Selected quad for the lemma: mind_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
mind_n	body_n	power_n	soul_n	4,289	5	5.0793	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45645	A refutation of the atheistical notion of fate, or absolute necessity in a sermon preach'd at the cathedral-church of St. Paul, November the seventh, 1698 : being the eighth of the lecture for that year, founded by the Honourable Robert Boyle, Esq. / by John Harris ...	Harris, John, 1667?-1719.	1698 (1698)	Wing H853; ESTC R15217	16,696	30

attendit vel ad quod tanquam ad certum scopum collimat Quod profectò nihil aliud est quam Deum Fato subjicere Now I think nothing can more shew the wicked Perversness of this Writer's Mind than this Passage For he could not but know very well that when Divines assert the Deity to be Essentially and necessarily Good they do not mean that Goodness is any thing Extrinsical to the Divine Nature much less that it is something which hath no dependance upon it but only that the Excellency and Perfection of his Nature is such as that it is in every thing exactly conformable to Right Reason and therefore this was certainly a wilful Perversion of their Sense set up on purpose to overthrow the Notion of Moral Goodness in the Deity But how vain is it for him to tell us that for the Deity to Act sub Ratione Boni is for Him to be Subject to Fate when at the same time he Himself Asserts that God is in every respect a Necessary Agent without any free Will nay without any Knowledge or Understanding in his Nature at all This is so plain a Demonstration that it was his chief and Primary Design to banish out of Mens Minds the Notion of Moral Goodness that nothing can be more and therefore tho' he was resolved to Introduce absolute Necessity into all Actions both Divine and Human yet it should be such an one as should leave no Umbrage for any distinction between Good and Evil or any Foundation for Rewards and Punishments And in this Notion of Necessity these Writers follow Democritus Heraclitus Leucippus and that Atheistical Sect who maintain'd that there was Nothing in all Nature but Matter and Motion And therefore when these Modern Writers assert that there is nothing in the Universe but Body as they do they run Fate farther than most of the Old Heathen Patrons of Necessity did For there was none but the Democritick Sect that supposed Fate to have a Power over the Will of Man and in this particular even they were deserted by Epicurus as I observe below The Pythagoreans Platonists and Stoicks agreed that the Mind of Man was free And 't is well known that the Stoicks did in this Free Power of the Will of Man found that arrogant Assertion of theirs That a Wise Man was in one respect more excellent than the Gods for they were Good by the Necessity of their Nature and could not help it whereas Man had a Power of being otherwise and therefore was the more commendable for being so There was indeed some of the Poets and some few of the Philosophers too who did subject the Gods themselves to Fate or Necessity Thus Seneca in one place saith Necessitas Deos alligat Irrevocabilis Divina pariter ac Humana Cursus vehit Ille ipse omnium Conditor ac Rector scripsit quidem Fata sed sequitur semper paret semel jussit Which Opinion is effectually refuted and exposed by Lucian in that Dialogue of his called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As also by Lactantius in his First Book De falsâ Religione Chap. 11. But this as I doubt not but Seneca and some others understood in a softer sense than at first sight it appears to have so was it the Doctrine of but a few for generally the Heathens did fully believe that Prayers and Sacrifices would alter a Man's Fortune and Circumstances for the better that they would appease the Anger and gain the Favour and Blessing of the Gods and that Their Nature was not so absolutely Fatal and Necessary but that they could freely deal with their Creatures according as they deserved at their hands For we find Balbus the Stoick mentioned by Cicero telling us That the Nature of God would not be most Powerful and Excellent if it were Subject to the same Necessity or Nature Quâ Coelum maria terraeque reguntur Nihil Enim est praestantius Deo Nulli igitur est Naturae Obediens Subjectus So that these Writers tread in the Steps of the worst and most Atheistical of the Heathen Philosophers and maintain a more rigid Fate and a more irresistible Necessity than most of them did But 2. I come next to shew the Groundlesness of those Reasons and Arguments on which these Men build their Hypothesis of Absolute Necessity And first as to the Reasons of Mr. Hobbs The Chief that he brings against the freedom of Human Actions are these saith Mr. Hobbs In all Deliberations and alternate Successions of Contrary Appetites 't is the last only which we call Will this is immediately before the doing of any Action or next before the doing of it become Impossible Also Nothing saith he can take beginning from it self but must do it from the Action of some other immediate Agent without it if therefore a Man hath a Will to something which he had not before the Cause of his Willing is not the Will it self but something else not in his own disposing So that whereas 't is out of Controversie that of Voluntary Actions the Will is the Necessary Cause and by this which is now said the Will is also Caused by Other things whereof it disposeth not it follows that Voluntary Actions have all of them Necessary Causes and therefore are necessitated Agen also Every sufficient Cause saith he is a Necessary one for if it did not produce its Effect necessarily 't was because something was wanting to its Production and then it was not sufficient Now from hence it follows that whatsoever is produced is produced Necessarily and consequently all Voluntary Actions are Necessitated And to define a Free