and others like them-Henry More in 1652 replied with his Antidote Against Atheism, and in 1667 with his Enchiridion Ethicum, in which he formulated his ethics in direct opposition to Hobbes, founded not upon instinct but upon reason, considering man as endowed with a "Boniform Faculty" by which he enjoys the "sweetness and flavor" of the Good, considering him not as a selfish individual alone in a war of all against all, but as a member of a society the end of which was to provide a tranquil and peaceful existence. In reply to these sentences, also, Richard Cumberland in 1672 published his De Legibus Naturae in which he declared that Hobbes's conception of a society made up of animals is an impossible one. Animals could form no society; the very fact that man is capable of making and keeping contracts indicates that there is something in him not shared by animals; in place of Hobbes's instinct of self-preservation, Cumberland posits a "sympathy" which moves man as truly as does his desire for his own happiness; altruism is as true an aspect of human nature as is selfishness. But more even than that, Cumberland opposes Hobbes's belief in an arbitrary and relative good. To Cumberland the measure of the good resides in the nature of things, irrespective of the pronouncement of authority; as a rational being, man desires the good as a good. Thus Cumberland, taking his departure from Hobbes, founded a universalistic hedonism, which was to grow into utilitarianism. In answer to these sentences, again, Ralph Cudworth, as we have seen, in 1644 defended his theses; and from that day forward, every effort of his intellectual life was bent toward counteracting the influence of that heresy. Much of his work was not published until after his death; in 1678, however, he saw the first edition of the first part of his magnum opus, The True Intellectual System of the Universe; but his great reply to the arbitrary morality of Hobbes, though it had some circulation in manuscript, remained unpublished until 1731.** His position is stated clearly at the beginning of the second chapter:

43

43 Cf., Ernest Albee, Hitory of English Utilitarianism, London, 1902, pp. 4 ff.

44 Edward, Bishop of Durham, wrote in his preface to the Eternal and Immutable Morality, п, 365: "Had it come abroad as early as it was written, it had served for a proper antidote to the poison in some of Mr. Hobbes's and others' writings, who revived in that age the exploded

Moral good and evil, just and unjust, honest and dishonest (if they be not mere names without any signification) ... cannot possibly be arbitrary things made by will without nature; because it is universally true that things are what they are, not by will but by nature. . . . Neither can omnipotence itself. . . by mere will make a thing white or black without whiteness and blackness. . . . The reason whereof is plain, because all these things imply a manifest contradiction. And this is a truth fundamentally necessary to all knowledge, that contradictions cannot be true; for otherwise nothing would be certainly true or false. . . . When things exist, they are what they are, this or that, absolutely or relatively, not by will or arbitrary command, but by the necessity of their own nature. . . . No positive commands whatsoever, do make anything morally good and evil, just and unjust, which nature had not made such before. Will cannot change nature.

In answer to such sentences as those of Hobbes, finally, John Eachard, Master of Katherine Hall and Vice Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, published, in 1672, "Mr. Hobbs State of Nature considered in a Dialogue between Philautus and Timothy," a satirical vindication of human nature which enjoyed immense popularity in its day; published separately, it ran through five editions in a few years, and in the small volume of Works it had been republished eleven times in 1705. Here, more even than in the philosophers, we may see the "popular" idea of Hobbes's "state of nature." 45

opinions of Protagoras and other ancient Greeks, and took away the essential and eternal discrimination of moral good and evil, of just and unjust, and made them all arbitrary productions of divine and human will."

45 In his preface (Works, eleventh edition, London, 1705), Eachard says: "If thou chancest to look into it, and be not already acquainted with Mr. Hobb's State of Nature, this is to let thee know, that thereby is to be understood a certain supposed time, in which it was just and lawful for every man to hang, draw, and quarter whom he pleased, when he pleased, and after what manner he pleased; and to get, possess, use and enjoy whatever he had a mind to; and the reason of this so large a charter, was, because it was supposed that these People had not as yet anyways abridged themselves of their inmost Liberty, by any voluntary bargain or agreements amongst themselves; neither could they be restrained by any humane laws, because the Magistrates was not yet chosen. "In this Dialogue therefore (because Mr. Hobbs shall not say that I am stingy) thou wilt find, Reader, that with him I have allowed... such a time or state, wherein people came into the world (after his own

46

What, then, of Milton's reaction to this most fundamental position of Hobbes? We shall find it in his conception of the laws of nature, which becomes clear in an important, and misunderstood, passage in Paradise Lost, as well as in many parts of the Christian Doctrine. The most significant use of the term, for our purposes, occurs in the soliloquy in the tenth book of Paradise Lost, in which Adam, after the Fall, cries out, as his descendant Job was to cry out, questioning his Maker. Here is man questioning the ways of God to men. "Why didst thou beget me?" asks Adam. Why should an omnipotent deity make man, if he is to prove so poor a creature? Would it not be better, Adam asks, for him to end. his miserable life, to destroy at one stroke the human race? Then comes a profound and terrible thought:

Yet one doubt

Pursues me still-lest all I cannot die.

