neither Evil themselves nor the true Causes of any Evil to us But that all our Troubles and Perplexities are entirely owing to the Opinions which we our Selves have entertained concerning them For proof of this Determination he produces that which of all the Things that we apprehend as Evil is confessedly the greatest and most terrible and shews that even Death nay a violent and untimely Death is yet no Evil The Argument he uses is short indeed but very full and conclusive the Method and Consequence whereof lies thus Whatever is Evil in its own Nature must needs appear so to all Mankind and especially to those whose Apprehensions are most improved and most suitable to the real Nature of Things Thus all Things that are naturally hot or cold or beautiful or the like appear to all People in their right Senses But Death does not appear evil to all People nor are they universally agreed in this Notion of it For Socrates did not think it so He chose to undergo it when it was in his Power to have declined it He endured it with all the Calmness and Composure imaginable He spent that whole Day in which he died with his Friends demonstrating to them the Existence and Immortality of the Soul and the Efficacy of a Philosophical Life in order to Virtue and Reformation From all which Premises this Conclusion evidently follows That Death is not in its own Nature evil
part in it at all First Because he only permits to it an Additional and Accidental Being and that not in the quality of Evil neither but as being it self a necessary Expedient for the promoting of Good And Secondly Because even after all these Limitations it depends wholly upon the Choice and Determination of the Soul and can have no being at all without our own Consent and actual Concurrence For which Reason it is that all the Laws both of God and Man suffer such Actions as are done involuntary to go unpunished And indeed all Evil whatsoever is in some Sense an involuntary Misfortune to the Soul for the Soul never chooses Evil considered as Evil but under the Desire and Pretence of some Good as sometimes Riches sometimes Senfual Enjoyments or Honours or Proferments and Greatness Now in such Cases the Mischiefs attending these are either wholly overlooked or else they are lessened and stifled by that prevalency of Passion which bribes and sways the Soul So that there cannot possibly be any such thing in nature as an Absolute Evil when considered in all the Circumstances of it And that which never had any Being may sooner be than that even this Accidental Being in the Soul should be entirely Evil and chosen as such Some perhaps may imagine that God is the Cause of Evil as having given the Soul this Freedom to Virtue or Vice to the ill Management whereof that Evil is owing Now indeed if the Soul 's being indued with a Faculty of acting freely and absolutely be Evil then he who gave this Faculty must be confessed the Cause of Evils But if such a Power be Good a greater and more valuable Good than all the Advantages of the World besides why then should he who hath given us the Good be for so doing charged with the Evil Since therefore that which is most agreeable to our Nature and Reason is also most eligible and desirable what account can be given why any one that is a Man and understands at all wherein the peculiar Excellence of a Man consists should rather wish to be a Plant or any other Irrational Creature than that which God hath made him Though at the same time we must allow that even Plants and other Irrational Beings are Good in their Kind and Capacity that is in a lower Degree and a qualified Sense and in proportion to the Uses they are designed to serve Now if it be in our own power to be Good and Happy and we have the sole Disposal of this Matter so that nothing can possibly bring our Desires or our Aversions under any Compulsion to act as we would not have them or under any Restraint not to act as we would have them such a Free Nature and Absolute Power as this is in my Opinion a Glorious Priviledge a most Magnificent and Royal Prerogative and the Person in whom it is lodged is thereby made a Great a Happy an Arbitrary Prince But if such a Soul contribute to its own Deviations and can choose whether it will so deviate or no where can any Miscarriage of that kind be laid with any tolerable Justice but to the charge of the Soul it self which is the true Original and Cause both of its own Good and of all the Deflexions from it since in and by it such Deflexions first began For the Great Creator who hath thus made it so as to be the Cause of its own Ruin did not absolutely ruin it but only made it capable of being ruined and yet at the same time too utterly incapable of it without her own Consent If therefore this Volition or Consent be an internal Motion of her own she is the sole Cause of her own Sin and Misery Behold therefore the Goodness and the Wisdom of God! For since the Constitution of the World and Order of Nature made a middle sort of Beings necessary that should stand between those that are always above and those that are always below things that should bear a Resemblance and be