Agent to be that which when all things are present which are necessary to produce the Effect can nevertheless not produce it is Contradiction and Nonsense for 't is all one as to say the Cause may be sufficient i. e. Necessary and yet the Effect shall not follow This is the Substance of all Mr. Hobbs his Proof against Free Will in which there are almost as many Mistakes as there are Sentences and from hence it plainly will appear that either he had no clear Idea's of what he wrote about or else did designedly endeavour to perplex darken and confound the Cause For in the first place He confounds the Power or Faculty of Willing in Man with the last act of Willing or Determination after Deliberating And consequently doth not distinguish between what the Schools would call Hypothetical and Absolute Necessity which yet ought to be carefully done in the Point between us for an Agent may be free and no doubt every Man is free to deliberate on and to compare the Objects offered to his Choice and yet not be so after he hath chosen Then indeed Necessity comes in 't is impossible for any one to choose and not to choose or to determine and not to determine and after the Election is made no one ever supposed that a Man is free not to make it And

Scale against all the Atheistical Metaphysicks in the World and so no doubt it would were it not wicked Mens Interest to advance the contrary Notion Now that we have a free Power of deliberating in many Cases which way 't is best for us to proceed that we can act this way or that way according as we like best and that we can often forbear whether we will Act at all or not is a Truth so clear and manifest that we are I think almost as certain of it as we are of our own being and Existence and 't is an unimaginable thing how any Man can be perswaded that he hath no such Power Indeed one may by Sophistical words Metaphysical Terms and abstruse Unintelligible Banter be perhaps a little amused and confounded for the present But that any one should by such a Jargon be persuaded out of his Senses his Reason and his Experience and continue in that Opinion is what I do believe never yet befel any Rational and Thinking Man When Zeno brought his silly Sophistical Argument to prove there was no such thing as Motion his Antagonist thought it to no purpose to return an Answer to what plainly was contradictory to the common Sense of Mankind and therefore convinc'd him only by getting up and Walking And the very same Return will baffle and expose all the Pretended Arguments for Necessity For 't is plain He had a Power first whether he would have walked or not he could have walked Five Turns or Fifty he could have gone across the Room or length-wise round it or from Angle to Angle And I dare say no Sophistry or Metaphysicks whatever would have convinced him that none of these were in his Power when he plainly found them all to be so any more than he was convinced a Body could not move out of its place when he had seen and tried a Thousand times that it would 'T is the same thing in reference to the Thoughts of our Minds as it is in the Motions of our Bodies We plainly find we have a Power in abundance of Cases to preferr one thought before another and to remove our Contemplation from one Notion or Idea to another We can in our Minds compare and revolve over the several Objects of our Choice and we can oftentimes choose whether we will do this or not and this Internal Freedom in Reference to our Thoughts and Idea's we do as plainly perceive and are as sure of as we are that we can voluntarily move our Body or any part of it from place to place And as I have plainly shewed you above our Adversaries do grant and allow this when it is for their Turn But they will say tho' we seem to be free and do think and perceive our selves to be so yet in reality we are not and it is only our Ignorance of Things and Causes which induces us to be of this mistaken Opinion and the Idea of Liberty which Men have is this that they know no Cause of their Actions for to say they depend on the Will is to talk about what they do not understand and to use words of which they have no Idea's at all To which I say that I cannot but be of the Opinion that it is a good Rational way enough of Proceeding to pronounce of things according as we do experience them to be and to declare them to be that which we have all the Reason in the World to think and believe that they really are And I think we may well enough own and be contented with the Charge of Ignorance here laid upon us For the Case is thus We think our selves free because we plainly find and experiment our selves to be so in a Thousand Instances and this also these Penetrating Gentlemen sometimes as I have shewed do kindly allow and we are indeed wholly Ignorant of any Causes that do absolutely determine us to Action or which do necessitate us in what we do previous to that free Power which we find in our selves so that plainly perceiving our selves to have this free Power and being Ignorant of any true Reason why we should believe we are mistaken in what we perceive and know we do indeed such is our Ignorance and Weakness embrace the Opinion that there is a Liberty of Action in Human Nature And this free Power or Liberty which we find in us we not being deep Metaphysicians call the Will by which we understand as I have shewed before not any Particular Act of Volition but the Power or Faculty of Willing And since we plainly perceive that in many cases we are not determined to Action by any thing without us but do choose or refuse act or not act according as we please and being withal grosly Ignorant of any Cause these Actions have but what we find and perceive them to have we call our free Will the Cause of these Actions and say they depend on it and yet after all do we not find out that we talk about what we do not understand and use