ed that he would shew the inutility and the danger of attempting to penetrate farther into the mystery of which he treats. This attempt has been made by several distinguished metaphysicians, and the exposure of their errors would be no unprofitable task. But this agree. able anticipation vanished when we learned that it was intended to lay considerable stress upon the various senses of the words, certainty, possibility, and contingency; and that Dr. Copleston proposed to shew that much of the difficulty which he was about to unravel, turns merely upon the equivocation of a word. He hopes indeed at a future time to say something farther of the use of the terms employed in abstract reasoning, "but not without the apprehension of incurring the displeasure of those who, if his speculations are well founded, will appear to have lost their time in logomachy, and to have wasted their strength in endeavouring to grasp a phantom or in fighting the air." So little benefit has been derived from the metaphysical lucubrations which set out with accusing preceding writers of logomachy, that we did not read this declaration without considerable misgivings, and we lament to say that they were justified by the result.

The only real difficulty with which Dr. Copleston's subject is embarrassed, and the only real an. swer of which that difficulty admits, had been admirably stated at the beginning of the Preface, and are enlarged upon with equal felicity in the second sermon, There is no novelty or discovery in either. The substance of them has been repeated again and again; and cannot be put in fewer words than those which Burnet has employed in his expo. sition of the seventeenth Article. "The infinite perfection of the divine mind ought to silence all objection." The unconceivableness of any thing supposed to be in God'

is not the slightest proof of its nonexistence, or its impossibility.

This answer has been repeatedly, given to the Calvinist who denies free. will, and to the Socinian who rejects fore-knowledge; it is sufficient to satisfy every reasonable mind; and the improvements upon it, and the additions to it which have been suggested from time to time, have not added to its truth or its efficacy. The refinements introduced by Locke, by Tucker, and even by Horsley, are all liable to one and the same censure. Locke mystifies and perplexes the whole subject to an extent of which there are few instances to be found in his writings. Instead of discussing the real question, is the will free? he pretends that the question is an ab surd one; and that as long as men can do what they will, nothing more need be enquired into or settled. Tucker improves upon this hint ; and extracts from it a complete solution of the great problem. He merely supposes that God supplies man with motives, which man is so constituted that he cannot but freely obey, and then the difficulty is not in foreknowing how a free being will act, but in explaining how any one ever came to perplex himself self with so simple and obvious a circumstance!! These wonders, be it observed, are all accomplished by keeping clear of an equivocal use of words. Bishop Horsley cannot be accused of erring to the same extent as Locke and Tucker, yet he speaks of the difficulty, as if he con... ceived that it might be got over, and explains God's foreknowledge by his acquaintance with the causes of all events, and by the certain connection of events with their causes. The animated assertion of man's freedom, by which these declarations are followed, proves that the learned writer could not possi

Sermons, Vol. II. p. 117, 118.

bly have intended to advocate the cause of necessity. Yet if events are certainly connected with their causes, and these causes are ordained by God, it is no easy matter to shew that the fatalist is in the wrong. The fact is, that the attempt to explain and reconcile what is inexplicable, will baffle the talents even of a Locke, and a Horsley. There are rocks on either side, and on one or other of them the vessel splits. If we insist upon our own occasional foresight, and contend that God may foresee with infinitely greater precision, the danger to be dreaded is, that since our foresight is never more than probable-the sceptic will infer that God's foreknowledge is likewise uncertain, and may possibly be deceived. If we contend with the ingenious Tucker, that there is no riddle to solve, because God acts upon us by motives which he knows that we shall obey, the Calvinist instantly steps in, and says that this is necessity. The very hypothesis of Tucker is assumed by Jonathan Edwards; and constitutes the basis of the only philosophical treatise in our language to which the Christian Predestinarian now appeals. The ingenuity of Edwards is so great, that we are almost willing to overlook his sophistry; and if we are to forget what we have learned from Samuel Clarke, and admit that the mind is compelled to act by motives, as certainly as the body is impelled to move by force, we neither know how to prove that the Calvinist is in error, nor can we doubt that the phenomenon of the ass between two bundles of hay, may yet be exhibited in the lecture room of an experimental metaphysician.