conformed sometimes to one and sometimes to the other of these Beings and thus make the whole perfect by partaking of and knitting together the distant Extremes Since also this tendency to things below us is but an accidental and additional thing and this Prudence is the very thing capable of Depravation he hath endued this middle sort of Beings with such a Tendency yet so as that it may still remain Untainted and Undepraved if it will do so and that he himself might be clear upon all Accounts and in no degree the Cause of any manner of Evil. These Arguments I have insisted on the more largely not only because they are proper for the explaining what Epictetus have delivered upon this occasion but also in regard they give us a great light into what he tells us afterwards concerning the Nature of Evil. For we might have made very short work of the Case now before us and needed only have given this Answer to all the Objections that when Epictetus advises Men to be well pleased Things should be just as they are he does not intend it of Vice or that which is Evil to the Soul for he could never have said that Men who are pleased with their own or other People's Vices are easie and happy but that we must restrain it to those Accidents that affect our Bodies or our Fortunes For these are things that a Wise and Good Man will be sure to make an Advantage of however they are ordered and the more Cross and Difficult they are the more still will he profit by them And these are the things he means which foolish and ignorant Men wish may be conformable to their own Wishes and Desires and not the Desires and Aversions themselves in which all our Good and Evil consists For they are in our own power just what we please to make them and consequently it were most absurd and foolish to wish they were as we would have them But he advises that we would forbear wishing thus of Things out of our power because this is what we cannot compass by any strength of our own nor would it always prove for our Advantage to do it if we could For we often are passionately desirous of what is pleasant though at the same time it be prejudicial to us and as often decline what is harsh and unpalatable though Providence intend it for Physick and design our mighty Benefit in the application Sickness is a Hindrance to the Body but it does not enfeeble the Mind nor can it obstruct her Freedom unless she please her self And Lameness is a Confinement to the Foot but it can put no Restraint upon the Will nor make that one jot the less Active And the same Consideration is applicable in proportion to every Accident of Humane Life For you will find that though these may prove Obstructions to something else yet they cannot or need not ever be so to you He had told us immediately
its own as Good hath that it hath a Power equal to Good and contrary to it that its Essence is incompatible with that of Good and will no more endure any Mixture with it than White will with Black or Hot with Cold. But if there were any such real and substantial Evil like the Substance of a Man or a Horse or any other Species that really and actually subsists it must needs have some sort of Perfection in proportion to its Nature and a particular Form that makes it what it is and distinguishes it from all other Beings Now every Form considered as such is Good and not Evil because it is endued with the Perfections peculiar to its Nature And indeed they are so sensible of this as to make that Evil of theirs desire Good and embrace and court it and receive Advantage by it and love to partake of it and use all possible Diligence not to part from it And how very ridiculous an Attempt is it to impose a Thing upon us that does all this for a Being simply and absolutely Evil But then if we consider in the next place that Evil by the Commission whereof Men are denominated wicked and are punished by God and Man for contracting it this is purely accidental and hath no real Essence of its own For we find that it both is and ceases to be without the Destruction of the Subject which is the very distinguishing Character of an Accident and likewise it never subsists but by Inherence in some Subject For what Evil of this kind was there ever in the Abstract without being the Evil that is the Crime of some Person that committed it And so in like manner Moral Good which is the true Opposite of Evil in this Sense is merely an Accident too Only herein they differ that Good is that Quality of its Subject by which it is rendred agreeable to Nature and attains its proper Perfection But Evil is the Depravation or Indisposition of its Subject by which it swerves and departs from Nature and loses or falls short of its natural Perfection that is of Good For if Evil were the right Disposition and natural Perfection of the Form to which it belongs then would it by this Means change its Name and its Nature and commence Good So that from hence we may conclude against any primary Nature and positive Subsistence of Evil for it is not in Nature as Good is but is only an additional Thing superinduced upon Good the Privation of and Fall from it Just thus