words that we have no Idea of But our Adversaries it seems have a quite different rellish of things they soar in a higher and more subtle Region they will not condescend to speak common sense in this Matter Tho' they plainly understand as they tell us that they are really free as to many Actions and can deliberate whether they will do them or not purely because they have a free Power so to do tho' they are satisfied that they can act if they will or forbear if they will yet they say this is in reality a Mistake and that there is no such thing as freedom after all but that all Actions are absolutely necessitated And as for the Power or Faculty which is vulgarly called the Will that sometimes is one thing sometimes another according as they think fit to name it Sometimes 't is an Act of Volition that follows the Ultimum dictamen Intellectûs and sometimes 't is the Understanding itself Now 't is nothing but an Idea and by and by a meer Ens Rationis or an Imaginary Cause of Action which Ignorant Men have fansied that they have in themselves So hard is it for Men that fly so high to have a distinct view of any thing below But I proceed 2. To another Argument for the freedom of Humane Nature and that is the monstrous Absurdities and Consequences of the contrary Opinion For the Assertion that all our Actions are necessitated it perfectly destroys the Notions of Good and Evil Rewards and Punishments and of all manner of Obligation both to Divine and Human Laws and consequently is the most Destructive Principle that can be advanced to the Good of Society I have already proved that there is a Natural Distinction between Actions as to Good and Evil that this is plainly discoverable by the Light of Reason and that all Nations in all Ages of the World have been sensible of it

because they are necessitated to do it and can't help it But if a Government judging such Notions destructive to the Good of Human Society and contrary to the express Word of God thinks fit to Prohibit the Propagation of them and to Punish the Authors of them How do these Men then Cry up the Liberty of Human Nature then every Man's Opinion ought to be free no Compulsion must be used every Man's Conscience is to be his Guide and the like But how ridiculously Vain is all this according to these Principles Is not the Magistrate as much necessitated to Punish as they are to Offend and the Government to make Laws as they are to break them Oh by no means They would be free to Sin and to commit Wickedness and then necessitated not to be Punished They would have Men think them necessitated in all their Actions so as to excuse them from blame and they would have the Magistrate free to forbear Punishing them tho' he think them never so guilty That is in short they would do what they please and no one should call them to an Account for it they would act like Fools and yet be thought Wise Men they would proceed contrary to Reason and yet have the Reputation of having Principles and pursuing the Dictates of Reason and Truth And they would build themselves a Reputation in the World by advancing Paradoxes contrary to the common Sense and Reason of Mankind by pretending to a higher pitch of Knowledge than their Neighbours and by calling all the rest of the World Fools and Ignorant In a word they would say with those in the Psalmist We are they that ought to speak who is Lord over us This I am fully perswaded is what they aim at in all their Arguments and Objections against Religion and particularly in the bustle that they make about this Point of the Absolute Necessity of All Events and Actions Which how weakly they Prove and how contradictorily they Maintain against the Common Sense and Experience of all Mankind I think I have sufficiently shewn FINIS ADVERTISEMENT REmarks upon some late Papers relating to the Universal Deluge and to the Natural History of the Earth By John Harris M. A. and Fellow of the Royal-Society In Octavo Dr. Cudworth in Preface to his Intellectual System a Hobbs Tripos p. 297. b Ibid. p. 312. c Vid. Sermon V. p. 51. Serm. VI. p. 9. d Vid. Serm. V. p. 49. e Serm. V. p. 51. f Spinoza Op. Posthum p. 85. g p. 28. a Princep Philos. Cartes Demonstrat p. 103. b Hobbs Tripos p. 314. c p. 29. Op. Posthum and p. 33. 18. a Op. Posth p. 32. a Tripos p. 311. b Ibid. 315. a Mr. Lock in his Essay of Humane Understanding a Tripos p. 314. a Ex necessitate Divinae naturae Infinita Infinitis modis sequi debent Op. Posthum p. 16. 18. b p. 17. c p. 18. Tract Theol. Polit. c. 4. p. 63. d Op. Posthum p. 85. e p. 28. a p. 29. b Vid. Serm. 4 5. a Had it not been a thing Undeniable that the Will of Man is free and had not Epicurus and his Follower Lucretius very well known that it was a thing which every one could not but experience in Himself he had certainly as a very Learned Person observes Dr. Lucas Enquiry after Happiness Vol. I. p. 156 157. followed his Old Master Democritus and asserted the Mind of Man to be as necessarily and fatally moved by the strokes of his Atoms as Natural and Irrational Bodies are But this Opinion he was forced to desert and to assert the Liberty of the Soul of Man and 't was to make this out according to his Senseless Hypothesis that he Invented that Unaccountable Oblique Motion of his Atoms which Lucretius calls Exiguum Clinamen Principiorum Lib. 2. a Falluntur homines quod se liberos esse putant quae opinio in hoc solo consistit quod suarum Actionum sint conscii Ignari Causarum à quibus determinantur Haec ergo est eorum libertatis Idea quod suarum Actionum nuilam cognoscunt Causam Nam quod aiunt humanas Actiones à Voluntate pendere verba sunt quorum nullam habent Ideam Bapr Spinoz Op Posthum p. 73. Vid. etiam p. 37. a Spinozae Princip Philos. Cartes Demonst. p. 103. b Hobbs Tripos p. 314. c Spin. Op. Posth p. 87 88. d Ibid. p. 399. d Ibid. p. 399. e p. 73. a Zeviath p. 187. a Spinoz Op. Posthum p. 586