If on the contrary we assert what every thinking person will acknow. ledge, that while we perceive and confess the full strength of a motive, we may still refuse to obey it; may shut our eyes, as Clarke

has well said, and walk at a venture down a precipice; if the last judgment of the understanding is as distinct from the actual exertion of the self-motive power, as seeing the way is from walking in it, then it does not follow from God's knowledge of our motives, that he must also know our actions; the veil which he has interposed between himself and his creatures, continues unrent; and the most prudent part that we can take is to confess the fact, and be silent.

It must not be supposed that we accuse Dr. Copleston of transgressing this rule. On the contrary, his second sermon admits and enforces it; and he never fails throughout his enquiry to exhibit and to recommend that sacred caution with which we ought ever to speak of the actions, and attributes of God. The larger part of his observations apply to that old and substantial answer to the Calvinistic theory, of which we have already said so much. Another considerable pro portion is allotted to Archbishop Kings sermon, which may be consi dered as the same thing in another dress, a branch of the great argu. ment which resolves every thing into the incomprehensible nature of the Deity. We cannot think that this branch is of the same value as the parent stock.

When it talks of God being revealed to us relatively, it talks in a metaphysical strain, which it is very desirable to avoid; and it affords a pretext, although as Dr. Copleston has proved, an insufficient pretext, for saying that there is no certainty on any religi ous subject. But in spite of these blemishes the Sermon is valuable, and the recommendation and republication of it cannot fail to do good. Of the third ground on which Dr. Copleston has engaged the believers in necessity, and on which he is zealously supported by Mr. Whately, we are compelled to think that he has failed. But these

ingenious and learned writers shall speak for themselves.

"In the question concerning the cer tainty of future events, which the Stoics used to infer from the necessity of the truth or falsehood of the proposition which predicts them, in order to shew the fallacy of this argument it becomes neces sary to define exactly the sense in which truth is used when we speak of a true proposition. And if it be found to mean, what all accurate writers define it to be, the agreement of a representation with the thing represented, there must be some thing previously existing, before this idea of truth can be entertained at all. Propositio vera QUOD RES EST dicit.' The original must be antecedent to the representation. An assertion therefore respecting the future may be probable or improbable, it may be honest or deceit ful, it may be prudent or rash, it may have any relation we please to the mind of the person who makes it or of him who hears it, but it can have no relation at all to a thing which is not. Any reasoning therefore which assumes it to bear this sense, which really does not and which in fact cannot belong to it, is illusory. It turns merely upon the equivocation of a word." Preface, p. xiv.

You may if you please contend, that because God made every thing, therefore all things that happen are done by him. This is taking another ground for the doctrine of necessity, which will be consider. ed presently, All I maintain now is, that the notion of God's foreknowledge ought not to interfere in the slightest degree with our belief in the contingency of events, and the freedom of human actions. The confusion has, I conceive, arisen chiefly from the ambiguity of the word certainty, used as it is even by learned writers, both in its relation to the mind which thinks, and to the object about which it is thinking*." P. vi.

*** One example has already been proJuced in the word certainty, which properly relates to the mind which thinks, and is improperly transferred to the object about which it is thinking. However convenient this transference of the term may be in common life, it leads to the most erroneous conclusions in abstract reasoning: and the further adoption of a term as opposed to it, for the purpose of denoting another class of events, viz. con

"See Tucker, vol. iv. chap. 26, on Free Will."