we may conceive Sickness with regard to Health and the Vices of the Mind with respect to Virtue And as the Walking strong and upright is the designed and primary Action of an Animal and the end which it proposes to it self when it moves but Stumbling or Halting is an Accident beside the purpose and happens throught some Defect and missing the intended Aim being a Motion not of Nature's making nor agreeable to her Operations directly so we may affirm of Evil when compared to its opposite Good And though these be Contraries as White and Black are yet no Man can maintain that they do equally subsist or are equipollent to one another as White and Black are in a Physical Consideration For these do both subsist alike and neither of them can pretend to a greater Perfection in Nature than the other and consequently one is not the mere Privation of the other For a Privation is properly a Defect or kind of false Step in Nature whereby the original Form is not fully come up to as Limping is in a Man's Gate But now each of those Colours hath its Form entire and as much of what Nature intended should belong to it as its Contrary Whereas in the Case before us one of the Extremes is agreeable to Nature and the other contrary to it and that which is contrary to Nature is an accidental Addition to that part which is agreeable to it for Good was first and then Evil not Evil first and afterwards Good As no Man can say that Missing the Mark was antecedent to the Hitting of it nor Sickness before Health but quite otherwise For it was the Archer's primitive Design to hit the Mark and he shot on purpose that he might do so thus also it was the original Intent of Nature to give us sound Health and good Constitutions for the Preservation and Continuance of the Creation was the very End she proposed to her self in forming it And in general Terms whatever any Action is directed to that is the proper End of it But now the missing of the Mark happens afterwards by Accident when the Operation does not succeed as it ought nor attain the End at first proposed but hits upon something else some Disappointment instead of it Now then this Disappointment which comes in afterwards and by the Bye may very truly be said to be Additional and Accidental to the Original Purpose of Hitting the Mark but that Purpose can with no good Propriety of Speech be called so with regard to that which happened afterwards besides and against the Man's Purpose If then all Things naturally desire Good and every Thing that acts of any kind does it with a prospect of or in order to some Real or some Seeming Good it is manifest that the obtaining some Good is the primary End of all Operations whatsoever Sometimes indeed it happens that Evil steps in between when the Desire is fixed upon some Object that is not really and truly good but such in outward Appearance only and which hath an Allay and Mixture of Evil with it Thus when a Man in pursuit of Pleasure or greedy of Wealth turns a Robber or a Pirate his Desire in this Case is principally fixed upon the seeming Good and that is the Spring upon which all these Actions move but as Matters stand he is forced to take the Good and the Bad together For no Man alive was ever yet so unnaturally profligate as to be guilty of Lewdness for Lewdness sake or to Rob any Man merely for the sake of Stealing or indeed disposed to any manner of Evil purely for the Satisfaction of doing evil Because it is past all doubt that Evil considered and apprehended as Evil can never be the Object of any Man's Desire For if it were the principal and original Cause of those Things that proceed from it then would it be the End of all such Things As an End it would be desirable to them as good For good and desirable are Terms reciprocal and convertible and consequently at this rate it would become good and cease to be evil 'T is most certainly true then that all Things whatsoever do desire and pursue their own Advantage not all their true and real Advantage indeed but all their seeming Benefit and such as they at that time take for the true and best For no Man is willingly deceived no Man chooses a Falshood before Truth nor Shadows before Substances
them These Arguments have been in some measure insisted on before and I take them to be abundantly clear in this point that though our Passions and Appetites be the Cause of Moral Evil yet they are extreamly Beneficial to the Creatures in which Nature hath implanted them as being necessary to their Constitution and giving a Relish to some of the most indispensible Actions of Life Upon all which accounts even these cannot with any Justice be called Evil nor God who infused them the Cause of it But the truth of the Matter is this The Soul is by Nature superior to this Body and Animal Life and hath a commanding power over them put into her Hands this Dignity and Power so long as she preserves keeping her Subjects under and at their due distance while she uses the Body as her Instrument and converts all its Functions to her own Use and Benefit so long all is well and there is no danger of Evil. But when once she forgets that the Divine Image