proceed from his moral character, and whether his virtue be his own will, choice, and determination; without concerning ourselves how, or after what laws, his good thoughts and actions arife, whether they be neceffary or accidental, and whether the fame man who acts juftly and uprightly could, in the very fame internal and external circumftances, and propofing the very fame grounds, have acted wickedly and unjustly. We deem it fufficient, that he acts fpontaneously, and that his determinations and actions accord with his will and understanding: fufficient, that he is not fubjected to a blind fate, by means of which he is abfolutely determined to a certain mode of acting and fuffering, let what will have preceded, and independent of his internal or external circumftances.

If it be alleged, that he who is determined to the end must also be determined to the means, and that, confequently, abfolute and conditional neceffity amount to the fame thing; we fhall obferve this important difference, that the rational agency of man is confiftent with that conditional neceffity which the mechanism of the foul admits, but with absolute neceffity it is incompatible and impoffible. Were man affured, that a certain confequence would be inevitable, let him do what he would, and that it would infallibly happen, independent of any means that he might choose to employ, he would do nothing to obftruct or promote it, and would have no motive to act. On the other hand, if confequences be always connected with certain means known to man, and nothing happens but in a certain feries and order, and when fomething else has preceded it; if, too, they be fo far contingent, that he cannot foresee them with certainty, or cannot foresee them in as far as all that we term means do not precede in an appointed order; he must first employ the means, if he defire them to happen, or, if he defire them

not

1

not to happen, he muft avoid every thing that precedes when fuch confequences follow: in other words, his uncertainty of the future will make it fo far contingent to him, that he will be capable of agency. Whilft he also knows, that if this future actually will be, it can no otherwise be than as preceded by certain circumftances, and as he does or avoids certain actions, in this knowledge he will have a principle of action, or a motive, to fet his mechanifm agoing. Suppose a man to have broken a bone; if his fate were fubjected to blind neceffity, and this accident must have a confequence, whether forefeen by him or not, which muft at all events follow, whatever precede, or whatever fteps be taken by him, he would remain inactive and in defpair, unable to act or will. This is the confequence of abfolute neceffity. It deftroys all action. If a man in the fame circumftance know not the event of the fracture, and cannot foresee whether he fhall recover or die, yet knows that for his recovery his bone must be united and healed, and that he muft conduct himself in a proper manner to obtain this, or otherwife will inevitably die; this uncertainty and knowledge taken together will enable and determine him to act. Thus conditional neceffity by no means destroys rational agency, whilft man knows not the future, but by preceding circumstances, and cannot determine neceffary confequences, but by the means he employs. It may be faid: if man be fubject to ab folute neceffity, cannot his uncertainty of the future impel him to act, as well as if he were fubject to conditional neceffity? To this I fhall anfwer: even if he be capable of action, that action cannot be rational: it can only be the effect of chance, fince he must want those principles of action which his knowledge of caufe and effect, and his infight into the natural courfe of things would afford him on the fcheme of conditional neceffity.

Hence

Hence it follows, that according to the fyftem of conditional neceffity, or mechanism, man is an agent, produces himself his actions and paffions, and acts either adequately or indequately to his ultimate end, is virtuous or wicked, and confequently happy or miferable; and as religion is given him as a mean of becoming virtuous, and happy, by it he is capable of being both.

That the doctrine of neceffity is liable to be mifconceived and mifapplied, is no objection to the doctrine itself, when it may be proved that the abuse of it always proceeds from its being mifunderftood. If the wicked man allege: I am deftined to fin, I muft neceffarily and continually act wickedly; he will fortify himself by this notion against the fear of punishment, and attempt not to make himself better. The principle of neceffity, however, cannot free him from punishment, or the evil confequences of his wickedness. As his actions are not unjust, because they are neceffary, his punishment is not unjust, because it is equally neceffary. It depends on his evil deeds, as an effect on a caufe, as his actions on the caufes which produced them. Daily experience teaches him this, in the evils he suffers in confequence of his irrational conduct. Equally groundless, and contrary to experience, is it for him to reject all attempts to amend himself under the pretext of neceffity. The improvement or depravation of his mind is only conditionally neceffary. Both are to him accidental. According as he employs, or neglects, the means which lead to one, or the other, fuch improvement, or depravation, must enfue. His prefent evil ftate, and prefent propenfity to wickedness, no more juftify him in concluding their duration and increafe inevitable, than the difordered ftate of his body in difeafe the infallible neceffity of his dying. Were this mode of conclufion juft, man would attempt no alteration of thofe things

in

in which his convenience required a change, and be unable to apply any endeavours for that purpose * fince being in their natural ftate useless, and inadequate to the purpofes, they muft, according to this reafoning, ever remain fo, or ftill continue to be noxious, if they be fo at prefent. On this principle, if a man's foot flip, and he be in danger of falling, he ought not to endeavour to fave himself, but let the event be as it may.

If a man, who from the neceffary connections in nature should draw fuch conclufions, and would act from thefe, or rather, acknowledging his fate wholly inevitable, remain inactive, fhould be guilty of an obvious folly, the notion of neceffity would not quiet his mind, or juftify him in his own breaft for his inactivity, or defpair of improving his difpofition. The lefs the confequences and efficacity of the means which lead to fuch an end are doubtful, and the less chance reigns in the world, the lefs could he do this, and with the more certainty might he hope for the happy confequences of fuch means, if employed in the way prescribed by religion.

PROPOSITION I. p. 5.

On the Pofition of fufficient Caufes.

THE principle, that fomething has exifted from all eternity, or that there never was a time when nothing existed, with which Locke also begins the proof of the existence of God, is the fame which the German philofophers term the pofition of fufficient caufes, and the univerfality of which Clarke would not grant Leibnitz. If we except the known Cartefian proof of the poffibility of a perfect being, from his reality, all proofs of the exiftence of God are founded on the pofition of fufficient caufes, and, as far as they

are

are folid and convincing, depend on the truth and univerfality of this pofition. If there were a fingle cafe in which any thing might be and commence without a reafon and without a caufe, a world, for ought we know, might fo originate. Perhaps, therefore, Hume was not in the wrong, in refufing to admit the application of the pofition of fufficient caufes to the origin of the world, fince, according to his opinion, this pofition being founded folely on conftant experience, all the cafes in which we have found it just are totally unlike that to which it is applied as a proof of the exiftence of God, and we are by no means justified in applying it to cafes of which we can have no experience. To remove thefe and fimilar difficulties, it were to be wifhed, that the pofition of fufficient causes might be brought into a neceffary and indifputable connection with the firft principles of all human knowledge, the pofitions of compatibility and incompatibility. This has been attempted, and Baumgarten's endeavours to do it are well known. His proof of the position of fufficient canfes from that of incompatibility, however, fails, if not in truth, in the neceffary evidence. Nothing, he maintains, would be fomething, if nothing were the fufficient caufe of fomething: but if inftead of the words he ufes in the latter part of this propofition we fubftitute the equivalent ones, if fomething had no caufe, his confequence appears to fail.

Perhaps the connection of the two principles may be better fhewn in the following manner. Every man, even the atheift, unless he would eftablish one fimple idea, muft agree, that nothing or fomething impoffible, is that which annihilates itself, is incompstible, and is at the fame time A and not A. Thus all that is affirmed of it must equally be denied. Nothing can apply to it, and therefore it is not an object of thought. On the contrary, that which does not annihilate itfelf, is not incompatible, is A or not VOL. III. Hh us A,