REMEMBRANCER, No. 34.

tingent, has contributed to fix the error. The same may be said of the term probable, which is frequently used as if it denoted some quality in the events themselves, whereas it is merely relative, like certain and contingent, to the human mind, and is expressive of the manner in which we stand affected by such and such objects,

"Another important example of the same kind is in the use of the words possible, and impossible. These are equally ambiguous with the others, as being applied sometimes to events themselves, and sometimes used with reference to our conceptions of them-but of these it is observable that their primary and proper application is to events, their secondary and improper to the human mind. Thus we say that a thing is possible to a man who has the power of doing it—and that is properly impossible which no power we are acquainted with can effect. But the words are also continually used to express our sense of the chance there is that a thing will be done. When we mean to express our firm conviction that a thing will not happen, although there are powers in nature competent to produce it, we call it im possible, in direct opposition to those things which we are convinced will hap pen, and which we call certain. And thus there are many things which in one sense are possible, that is, within the compass of human agency, which again according to our conviction are absolutely impossible. In this latter sense the terms possible and impossible are used to denote the two extremes of the scale of probability-possible being the faintest degree of probability, and that which exceeds the utmost bounds of credibility being habitually pronounced impossible. This distinction is sometimes expressed by the words physical and moral impossibility, a distinction to which I would not object, provided it be understood not as marking two kinds of impossibility, but merely two senses in which the word is em

ployed.

There is however a third sense in which we are apt to use the word, and which has led to much confusion in speculations of this nature, that is, when we use it for inconsistent or contradictory: and it was before observed, that in speaking of the Almighty it would be more safe as well as more decent to employ this language than the word impossible. The whole difficulty is then declared to lie, where it really does lie, not in the things, but in the notions we form, or in the words by which we express them: and any state41

ment or description of which one part is shewn to be destructive of another is immediately admitted by every rational mind to have no meaning. In this manner I endeavoured to prove that most of those speculative difficulties which perplex men's minds, about divine prescience, providence, free-will, and the origin of evil, turn out to be disputes concerning the signification of words; one party choosing to employ the word about which the dispute turns in a sense exclusive of some idea which the other regards as compatible with it, and which the first party allows to be in itself a probable and reasonable supposition, hard to be denied or disbelieved, and which nothing but the shackles he has imposed upon himself by this arbitrary definition of a term prevents him from admitting." P. 80.

These are the principal passages in which Dr. Copleston brings forward his new explanation of the dif. ficulties he is considering, and Mr. Whately follows it up.

con

"In its ordinary sense, the word ' tingent' denotes no quality in events, but only the relation in which they stand to our knowledge; thus, the same thing may be contingent to one person, and at the same time not contingent (or certain as it is called) to another: for instance, whether such an one was killed or not in the last battle that was fought in India, may

be a contingency to his friends in England, but is a certainty to those on the spot. The admirable reasoning therefore of Dr. King does not apply in this case: not because contingency implies, with us, ignorance of the event, (for that alone would not be a sufficient ground of ex

ception,) but because it implies nothing

:

else that is the whole meaning of the word: so that it is a contradiction in terms to speak of the same thing as known, and as contingent, at the same time, to the same being; though that may be contingent to us, which is known to God."

P. 14.

"First, the original meaning of the word necessity appears to have been, C an intimate connection,' or 'conjunction;' as is indicated both by its etymology, as if from'necto,' and by the use of ' necessitudo,' and necessarius,' to denote close intimacy. Hence, food is called sary' to life, because of the connection between the two; life never continues without, that is, separately, from food. And on the same principle we speak of the

neces

'necessity' of a cause to its effect*. Death, again, is a matter of 'necessity' to man, because no man continues exempt from it. The truth of a conclusion follows' necessarily' from the premises, because their truth does not exist separately from that of the conclusion ; they are never found to be true without its being true also.