is stampt upon her when she lays by the Ensigns of Government and gives away the Reins out of her own Hands when she sinks down into the Dregs of Flesh and Sense by preferring the Impetuous Temptations of Pleasure before the Mild and gentle Perswasions of Reason and enters into a strict Union with the Brutish part then Reason acts against its own Principles divests it self of its Despotick Power and basely submits to be governed by its Slave and this Confusion in the Soul is the Root of all Evil an Evil not owing to the more Excellent and Rational part while it maintains its own Station nor to the Inferior and Sensual while that keeps within its due Bounds but to the inverting of these the violent Usurpation of the one and the tame Submission of the other that is The perverse Choice of Degenerating into Body and Matter rather than forming ones self after the similitude of the Excellent Spirits above us But still all this as I said is Choice and not Constraint it is still Liberty though Liberty abused And here I would bespeak the Reader 's Attention a little to weigh the Reasons I am about to give why Choice and Volition must needs be the Souls own Act and Deed an Internal Motion of ours and not the Effect of any Compulsion from without I have already urged the Clearness of this Truth at large and that the Soul only is concern'd and acts purely upon the principles of her own Native Freedom in the Choice of the Worse no less than the Better part Thus much I apprehend to have been plainly proved from the Example of Almighty God himself the Determinations of all Wise Laws and well Constituted Governments and the Judgment of Sober and Knowing Men who all agree in this That the Merits of Men are not to be measured by the Fact it self or the Events of things but by the Will and Intention of the Person And accordingly their Rewards and Punishments their Censures and their Commendations are all proportioned to the Intention because this alone is entirely in a Man 's own power and consequently it is the only thing he can be accountable for From hence it comes to pass that whatever is done by Constraint and Irresistible Force though the Crime be never so grievous is yet pardoned or acquitted and the Guilt imputed not to the Party that did it but to the Person that forced him to the doing of it For he that used that Force did it Voluntary but he that was born down by it had no Will of his own concerned in the Fact but became the mere Instrument of effecting it against the Inclination of his own Mind Since then our own Choice is the Cause of Evil and since that Choice is the Souls Voluntary Act owing to no manner of Compulsion but it s own internal mere Motion what can we charge Evil upon so justly as upon the Soul But yet though the Soul be the Cause of Evil it is not the Cause of it considered as Evil for nothing ever is or can be chosen under that Notion But it disguises it self and deludes us with an Appearance of Good and when we choose that seeming Good we take at the same time the real Evil that lay concealed under it And thus much in effect was said before too And now having thus discovered the true Origine of Evil it is fit we proclaim to all the World That God is not chargeable with any Sin because it is not He but the Soul that does Evil and that freely and willingly too For were the Soul under any Constraint to do amiss then indeed there would be a colourable Pretence to lay the Blame on God who had suffered her to lye under so fatal a Necessity and had not left her free to rescue and save her self Though in truth upon this Presumption nothing that the Soul was forced to do could be strictly Evil. But now since the Soul is left to her self and acts purely by her own free Choice she must be content to bear all the Blame If it shall be farther objected That all this does not yet acquit Almighty God for that it is still his Act to allow Men this Liberty and leave them to themselves and that he ought not to permit them in the Choice of Evil then we are to consider that one of these Two Things must have been the Consequence of such a Proceeding Either First That after he had given Man a Rational Soul capable of choosing sometimes Good and sometimes Evil he must have chained up his Will and made it impossible for him to choose any thing but Good Or else that it ought never to have had this Indifference at all but to have been so framed at first that the Choice of Evil should have been naturally impossible One of these Two Things the Objector must say or he says nothing at all to the purpose Now the former of these is manifestly absurd for to what purpose was the Will left Free and Undetermined either way if the Determining it self one way was afterwards to be debarred it This would have been utterly to take away the power of Choosing for Choice and Necessity are things Inconsistent and where the Mind is so tied up that it can choose but one thing there properly speaking it can choose nothing As to the latter It must be remembred in the First Place that no Evil is ever chosen when the Mind apprehends it to be Evil But the Objector seems to think it were very convenient if this Freedom of the Will which is so Absolute in the Determining of it self sometimes to real Good and sometimes to that which deceives it with a false Appearance of being so were quite taken away Imagining it to be no Good to be sure and perhaps some great Evil But alas he does not consider how many things there are in the World that are accounted exceeding Good which yet are not really in any