Here Adam posits one of the most perplexing questions of theology: either man cannot die, and the threat of God was false; or there is a point at which the will of God necessarily loses its efficacy. Long before, Belial had put the question in a way not essentially different when he replied to the fallen angels who would "wish to be no more-sad cure." Belial in his speech questioned whether even God, the Victor, was able to permit such destruction of essence. He said: 48

humour) without being obliged either to God, Parents, Friends, midwifes or Publick Magistrates; and yet notwithstanding I have endeavored to make out . . . that those that are feigned to be in this condition, have all such a natural right to their own lives, and what is thereunto convenient, that it is perfectly unjust and unreasonable for any one of them to take his utmost advantage, and to do whatever he thinks he is able or pleases him best."

46 See P. L., XII, 24 and Samson Agonistes, 888 ff., for two uses of the term in its traditional legal sense. Cf. also Milton's reference in the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, ш, 269, to "that noble volume, written by our learned Selden, 'Of the Law of Nature and of Nations'-a work more useful and more worthy to be perused by whosoever studies to be a great man in wisdom, equity, and justice, than all those decretals and sumless sums' which the pontifical clerks have doted on."

47 X, 762 ff.

48 II, 151 ff.

Who knows

Let this be good, whether our angry Foe
Can give it, or will ever? How he can
Is doubtful; that he never will is sure.

49

What does he mean? The essence of the spiritual nature is immortality; no created thing, Milton holds in the Christian Doctrine, can be finally annihilated. Not even by God? No; because its nature is immortal. But cannot omnipotent deity destroy even immortality? Belial doubts it; what Milton believes we may see in the speech of Adam, in which he ponders on God's power to "make deathless death":

that were to make

Strange contradiction; which to God himself
Impossible is held, as argument

Of weakness, not of power. Will he draw out

For anger's sake, finite to infinite

In punished men, to satisfy his rigour
Satisfied never? that were to extend

His sentence beyond dust and Nature's law
By which all causes else, according still
To the reception of their matter act,
Not to th' extent of their own sphere.

We shall find no clearer statement of the issue in More, Cumberland, Cudworth. Here speaks the follower of Thomas Aquinas to the follower of Duns Scotus, the absolutist to the relativist. God may not do what he will; his will is not supreme; in God as in man, Reason is the ruling characteristic, and no rational being would desire to create contradictions; not even Deity can make mortal the immortal, finite the infinite; mighty the sentence of God, but Nature's law is more fundamental still. There is, says Milton, an eternal and immutable law, an eternal and immutable nature. How shall we justify the ways of God to men? asks humanity; how rather, demands Milton, can you justify the ways of men to God? Cease to ask why God, omnipotent, made man to fall; ask rather why man, created free, allowed himself to be the creature of passion; God did not make man to fall-this is Milton's

49" God is not able to annihilate anything altogether, because by creat ing nothing, he would create and not create at the same time, which involves a contradiction." T. C. D., p. 182.

reiterated cry throughout Paradise Lost; it is at the basis of the discourse in the Christian Doctrine; it is the central point of his doctrine of free-will, of predestination and foreknowledge. God's Will did not arbitrarily make man's nature, though God's Reason foreknew what man would make of his nature. Brooding upon that matter which is the substance of the world, God's Reason brought out of it all that seemed best; through his creative power he gave that best existence; existence given, God could no more change the nature of existing things than he could, before existence, change the essence. There is an eternal and immutable nature of things, inherent in the fabric of the universe, which not even God can change; for God cannot create contradictions.5

50

Thus in Milton's conception of the nature of God there appear the same problems which we encountered in his treatment of the nature of man. At the root of everything lies this question of the relation between a higher and a lower faculty, good in themselves but in themselves incomplete: Reason and Instinct, Reason and Will, God and Nature. The belief in the supremacy of the Reason of God over his Will is implied both in the allegory and in the philosophy of Paradise Lost and is a frequently recurrent theme in the Christian Doctrine. Milton's God is not an arbitrary Creator, willing that all things shall be one way rather than another. His Will is guided by his Reason, which recognizes in the fabric of the universe an eternal nature which it calls forth, but which it does not create and does not control. Thus Milton says:

51

Nothing happens of necessity because God has foreseen it; but he foresees the event of every action because he is acquainted with their natural

causes.

This idea Leibnitz merely expressed in more scientific language when he said that an individual who knew the nature of each of

5o Treatise on Christian Doctrine, p. 25: “It must be remembered, however, that the power of God is not exerted in things which imply a contradiction." P. 26: "It is universally allowed that he can do nothing which involves a contradiction. P. 28: "A being infinitely wise and good would neither wish to change an infinitely good state for another, nor would he be able to change it without contradicting his own attributes.” 51 T. C. D., p. 40.