BOOK V.

I.

She ceased, and was about to pass 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 God 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 mass 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 pass 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 assenting 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 assigneth 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 compass, 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 God

should know all things, and yet there should be free will. For if God

foresees everything, and can in no wise be deceived, that which

providence foresees to be about to happen must necessarily come to pass.

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 God 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 God has foreseen the

coming of an event that _therefore_ it is sure to come to pass, but,

conversely, because something is about to come to pass, it cannot be

hidden from Divine providence; and accordingly the necessity passes to

the opposite side, and it is not that what is foreseen must necessarily

come to pass, but that what is about to come to pass 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 pass because they are foreseen, still, all the same,

there is a necessity, both that they should be foreseen by God as about

to come to pass, 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 God foresees future

events because they are about to come to pass, 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 pass

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 God foreknows these uncertainties as

about to come to pass? For if He thinks of events which possibly may not

happen at all as inevitably destined to come to pass, 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 pass

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 pass--or not."

In that case, too, in what would Divine providence surpass 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 pass 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 God 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 God, and are joined to that unapproachable light by the

very act of supplication, even before they obtain their petitions. 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.

TRUTH'S PARADOXES.

Why does a strange discordance break

The ordered scheme's fair harmony?

Hath God decreed 'twixt truth and truth

There may such lasting warfare be,

That truths, each severally plain,

We strive to reconcile in vain?

Or is the discord not in truth,

Since truth is self consistent ever?

But, close in fleshly wrappings held,

The blinded mind of man can never

Discern--so faint her taper shines--

The subtle chain that all combines?

Ah! then why burns man's restless mind

Truth's hidden portals to unclose?

Knows he already what he seeks?

Why toil to seek it, if he knows?

Yet, haply if he knoweth not,

Why blindly seek he knows not what?[Q]

Who for a good he knows not sighs?

Who can an unknown end pursue?

How find? How e'en when haply found

Hail that strange form he never knew?

Or is it that man's inmost soul

Once knew each part and knew the whole?

Now, though by fleshly vapours dimmed,

Not all forgot her visions past;

For while the several parts are lost,

To the one whole she cleaveth fast;

Whence he who yearns the truth to find

Is neither sound of sight nor blind.

For neither does he know in full,

Nor is he reft of knowledge quite;

But, holding still to what is left,

He gropes in the uncertain light,

And by the part that still survives

To win back all he bravely strives.

FOOTNOTES:

[Q] Compare Plato, 'Meno,' 80; Jowett, vol. ii., pp. 39, 40.

IV.

Then said she: 'This debate about providence is an old one, and is

vigorously discussed by Cicero in his "Divination"; thou also hast long

and earnestly pondered the problem, yet no one has had diligence and

perseverance enough to find a solution. And the reason of this obscurity

is that the movement of human reasoning cannot cope with the simplicity

of the Divine foreknowledge; for if a conception of its nature could in

any wise be framed, no shadow of uncertainty would remain. With a view

of making this at last clear and plain, I will begin by considering the

arguments by which thou art swayed. First, I inquire into the reasons

why thou art dissatisfied with the solution proposed, which is to the

effect that, seeing the fact of foreknowledge is not thought the cause

of the necessity of future events, foreknowledge is not to be deemed any

hindrance to the freedom of the will. Now, surely the sole ground on

which thou arguest the necessity of the future is that things which are

foreknown cannot fail to come to pass. But if, as thou wert ready to

acknowledge just now, the fact of foreknowledge imposes no necessity on

things future, what reason is there for supposing the results of

voluntary action constrained to a fixed issue? Suppose, for the sake of

argument, and to see what follows, we assume that there is no

foreknowledge. Are willed actions, then, tied down to any necessity in

_this_ case?'

'Certainly not.'

'Let us assume foreknowledge again, but without its involving any actual

necessity; the freedom of the will, I imagine, will remain in complete

integrity. But thou wilt say that, even although the foreknowledge is

not the necessity of the future event's occurrence, yet it is a sign

that it will necessarily happen. Granted; but in this case it is plain

that, even if there had been no foreknowledge, the issues would have

been inevitably certain. For a sign only indicates something which is,

does not bring to pass that of which it is the sign. We require to show

beforehand that all things, without exception, happen of necessity in

order that a preconception may be a sign of this necessity. Otherwise,

if there is no such universal necessity, neither can any preconception

be a sign of a necessity which exists not. Manifestly, too, a proof

established on firm grounds of reason must be drawn not from signs and

loose general arguments, but from suitable and necessary causes. But how

can it be that things foreseen should ever fail to come to pass? Why,

this is to suppose us to believe that the events which providence

foresees to be coming were not about to happen, instead of our supposing

that, although they should come to pass, yet there was no necessity

involved in their own nature compelling their occurrence. Take an

illustration that will help to convey my meaning. There are many things

which we see taking place before our eyes--the movements of charioteers,

for instance, in guiding and turning their cars, and so on. Now, is any

one of these movements compelled by any necessity?'