these things are done not for his sake but our own and the First Fruits which we consecrate to him are designed for no other than decent Acknowledgments of his Liberality and a small return out of what he hath been pleased to give us Thus have I trod in the Steps of this excellent Man and done him what Right I could in the Paraphrase and Explanation of the Chapter before us But now because in the beginning he touches upon three Points concerning the divine Nature and these so fundamentally necessary that all Positive Laws and all Moral Institutions do presuppose the Belief and Acknowledgment of them And since some perverse and refractary Men have nevertheless the Confidence to oppose them we will so far comply with their Obstinacy though must unreasonable as to prove the Truth of these Three Points viz. That there is a divine Nature and Power That the World is governed by it and That the Providence by which it is so governed is Just and Good in all its Dispensations The Importunity of these Men is so much the greater and our trouble of refuting it will be the less because not Mankind only but Brutes and Plants and every Creature in the World do according to their Capacity all declare their Relation to God Men indeed do so the most of any because they are early instructed by their Parents Religion grows up with them from their Cradle and the Ideas common to their whole Species take root in and carry a great Sway with them For the Barbarous as well as the Civilized Countries and that in all Ages of the World too though they have differ'd exceedingly in other Opinions yet have ever agreed universally in this That there is a God I know of no Exception to this Rule except those Acrotheites of whom Theophrastus gives an Account that they owned no Deity but as a punishment of their Atheism the Earth opened and swallowed them up Besides them we meet with no People and but very few single Persons that ever pretended to disown this not above Two or Three from the beginning of the World to this Day But yet so it is that a great many People do not duly attend to these universally received Notions partly because they take them upon Trust without considering or understanding the Arguments upon which they are grounded And partly from some Difficulties in Providence such as the Misfortunes and Afflictions of some very good and the Prosperity of some exceedingly wicked Men which are apt to raise in them the same Scruple with that in the Tragaedian Pardon ye Powers if yet such Powers there be For sure that Doubt is modest when we see Triumphant Vice and injur'd Piety Now such Persons as these would soon be convinced if they did but follow Epictetus his Method and not imagine that either the Happiness or Misery of a Man can depend upon external Accidents or indeed upon any thing else but the Freedom and Use of his own Will For at this rate it will not be possible for any good Man to be wretched or any vicious one happy And now if you please we will consider those Propositions which are barely laid down by Epictetus and try to prove the Truth of them by such Arguments as are proper and occur to my present Thoughts The first step I shall make in this Argument â—â— to consider the Name by which we call this â—eing and what the Word GOD signifies And here we must observe That the Greek Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was applyed to the Stars and other Celestial Bodies which therefore were so called from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to Run and had that Appellation given them for the swiftness of their Motion But this Title was afterwards extended to Incorporeal Causes and Intellectual Beings and more peculiarly to the First Cause and Being of all Things So that by this Name we understand the Original of this Universe the First and Principal and Intellectual Cause of every Thing For whatever hath any existence must either be derived from some Determinate Cause or it must subsist by Chance and Mechanical Necessity But whatever subsists after this manner hath neither any particular efficient Cause nor is it self the Final Cause of its own Production For both these Qualifications are absolutely inconsistent with the nature of Fortuitous Beings and indeed no less so is the following any constant Rule and regular Method in the Production of them Now it is obvious to any considering Person that the Works of Nature and of Choice are a final Cause to the Doer and the existence of them is proposed as that which answers his Design Thus the Husbandman plants and sows his Ground in prospect of the Corn and the Trees that will grow upon it Thus the Coition of all Animals proposes to it self the continuation of the Species