The Consolation of Philosophy Part 17

BOOK V.

I.

She ceased, and was about to pa.s.s on in her discourse to the exposition of other matters, when I break in and say: 'Excellent is thine exhortation, and such as well beseemeth thy high authority; but I am even now experiencing one of the many difficulties which, as thou saidst but now, beset the question of providence. I want to know whether thou deemest that there is any such thing as chance at all, and, if so, what it is.'

Then she made answer: 'I am anxious to fulfil my promise completely, and open to thee a way of return to thy native land. As for these matters, though very useful to know, they are yet a little removed from the path of our design, and I fear lest digressions should fatigue thee, and thou shouldst find thyself unequal to completing the direct journey to our goal.'

'Have no fear for that,' said I. 'It is rest to me to learn, where learning brings delight so exquisite, especially when thy argument has been built up on all sides with undoubted conviction, and no place is left for uncertainty in what follows.'

She made answer: 'I will accede to thy request;' and forthwith she thus began: 'If chance be defined as a result produced by random movement without any link of causal connection, I roundly affirm that there is no such thing as chance at all, and consider the word to be altogether without meaning, except as a symbol of the thing designated. What place can be left for random action, when G.o.d constraineth all things to order? For "ex nihilo nihil" is sound doctrine which none of the ancients gainsaid, although they used it of material substance, not of the efficient principle; this they laid down as a kind of basis for all their reasonings concerning nature. Now, if a thing arise without causes, it will appear to have arisen from nothing. But if this cannot be, neither is it possible for there to be chance in accordance with the definition just given.'

'Well,' said I, 'is there, then, nothing which can properly be called chance or accident, or is there something to which these names are appropriate, though its nature is dark to the vulgar?'

'Our good Aristotle,' says she, 'has defined it concisely in his "Physics," and closely in accordance with the truth.'

'How, pray?' said I.

'Thus,' says she: 'Whenever something is done for the sake of a particular end, and for certain reasons some other result than that designed ensues, this is called chance; for instance, if a man is digging the earth for tillage, and finds a ma.s.s of buried gold. Now, such a find is regarded as accidental; yet it is not "ex nihilo," for it has its proper causes, the unforeseen and unexpected concurrence of which has brought the chance about. For had not the cultivator been digging, had not the man who hid the money buried it in that precise spot, the gold would not have been found. These, then, are the reasons why the find is a chance one, in that it results from causes which met together and concurred, not from any intention on the part of the discoverer. Since neither he who buried the gold nor he who worked in the field _intended_ that the money should be found, but, as I said, it _happened_ by coincidence that one dug where the other buried the treasure. We may, then, define chance as being an unexpected result flowing from a concurrence of causes where the several factors had some definite end. But the meeting and concurrence of these causes arises from that inevitable chain of order which, flowing from the fountain-head of Providence, disposes all things in their due time and place.'

SONG I.

CHANCE.

In the rugged Persian highlands, Where the masters of the bow Skill to feign a flight, and, fleeing, Hurl their darts and pierce the foe; There the Tigris and Euphrates At one source[O] their waters blend, Soon to draw apart, and plainward Each its separate way to wend.

When once more their waters mingle In a channel deep and wide, All the flotsam comes together That is borne upon the tide: Ships, and trunks of trees, uprooted In the torrent's wild career, Meet, as 'mid the swirling waters Chance their random way may steer.

Yet the shelving of the channel And the flowing water's force Guides each movement, and determines Every floating fragment's course.

Thus, where'er the drift of hazard Seems most unrestrained to flow, Chance herself is reined and bitted, And the curb of law doth know.

FOOTNOTES:

[O] This is not, of course, literally true, though the Tigris and Euphrates rise in the same mountain district.

II.

'I am following needfully,' said I, 'and I agree that it is as thou sayest. But in this series of linked causes is there any freedom left to our will, or does the chain of fate bind also the very motions of our souls?'