'No; certainly not. There would be no efficacy in skill if all motions

took place perforce.'

'Then, things which in taking place are free from any necessity as to

their being in the present must also, before they take place, be about

to happen without necessity. Wherefore there are things which will come

to pass, the occurrence of which is perfectly free from necessity. At

all events, I imagine that no one will deny that things now taking place

were about to come to pass before they were actually happening. Such

things, however much foreknown, are in their occurrence _free_. For even

as knowledge of things present imports no necessity into things that are

taking place, so foreknowledge of the future imports none into things

that are about to come. But this, thou wilt say, is the very point in

dispute--whether any foreknowing is possible of things whose occurrence

is not necessary. For here there seems to thee a contradiction, and, if

they are foreseen, their necessity follows; whereas if there is no

necessity, they can by no means be foreknown; and thou thinkest that

nothing can be grasped as known unless it is certain, but if things

whose occurrence is uncertain are foreknown as certain, this is the very

mist of opinion, not the truth of knowledge. For to think of things

otherwise than as they are, thou believest to be incompatible with the

soundness of knowledge.

'Now, the cause of the mistake is this--that men think that all

knowledge is cognized purely by the nature and efficacy of the thing

known. Whereas the case is the very reverse: all that is known is

grasped not conformably to its own efficacy, but rather conformably to

the faculty of the knower. An example will make this clear: the

roundness of a body is recognised in one way by sight, in another by

touch. Sight looks upon it from a distance as a whole by a simultaneous

reflection of rays; touch grasps the roundness piecemeal, by contact and

attachment to the surface, and by actual movement round the periphery

itself. Man himself, likewise, is viewed in one way by Sense, in another

by Imagination, in another way, again, by Thought, in another by pure

Intelligence. Sense judges figure clothed in material substance,

Imagination figure alone without matter. Thought transcends this again,

and by its contemplation of universals considers the type itself which

is contained in the individual. The eye of Intelligence is yet more

exalted; for overpassing the sphere of the universal, it will behold

absolute form itself by the pure force of the mind's vision. Wherein the

main point to be considered is this: the higher faculty of comprehension

embraces the lower, while the lower cannot rise to the higher. For Sense

has no efficacy beyond matter, nor can Imagination behold universal

ideas, nor Thought embrace pure form; but Intelligence, looking down, as

it were, from its higher standpoint in its intuition of form,

discriminates also the several elements which underlie it; but it

comprehends them in the same way as it comprehends that form itself,

which could be cognized by no other than itself. For it cognizes the

universal of Thought, the figure of Imagination, and the matter of

Sense, without employing Thought, Imagination, or Sense, but surveying

all things, so to speak, under the aspect of pure form by a single flash

of intuition. Thought also, in considering the universal, embraces

images and sense-impressions without resorting to Imagination or Sense.

For it is Thought which has thus defined the universal from its

conceptual point of view: "Man is a two-legged animal endowed with

reason." This is indeed a universal notion, yet no one is ignorant that

the _thing_ is imaginable and presentable to Sense, because Thought

considers it not by Imagination or Sense, but by means of rational

conception. Imagination, too, though its faculty of viewing and forming

representations is founded upon the senses, nevertheless surveys

sense-impressions without calling in Sense, not in the way of

Sense-perception, but of Imagination. See'st thou, then, how all things

in cognizing use rather their own faculty than the faculty of the things

which they cognize? Nor is this strange; for since every judgment is the

act of the judge, it is necessary that each should accomplish its task

by its own, not by another's power.'

SONG IV.

A PSYCHOLOGICAL FALLACY.[R]

From the Porch's murky depths

Comes a doctrine sage,

That doth liken living mind

To a written page;

Since all knowledge comes through

Sense,

Graven by Experience.

'As,' say they, 'the pen its marks

Curiously doth trace

On the smooth unsullied white

Of the paper's face,

So do outer things impress

Images on consciousness.'

But if verily the mind

Thus all passive lies;

If no living power within

Its own force supplies;

If it but reflect again,

Like a glass, things false and vain--

Whence the wondrous faculty

That perceives and knows,

That in one fair ordered scheme

Doth the world dispose;

Grasps each whole that Sense presents,

Or breaks into elements?

So divides and recombines,

And in changeful wise

Now to low descends, and now

To the height doth rise;

Last in inward swift review

Strictly sifts the false and true?