And in all the Progress of these Productions there is a constant Order and fix'd Course observed and some Operations which are proper to the Beginning others to the Promoting and others to the Perfecting this Work each perform'd constantly in their proper place The Seeds of Plants are first cast into the Ground then moistned and impregnated there then they take root and sprout they shoot up in Straw or Branches and so on till at last they blossom and bud and bring Fruit to maturity So likewise that of Animals is cherished and enlarged and formed into an Embryo which receiving vital Nourishment and convenient Growth is at a stated time brought to a just Perfection and then comes to the Birth But still in these and in all other Cases of the like nature there is the same Chain of Causes and these generally keep their fix'd Times and Measures So then if all the Productions of Nature and the Effects of Choice have some particular Cause to which they owe their Being if the Existence of these things be the final Cause of their Production and if the same Order and a regular Method be constantly and duly observed in the producing them the natural and necessary Result of this Argument is That all the Works of Nature and of Choice that is all Things in this whole World that have no real Existence are not the Effects of Chance or Mechanism but are owing to some particular positive Causes and since these Causes must needs be antecedent to their Effects if They be such as had a Beginning themselves they must be owing to some others who had a Being antecedent to Theirs and so we may trace them up till at last we come to Causes which had no Beginning at all And these being eternal are most truly and properly said to Exist as having never been nor owing their Subsistence to any External Cause but solely to the Inherent Perfections of their own Nature So that the first and Eternal Causes of Things must needs be Self-existent or something more noble and excellent than Self-existent as the following Discourse will convince
motion And thus we style him Holy and Just and Merciful and Good and Lord and Omnipotent and sometimes take the Confidence to use such Appellations as we think applicable to some of the Sons of men And thus much shall suffice at present for the First of the Three Points before us which pretends to shew That there are First Causes of Things and that GOD is the truly First and Original of them all And though I have pass'd over several Steps that might have been taken in running from Effects to their Causes and would perhaps have made the Demonstration more gradual and compleat yet I must be content to enlarge no farther as being duly sensible that some Persons will think what is already done a great deal too much and that these Excursions are by no means agreeable to my first Design which was to give as compendious an Illustration as I could to this Manual of Epictetus The next Assertion to be proved was That this God governs and disposes all Things by his Providence which though it be I presume largely demonstrated upon several Occasions in the foregoing Chapters shall yet be allowed a particular Consideration in this place For some People are ready enough to acknowledge the Being and the Perfections of God they acquiesce in his Power and Goodness and Wisdom but as for the Affairs of the World these they do not suppose him to regard at all nor be in the least concerned for them as being too little and low and in no degree deserving his Care And indeed the greatest Temptation to this Opinion they frankly own to be ministred by the very unequal Distribution of Things here below and the monstrous Irregularities that the Government of the World seems chargeable withal They observe some exceedingly wicked Men high in Power and Preferments their Estates plentiful and growing their Health sound and uninterrupted and thus they continue a prosperous and pleasant Life to extream old Age go down to their Graves gently and peaceably and frequently leave their Posterity Heirs of their good Fortune and transmit their ill-gotten Wealth to succeeding Generations In the mean while many Persons eminently vertuous and good are miserably oppress'd by the Insolence and Barbarity of those wicked Great Ones and yet for all this Injustice there is no Vengeance that we can observe overtakes the Oppressor nor any Comfort or Reward to support the Sufferer These as was hinted before are the Speculations that give Men the Confidence to dispute against GOD. Some have been so far emboldened by them as to deny his very Being but others in compliance with the universal Consent of Mankind and the natural Intimations we have of Him are content to allow his Nature and Perfections but can by no means allow his Providence and especially when it happens to be their own case and their particular Misfortunes have given an edge to the Objection and made it enter deeper and more sensibly For then they can by no means be persuaded that so great an Inequality can be consistent with Providence or that GOD can interest Himself in the Management of the World and yet do a thing so unworthy his