Human Willpower

327. There is always within us enough power over our will, but we do not always bethink ourselves of employing it.

That shows that the power of the soul over its inclinations is a control which can only be exercised in an indirect manner, almost as Bellarmine would have had the Popes exercise rights over the temporal power of kings.

In truth, the external actions that do not exceed our powers depend absolutely upon our will; but our volitions depend upon our will only through certain artful twists which give us means of suspending our resolutions, or of changing them. We are masters in our own house, not as God is in the world, he having but to speak, but as a wise prince is in his dominions or as a good father of a family is in his home. M. Bayle sometimes takes the matter differently, as though we must have, in order to boast of a free will, an absolute power over ourselves, independent of reasons and of means.

But even God has not such a power, and must not have in this sense, in relation to his will: he cannot change his nature, nor act otherwise than according to method; and how could man transform himself all of a sudden? I have already said God’s dominion, the dominion of wisdom, is that of reason.

It is only God, however, who always wills what is most to be desired, and consequently he has no need of the power to change his will.

328. If the soul is mistress in its own house (says M. Bayle, p. 753) it has only to will, and straightway that vexation and pain which is attendant upon victory over the passions will vanish away. For this effect it would suffice, in his opinion, to give oneself indifference to the objects of the passions (p. 758). Why, then, do men not give themselves this indifference (he says), if they are masters in their own house? But this objection is exactly as if I were to ask why a father of a family does not give himself gold when he has need thereof? He can acquire some, but through skill, and not, as in the age of the fairies, or of King Midas, through a mere command of the will or by his touch. It would not suffice to be master in one’s own house; one must be master of all things in order to give oneself all that one wishes; for one does not find everything in one’s own house. Working thus upon oneself, one must do as in working upon something else; one must have knowledge of the constitution and the qualities of one’s object, and adapt one’s operations thereto. It is therefore not in a moment and by a mere act of the will that one corrects oneself, and that one acquires a better will.

329. Nevertheless it is well to observe that the vexations and pains attendant upon victory over the passions in some people turn into pleasure, through the great satisfaction they find in the lively sense of the force of their mind, and of the divine grace. Ascetics and true mystics can speak of this from experience; and even a true philosopher can say something thereof. One can attain to that happy state, and it is one of the principal means the soul can use to strengthen its dominion.

330. If the Scotists and the Molinists appear to favour vague indifference (appear, I say, for I doubt whether they do so in reality, once they have learnt to know it), the Thomists and the disciples of Augustine are for predetermination. For one must have either the one or the other. Thomas Aquinas is a writer who is accustomed to reason on sound principles, and the subtle Scotus, seeking to contradict him, often obscures matters instead of throwing light upon them. The Thomists as a general rule follow their master, and do not admit that the soul makes its resolve without the existence of some predetermination which contributes thereto. But the predetermination of the new Thomists is not perhaps exactly that which one needs. Durand de Saint-Pourçain, who often enough formed a party of his own, and who opposed the idea of the special co-operation of God, was nevertheless in favour of a certain predetermination. He believed that God saw in the state of the soul, and of its surroundings, the reason for his determinations.

331. The ancient Stoics were in that almost of the same opinion as the Thomists. They were at the same time in favour of determination and against necessity, although they have been accused of attaching necessity to everything. Cicero says in his book De Fato that Democritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles and Aristotle believed that fate implied necessity; that others were opposed to that (he means perhaps Epicurus and the Academicians); and that Chrysippus sought a middle course. I think that Cicero is mistaken as regards Aristotle, who fully recognized contingency and freedom, and went even too far, saying (inadvertently, as I think) that propositions on contingent futurities had no determinate truth; on which point he was justifiably abandoned by most of the Schoolmen. Even Cleanthes, the teacher of Chrysippus, although he upheld the determinate truth of future events, denied their necessity. Had the Schoolmen, so fully convinced of this [325]determination of contingent futurities (as were for instance the Fathers of Coimbra, authors of a famous Course of Philosophy), seen the connexion between things in the form wherein the System of General Harmony proclaims it, they would have judged that one cannot admit preliminary certainty, or determination of futurition, without admitting a predetermination of the thing in its causes and in its reasons.

332. Cicero has endeavoured to expound for us the middle course taken by Chrysippus; but Justus Lipsius observed, in his Stoic Philosophy, that the passage from Cicero was mutilated, and that Aulus Gellius has preserved for us the whole argument of the Stoic philosopher (Noct. Att., lib. 6, c. 2). Here it is in epitome. Fate is the inevitable and eternal connexion of all events. Against this is urged in objection, that it follows that the acts of the will would be necessary, and that criminals, being coerced into evil, should not be punished. Chrysippus answers that evil springs from the original constitution of souls, which forms part of the destined sequence; that souls which are of a good natural disposition offer stronger resistance to the impressions of external causes; but that those whose natural defects had not been corrected by discipline allowed themselves to be perverted. Next he distinguishes (according to Cicero) between principal causes and accessary causes, and uses the comparison of a cylinder, whose rotatory force and speed or ease in motion comes chiefly from its shape, whereas it would be retarded by any roughness in formation. Nevertheless it has need of impulsion, even as the soul needs to be acted upon by the objects of the senses, and receives this impression according to its own constitution.

333. Cicero considers that Chrysippus becomes so confused that, whether he will or no, he confirms the necessity of fate. M. Bayle is almost of the same opinion (Dictionary, art. ‘Chrysippus’, lit. H). He says that this philosopher does not get out of the bog, since the cylinder is regular or uneven according to what the craftsman has made it; and thus God, providence, fate will be the causes of evil in such a way as to render it necessary. Justus Lipsius answers that, according to the Stoics, evil came from matter.

That is (to my mind) as if he had said that the stone on which the craftsman worked was sometimes too rough and too irregular to produce a good cylinder. M. Bayle cites against Chrysippus the fragments of Onomaus and Diogenianus that [326]Eusebius has preserved for us in the Praeparatio Evangelica (lib. 6, c. 7, 8); and above all he relies upon Plutarch’s refutation in his book against the Stoics, quoted art. ‘Paulicians’, lit. G.

But this refutation does not amount to very much. Plutarch maintains that it would be better to deny power to God than to impute to him the permission of evils; and he will not admit that evil may serve a greater good. I have already shown, on the contrary, that God cannot but be all-powerful, even though he can do no better than produce the best, which includes the permission of evil. Moreover, I have pointed out repeatedly that what is to the disadvantage of a part taken separately may serve the perfection of the whole.

334. Chrysippus had already observed this in his Providence Book 4, as given by Aulus Gellius (lib. 6, c. 1)

In it, he asserts that evil serves to bring the good to notice (a reason which is not sufficient here), but still better when he applies the comparison of a stage play, in his second book on Nature (as Plutarch quotes it himself). There he says that there are sometimes portions in a comedy which are of no worth in themselves and which nevertheless lend grace to the whole poem.

He calls these portions epigrams or inscriptions. We have not enough acquaintance with the nature of the ancient comedy for full understanding of this passage from Chrysippus; but since Plutarch assents to the fact, there is reason to believe that this comparison was not a poor one. Plutarch replies in the first place that the world is not like a play to provide entertainment.

But that is a poor answer: the comparison lies in this point alone, that one bad part may make the whole better. He replies secondly that this bad passage is only a small part of the comedy, whereas human life swarms with evils. This reply is of no value either: for he ought to have taken into account that what we know is also a very small part of the universe.