'There is freedom,' said she; 'nor, indeed, can any creature be rational, unless he be endowed with free will. For that which hath the natural use of reason has the faculty of discriminative judgment, and of itself distinguishes what is to be shunned or desired. Now, everyone seeks what he judges desirable, and avoids what he thinks should be shunned. Wherefore, beings endowed with reason possess also the faculty of free choice and refusal. But I suppose this faculty not equal alike in all. The higher Divine essences possess a clear-sighted judgment, an uncorrupt will, and an effective power of accomplishing their wishes.

Human souls must needs be comparatively free while they abide in the contemplation of the Divine mind, less free when they pa.s.s into bodily form, and still less, again, when they are enwrapped in earthly members.

But when they are given over to vices, and fall from the possession of their proper reason, then indeed their condition is utter slavery. For when they let their gaze fall from the light of highest truth to the lower world where darkness reigns, soon ignorance blinds their vision; they are disturbed by baneful affections, by yielding and a.s.senting to which they help to promote the slavery in which they are involved, and are in a manner led captive by reason of their very liberty. Yet He who seeth all things from eternity beholdeth these things with the eyes of His providence, and a.s.signeth to each what is predestined for it by its merits:

'"All things surveying, all things overhearing.'"

SONG II.

THE TRUE SUN.

Homer with mellifluous tongue Phoebus' glorious light hath sung, Hymning high his praise; Yet _his_ feeble rays Ocean's hollows may not brighten, Nor earth's central gloom enlighten.

But the might of Him, who skilled This great universe to build, Is not thus confined; Not earth's solid rind, Nor night's blackest canopy, Baffle His all-seeing eye.

All that is, hath been, shall be, In one glance's compa.s.s, He Limitless descries; And, save His, no eyes All the world survey--no, none!

_Him_, then, truly name the Sun.

III.

Then said I: 'But now I am once more perplexed by a problem yet more difficult.'

'And what is that?' said she; 'yet, in truth, I can guess what it is that troubles you.'

'It seems,' said I, 'too much of a paradox and a contradiction that G.o.d should know all things, and yet there should be free will. For if G.o.d foresees everything, and can in no wise be deceived, that which providence foresees to be about to happen must necessarily come to pa.s.s.

Wherefore, if from eternity He foreknows not only what men will do, but also their designs and purposes, there can be no freedom of the will, seeing that nothing can be done, nor can any sort of purpose be entertained, save such as a Divine providence, incapable of being deceived, has perceived beforehand. For if the issues can be turned aside to some other end than that foreseen by providence, there will not then be any sure foreknowledge of the future, but uncertain conjecture instead, and to think this of G.o.d I deem impiety.

'Moreover, I do not approve the reasoning by which some think to solve this puzzle. For they say that it is not because G.o.d has foreseen the coming of an event that _therefore_ it is sure to come to pa.s.s, but, conversely, because something is about to come to pa.s.s, it cannot be hidden from Divine providence; and accordingly the necessity pa.s.ses to the opposite side, and it is not that what is foreseen must necessarily come to pa.s.s, but that what is about to come to pa.s.s must necessarily be foreseen. But this is just as if the matter in debate were, which is cause and which effect--whether foreknowledge of the future cause of the necessity, or the necessity of the future of the foreknowledge. But we need not be at the pains of demonstrating that, whatsoever be the order of the causal sequence, the occurrence of things foreseen is necessary, even though the foreknowledge of future events does not in itself impose upon them the necessity of their occurrence. For example, if a man be seated, the supposition of his being seated is necessarily true; and, conversely, if the supposition of his being seated is true, because he is really seated, he must necessarily be sitting. So, in either case, there is some necessity involved--in this latter case, the necessity of the fact; in the former, of the truth of the statement. But in both cases the sitter is not therefore seated because the opinion is true, but rather the opinion is true because antecedently he was sitting as a matter of fact. Thus, though the cause of the truth of the opinion comes from the other side,[P] yet there is a necessity on both sides alike. We can obviously reason similarly in the case of providence and the future.