Justice and so contrary to his Nature as to suffer insulting Wickedness to pass unpunished and injured Vertue to perish unredressed Now the first Return I shall make to this Objection shall be in more general terms by desiring the Person who proposes it to answer me to the several Parts of this dis-junctive Argument If there be a God and not a Providence then the Reason must be either want of Knowledge and a due Sense that these Things ought to be his Care or if he knows that they ought and yet does not make them so then this must proceed either from want of Power or want of Will For the want of Power there may be two Causes assigned either that the Burden and Difficulty of Governing the World is so great that GOD is not able punctually to discharge it or else That these are Matters so very mean and inconsiderable that they escape his Notice and are not worth his Care and Observation If the Sufficiency of his Power be granted and the Want of Will be insisted upon this may likewise be imputed to two Reasons Either That he indulges his own Ease and will not take the pains or else as was argued before That these Matters are of so mean Consideration that tho' he could attend to the most minute Circumstances of them if he so pleased yet he does not do it as thinking it more becoming the Greatness of his Majesty to sleight and overlook them This dis-junctive Argument being thus proposed in the general the several Branches of it may be replied to as follows That admitting God to be such a Being as hath been here described perfect in Wisdom and Knowledge absolute and uncontroulable in Power and of Goodness incomprehensible and withal the Original Cause and Author of all Things produced from and by Himself and being so many parcels as it were of his own Divinity it is not possible first he should be ignorant that the Products of his own Nature and the Works of his own Hands require his Care For this were to represent him more insensible than the wildest and most stupid of all brute Beasts since even these express a very tender regard for the Creatures to whom they give Birth and Being It is as absurd every whit to say in the next place That this is a Care too weighty and above his Power and Comprehension For how is it possible to conceive an Effect greater and stronger than the Cause to which it entirely owes its Production And no less so thirdly to alledge That these Matters are neglected because too little and low to fall within his Observation For sure had they been so despicable he would never have created them at all The want of Will is no more occasion of such a Neglect than the want of Power To suppose this Care omitted only for the indulging his own Ease and to avoid the Interruption of his Pleasures would be to six upon him the Infirmities and Passions of Men nay and such as are peculiar to the worst and most profligate of Men too For not only humane Reason but natural instinct infuses an anxious Tenderness into Brutes such as suffers them to decline no pains for the Provision and Support of their Off-spring Nor can we in any reason imagine such want of Will from a Consideration of the Vileness of these Things since nothing certainly is contemptible in His Eyes who created it and whatever he thought worthy the Honour of receiving its Existence from him he cannot think unworthy that of his Protection and Care So that when you have made the most of this Argument that it can possibly bear still every part meets you with some intolerable absurdity and no one of these Considerations nor all of them put together can ever induce a Man who believes that
much more likely to be so And indeed considering that Pleasure and sensual Prospects tempt Men to offend the Rule of curing Diseases by their Contraries makes Sorrow and Pain absolutely necessary to remove this Sickness of the Mind and expel the Humours that brought it upon us And Repentance wants no Qualifications of this kind for the truly penitent Person chastises himself with the Scourge of a guilty Conscience and feels such bitter Remorse and Anguish of Heart as are infinitely more sharp and stinging and more inconsolable than any Smart or bodily Pains can possibly be And thus much in Opposition to the Third Objection against God and Religion which is indeed the worst and most impious of all the Three For it were a much more excusable Error to deny a God and a Providence than to allow both these and yet advance such Incongruous Notions concerning him better it were for us and him both that he had no Being and no Concern in governing the World at all than that he should be guilty of so much Treachery and Baseness as this Objection lays to his Charge For this is to be Evil and that is much worse than not to be at all The Reason is evident because Goodness and Happiness is Superiour to Existence it is the Principle of Being the Cause from whence all things derive it and the very End for which they have it For Existence it self is what no Man would desire but meerly upon the Apprehension of its being Good and therefore whenever we apprehend our selves in Evil Circumstances we naturally wish not to