CHAPTER III.

ANTHONY COLLINS.

ANTHONY Collins is principally known in metaphysical history by his zealous and able exposition of the doctrine of Philosophical Necessity. The development of this system is contained in his publication entitled "A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty," which appeared in 1715. This work was translated into French by the Rev. Mr. D., and printed in the first volume of Desmaizeaux's "Recueil de Diverses Pièces sur la Philosophie, la Religion Naturelle, &c. par MM. Leibnitz, Clarke, Newton, &c. Amsterdam, 1720."

Of the plan and scope of this "Philosophical Inquiry," the Author gives us the following account. "Too much care cannot be taken to prevent being misunderstood and prejudiced in handling questions of such nice speculation as those of Liberty and Necessity; and, therefore, though I might in justice expect to be read before any judg

ment be passed on me, I think it proper to premise the following observations.

"First, though I deny liberty in a certain meaning of that word, yet I contend for liberty as it signifies a power in man to do as he wills or pleases.

"Secondly, when I affirm necessity, I contend only for moral necessity; meaning thereby, that man, who is an intelligent and sensible being, is determined by his reason and his senses; and I deny man to be subject to such necessity, as in clocks, watches, and such other beings, which, for want of sensation and intelligence, are subject to an absolute, physical, and mechanical necessity.

“Thirdly, I have undertaken to show the notions I advance are so far from being inconsistent with, that they are the sole foundation of, morality and laws, and ofrewards and punishments in society; and that the notions I explode are subversive of them."

The distinct propositions which Collins attempts to demonstrate throughout his "Inquiry," are, That man cannot be a free-agent, 1st, from the experience of the ordinary affairs of life; 2nd, from the innate impossibility of liberty; 3rd, from our elementary and ordinary notions of the Divine prescience; 4th, from the doctrine of rewards and punishments, both human and Divine; and 5th, from the nature of morality itself.

As a specimen of Collins's reasoning on the human will, we shall quote the following passages.

"A second reason to prove man a necessary agent is, because all his actions have a beginning.

For whatever has a beginning must have a cause; and every cause is a necessary cause.

"If anything can have a beginning, which has no cause, then nothing can produce something. And if nothing can produce something, then the world might have had a beginning without a cause; which is an absurdity not only charged on atheists, but is a real absurdity in itself. *** Liberty, therefore, or a power to act or not to act, to do this or another thing, under the same causes, is an impossibility and atheistical.

"And as Liberty stands and can only be grounded on the absurd principles of Epicurean Atheism; so the Epicurean Atheists, who were the most popular and most numerous sect of the Atheists of antiquity, were the great assertors of liberty; as, on the other side, the Stoics, who were the most popular and numerous sect among the religionaries of antiquity, were the great assertors of fate and necessity."

We shall make a few general observations on this doctrine, connected as it is with the name of Mr. Collins. He is properly enough considered as the father of the system of necessary connexion, as it is expounded both in England and among Continental writers. As we shall have frequent occasion to indulge in remarks upon the question in subsequent portions of this historical sketch, we shall merely at the present moment make a few general observations on the principal topics which Collins affirms afford him unanswerable

arguments, for the philosophical conclusions to which he arrives at the termination of his "Inquiry." What he states is, that the freedom of the will is contrary to the ordinary affairs of life, the notions we entertain of a Deity, the doctrine of rewards and punishments, and to the nature of morality generally.

The doctrine of philosophical necessity is one of the most important connected with the science of the human mind; it is also one of the most abstruse and perplexing. The difficulties which surround it on every side are not of yesterday; we find them stated in the earliest records of mental speculation, and in nearly the same form as they present themselves at the present moment. The real origin of the controversy must be sought for in the constitution of the mind itself. It is vain and delusive to attempt to remove the difficulties of the question, to produce harmony and concord, by instituting verbal criticisms on the chief terms employed on both sides of the question. These are manifestly inadequate to accomplish the intended purpose. It is with ideas, and not words, we have here to contend. The mind of man is so constituted, that to every event he sees or experiences he attributes a cause. When he begins to speculate on any thing, no matter whether relating to mind or matter, he finds that he cannot satisfactorily account for phenomena by simply looking at one thing preceding another; and, therefore, he is compelled, from the very construction and frame of his inward principle of thought, to invest something

with free, unfettered, spontaneous action, in the most absolute sense in which these terms can be used. This throws immediately light upon all his movements and actions, as a rational and intelligent creature. While he is travelling from one cause to another he is in a state of absolute and impenetrable darkness; but the moment he gives life and vitality to some mental principle, the scales directly, as it were by magic, drop from his eyes; he sees himself invested with new attributes of existence; and, being brought within the sphere of humanity around him, he perceives all the multifarious and interesting relations which spring out of the union with other minds, under a new aspect. Both principles, that of cause and effect, and that of spontaneity, are necessary to man's existence; or rather they form the two grand radical trunks, so to speak, of his intellectual, moral, and religious nature. But there is this great difference between them. Cause and effect are, in themselves, mere negations; they are lifeless, material, devoid of all thought, unsatisfactory in the most absolute sense; can lead to nothing having the slightest appearance of knowledge or science; but the moment you bring causation in contact with mental spontaneity, a new order of things arises. We obtain a novel class of ideas. We mould causes and effects into things which we call elements of knowledge, and these we take with us as lights for our future progress in life. With causation alone we were like men groping their way in a dark subterranean cavern, where every thing around us was unknown