"It being a constant connexion that is expressed by necessary,' the word is commonly used, in general assertions, as nearly equivalent to universal;' and 'notnecessary,' to occasional: for instance, a rupture of the spinal marrow' necessarily' occasions death; (that is, in all cases;) the inhabitants of hot countries are not necessarily negroes, (that is, not univer. sally.) In this way, 'necessary,' and 'not-necessary,' may, with propriety, be applied to any class of things, in any general proposition: but neither of them can be thus applied to individual events; the assertions respecting which, being what logicians call singular propositions, cannot be more or less general, nor, consequently, can need or admit of any such limitation, as is expressed by 'not-necessary.' It would be perfectly unmeaning to say of any singnlar' proposition, (for instance, the banishment of Buonaparte,) that it is true without any exception, or that it admits of exception. The

words

necessary' and 'not-necessary,' therefore, when applied to individual cases, must (if not wholly unnieaning) be

employed with some different view: thus

we say, 'the confinement of Buonaparte is "necessary," namely to the peace of Europe.'

"Secondly, our attention being most called to the connexion of such things as we may in vain wish or endeavour to sepa

rate, the word necessary' hence comes to be limited, and especially applied to

* "That we are unable to perceive any efficacy in what are called 'physical causes,' to produce their respective ef fects, and that all we do perceive (and consequently all we really indicate, in these cases, by the word causation) is a constant conjunction—a connection in point of time and place, is the doctrine not of Hume alone, (who has deduced illogical and mischievous conclusions from it,) but also of Barrow, and Butler, as well as D. Stewart."

"In this case 'necessity' is opposed to a contradiction and absurdity; in the former instances, to a violation of the order of nature.

cases of compulsion; to events which take place either against one's will, or, at least, independent of it; to things, in short, which we have no power to prevent if we would, or to prevent, without submitting to a worse alternative *. Hence we

speak more especially of the necessity of death, because all animals avoid it as long as they are able; and of the necessity of throwing over goods in a storm, because it is what we are averse to in itself, and though we might refuse to do it, we could not, without incurring shipwreck. In this sense it is that necessity is pleaded, and allowed, as an excuse for doing what would otherwise be blameable. But in the primitive and wider sense of the word, it may be applied to cases where there is no compulsion, nor opposition to the will: for the close connexion, above spoken of, exists between the will of any agent and that which is conformable to his will thus foreign luxuries are necessary' for gratification to high who delights in them and the word is often thus employed; only that, in this case, it is proper, in order to avoid mistake, to state for what they are necessary: they are not called simply necessary,' (which would imply that they were so in the secondary and more limited sense, which has been last mentioned, that is, independently of our will and choice,) but necessary for so and

so."" P. 83.

"Thirdly, There is also another use of the word 'necessary' and of those connected with it: for, as it has been above remarked that our attention is especially

called to those connections which we may vainly endeavour to destroy, so our attention is likewise particularly called to those connections which we understand, or at least are aware of t. And since of

two things connected together, if the one which is the hypothesis or antecedent be given, the consequent is also given, it follows that we know, or are certain of, the consequent, when we know the hypo thesis and hence arises the confusion of certainty with necessity; the former of which belongs properly to our own minds, and is thence, in a transferred sense, applied to the objects themselves. When we know, first, the connexion between two things, (which is properly necessity,) and, secondly, the existence of one of them, we thence come to know 'certainly,' that is, without any room doubt, the existence of the other; which we sometimes therefore call 'certain,' sometimes necessary for instance, we say, such a district is necessarily,' or is 'certainly,' overflowed; because we are certain, first, that such a river has risen so many feet, and, secondly, that that rise is connected with the overflowing of the dis. trict in question." P. 87.

for

* Mr. Whately finds great fault with one of Law's Notes on the Origin of Evil, chap. 5. sect. 1. subs. 5. note s. The note does not deserve the censure which is passed upon it; and moreover it is the composition not of Law but of King. (See Preface to 4th Edition, p. xiv.) This is a contingency, for although it has certainly come to pass, Mr. Whately does not know it!

From this note Mr. Whately may also learn, that the discovery which he attributes to Mr. Dugald Stewart, viz. of that of the necessity of mathematical truths consisting merely in conformity to the terms of the hypothesis, was well known to Archbishop King." One kind of necessity is, when a proposition affirming a thing to be, includes such a necessity that it should be,

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