be at all If I have here again enlarged beyond the just Bounds of a Commentary the Importance of the Argument will justifie me in it For in Truth a regular and well-grounded Devotion towards God Just and Becoming Apprehensions concerning the Perfections of his Nature the Certainty of his Providence and the Justice and Goodness of all his Proceedings with Mankind and consequent to such a Perswasion a submissive resigned Temper and easie Acquiescence under all his Dispensations as the Effects of a most excellent Wisdom and such as are always best for us These are the Sum of all Humane Accomplishments the Foundation and the Perfection the First and the Last Step of all Moral and all Intellectual Vertue For though the Soul of Man be 't is confess'd a Free Agent and proceed upon Internal Principles of Good and Evil yet still this Liberty and Power of determining her self was the particular Favour and Gift of God and therefore while she holds fast by the Root she lives and improves and attains the Perfection God made her capable of But when she separates her self and as it were disengages and tears her self off she grows barren and withers and putrefies till she return and be united to the Root again and so recover her Life and Perfection once more Now nothing but a firm and a vigorous Sense of these Three Points we have been explaining can ever prevail upon the Soul to endeavour such a Restoration For how is it possible to apply to God when we do not believe that he is Or what Encouragement is the belief of his Existence without a Perswasion that he is concerned for us and takes notice of us Least of all should we address to a Being that does inspect and govern our Affairs if we were possess'd with an Opinion That all that Care and Inspection were directed to Evil and Malicious Purposes and that he only waited over us for our Misery and Mischief CHAP. XXXIX When you consult the Oracle remember it is only the Event that you are ignorant of and come to be instructed in But though you do not know what that shall be particularly yet Philosophy if you have any hath already taught you of what Quality and Consequence it shall prove to you For you are satisfied before-hand That if it be any of the Things out of our own Power it must needs be indifferent in its own Nature and neither good nor bad of it self Therefore when these Occasions call you abroad leave all your Hopes and Fears behind you and do not approach the Prophet with such anxious Concern as if you were to hear your Doom from his Mouth but behave your self as becomes a Man fully persuaded That no external Accident is any thing to you and that nothing can possibly happen but what by good Management may be converted to your Advantage though all the World should endeavour to obstruct it When therefore you address to the Gods come boldly as one that asks their Advice and withal when they have given it be all Compliance for consider whose Counsel you have ask'd and how impious a Disrespect it will be not to follow it When therefore you apply your self to the Oracle observe Socrates his Rule To ask no Questions but what the Event is the only material Consideration to be cleared in they should be Matters of great Importance and Difficulty and such as are not capable of Resolution by Reason or Art or any humane Methods But if you are in dispute whether you ought to assist your Friend in distress or expose your Person for the Defence of your Country these are not Questions fit to be put because they answer themselves For though the Sacrifice be never so inauspicious though it should portend Flight or Banishment loss of Limbs or loss of Life yet still Reason and Duty will tell you That in despight of all these Hazards you must not desert those that have a right to your Service and Assistance And therefore in this case you need no other Determination than that memorable one which Apolio gave so long since when he thrust that Wretch out of his Temple who suffered his Friend to perish for want of help COMMENT AFter having given Directions for the understanding and due discharge of our Duty to one another and towards God the next thing to be done was to inform us What we owe to our selves But before this could be methodically undertaken it was necessary to take notice of a sort of mix'd Duty which respects both God and our selves and this is what arises from Divination or the consulting of Oracles To this purpose he divides his Discourse into Three Parts and tells us upon what Occasions we ought to consult them with what Disposition it should be done and what use is to be made of their Determinations He begins with the Second of these thinking it perhaps the First both in Consequence and in Order of Nature and tells us That the Mind should preserve such a firm and even Temper upon these Occasions as neither to bring any Desires nor any Aversions along with it For at this rate it would be impossible to come without great anxiety and disorder If our Desires are eager we shall be afraid of hearing that what we wish will not come to pass and if our Aversions are violent we shall be in no less concern to be told