Even if future events are foreseen because they are about to happen, and do not come to pa.s.s because they are foreseen, still, all the same, there is a necessity, both that they should be foreseen by G.o.d as about to come to pa.s.s, and that when they are foreseen they should happen, and this is sufficient for the destruction of free will. However, it is preposterous to speak of the occurrence of events in time as the cause of eternal foreknowledge. And yet if we believe that G.o.d foresees future events because they are about to come to pa.s.s, what is it but to think that the occurrence of events is the cause of His supreme providence?

Further, just as when I _know_ that anything is, that thing _necessarily_ is, so when I know that anything will be, it will _necessarily_ be. It follows, then, that things foreknown come to pa.s.s inevitably.

'Lastly, to think of a thing as being in any way other than what it is, is not only not knowledge, but it is false opinion widely different from the truth of knowledge. Consequently, if anything is about to be, and yet its occurrence is not certain and necessary, how can anyone foreknow that it will occur? For just as knowledge itself is free from all admixture of falsity, so any conception drawn from knowledge cannot be other than as it is conceived. For this, indeed, is the cause why knowledge is free from falsehood, because of necessity each thing must correspond exactly with the knowledge which grasps its nature. In what way, then, are we to suppose that G.o.d foreknows these uncertainties as about to come to pa.s.s? For if He thinks of events which possibly may not happen at all as inevitably destined to come to pa.s.s, He is deceived; and this it is not only impious to believe, but even so much as to express in words. If, on the other hand, He sees them in the future as they are in such a sense as to know that they may equally come to pa.s.s or not, what sort of foreknowledge is this which comprehends nothing certain nor fixed? What better is this than the absurd vaticination of Teiresias?

'"Whate'er I say Shall either come to pa.s.s--or not."

In that case, too, in what would Divine providence surpa.s.s human opinion if it holds for uncertain things the occurrence of which is uncertain, even as men do? But if at that perfectly sure Fountain-head of all things no shadow of uncertainty can possibly be found, then the occurrence of those things which He has surely foreknown as coming is certain. Wherefore there can be no freedom in human actions and designs; but the Divine mind, which foresees all things without possibility of mistake, ties and binds them down to one only issue. But this admission once made, what an upset of human affairs manifestly ensues! Vainly are rewards and punishments proposed for the good and bad, since no free and voluntary motion of the will has deserved either one or the other; nay, the punishment of the wicked and the reward of the righteous, which is now esteemed the perfection of justice, will seem the most flagrant injustice, since men are determined either way not by their own proper volition, but by the necessity of what must surely be. And therefore neither virtue nor vice is anything, but rather good and ill desert are confounded together without distinction. Moreover, seeing that the whole course of events is deduced from providence, and nothing is left free to human design, it comes to pa.s.s that our vices also are referred to the Author of all good--a thought than which none more abominable can possibly be conceived. Again, no ground is left for hope or prayer, since how can we hope for blessings, or pray for mercy, when every object of desire depends upon the links of an unalterable chain of causation? Gone, then, is the one means of intercourse between G.o.d and man--the communion of hope and prayer--if it be true that we ever earn the inestimable recompense of the Divine favour at the price of a due humility; for this is the one way whereby men seem able to hold communion with G.o.d, and are joined to that unapproachable light by the very act of supplication, even before they obtain their pet.i.tions. Then, since these things can scarcely be believed to have any efficacy, if the necessity of future events be admitted, what means will there be whereby we may be brought near and cleave to Him who is the supreme Head of all?

Wherefore it needs must be that the human race, even as thou didst erstwhile declare in song, parted and dissevered from its Source, should fall to ruin.'

FOOTNOTES:

[P] _I.e._, the necessity of the truth of the statement from the fact.

SONG III.