Of these ample potencies

Fitter cause, I ween,

Were Mind's self than marks impressed

By the outer scene.

Yet the body through the sense

Stirs the soul's intelligence.

When light flashes on the eye,

Or sound strikes the ear,

Mind aroused to due response

Makes the message clear;

And the dumb external signs

With the hidden forms combines.

FOOTNOTES:

[R] A criticism of the doctrine of the mind as a blank sheet of paper on

which experience writes, as held by the Stoics in anticipation of Locke.

See Zeller, 'Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics,' Reichel's translation,

p. 76.

V.

'Now, although in the case of bodies endowed with sentiency the

qualities of external objects affect the sense-organs, and the activity

of mind is preceded by a bodily affection which calls forth the mind's

action upon itself, and stimulates the forms till that moment lying

inactive within, yet, I say, if in these bodies endowed with sentiency

the mind is not inscribed by mere passive affection, but of its own

efficacy discriminates the impressions furnished to the body, how much

more do intelligences free from all bodily affections employ in their

discrimination their own mental activities instead of conforming to

external objects? So on these principles various modes of cognition

belong to distinct and different substances. For to creatures void of

motive power--shell-fish and other such creatures which cling to rocks

and grow there--belongs Sense alone, void of all other modes of gaining

knowledge; to beasts endowed with movement, in whom some capacity of

seeking and shunning seems to have arisen, Imagination also. Thought

pertains only to the human race, as Intelligence to Divinity alone;

hence it follows that that form of knowledge exceeds the rest which of

its own nature cognizes not only its proper object, but the objects of

the other forms of knowledge also. But what if Sense and Imagination

were to gainsay Thought, and declare that universal which Thought deems

itself to behold to be nothing? For the object of Sense and Imagination

cannot be universal; so that either the judgment of Reason is true and

there is no sense-object, or, since they know full well that many

objects are presented to Sense and Imagination, the conception of

Reason, which looks on that which is perceived by Sense and particular

as if it were a something "universal," is empty of content. Suppose,

further, that Reason maintains in reply that it does indeed contemplate

the object of both Sense and Imagination under the form of

universality, while Sense and Imagination cannot aspire to the

knowledge of the universal, since their cognizance cannot go beyond

bodily figures, and that in the cognition of reality we ought rather to

trust the stronger and more perfect faculty of judgment. In a dispute of

this sort, should not we, in whom is planted the faculty of reasoning as

well as of imagining and perceiving, espouse the cause of Reason?

'In like manner is it that human reason thinks that Divine Intelligence

cannot see the future except after the fashion in which its own

knowledge is obtained. For thy contention is, if events do not appear to

involve certain and necessary issues, they cannot be foreseen as

certainly about to come to pass. There is, then, no foreknowledge of

such events; or, if we can ever bring ourselves to believe that there

is, there can be nothing which does not happen of necessity. If,

however, we could have some part in the judgment of the Divine mind,

even as we participate in Reason, we should think it perfectly just that

human Reason should submit itself to the Divine mind, no less than we

judged that Imagination and Sense ought to yield to Reason. Wherefore

let us soar, if we can, to the heights of that Supreme Intelligence; for

there Reason will see what in itself it cannot look upon; and that is in

what way things whose occurrence is not certain may yet be seen in a

sure and definite foreknowledge; and that this foreknowledge is not

conjecture, but rather knowledge in its supreme simplicity, free of all

limits and restrictions.'

SONG V.

THE UPWARD LOOK.

In what divers shapes and fashions do the creatures great and small

Over wide earth's teeming surface skim, or scud, or walk, or crawl!

Some with elongated body sweep the ground, and, as they move,

Trail perforce with writhing belly in the dust a sinuous groove;

Some, on light wing upward soaring, swiftly do the winds divide,

And through heaven's ample spaces in free motion smoothly glide;

These earth's solid surface pressing, with firm paces onward rove,

Ranging through the verdant meadows, crouching in the woodland grove.

Great and wondrous is their variance! Yet in all the head low-bent

Dulls the soul and blunts the senses, though their forms be different.

Man alone, erect, aspiring, lifts his forehead to the skies,

And in upright posture steadfast seems earth's baseness to despise.

If with earth not all besotted, to this parable give ear,

Thou whose gaze is fixed on heaven, who thy face on high dost rear:

Lift thy soul, too, heavenward; haply lest it stain its heavenly worth,

And thine eyes alone look upward, while thy mind cleaves to the earth!

VI.

'Since, then, as we lately proved, everything that is known is cognized

not in accordance with its own nature, but in accordance with the nature

of the faculty that comprehends it, let us now contemplate, as far as

lawful, the character of the Divine essence, that we may be able to

understand also the nature of its knowledge.

'God is eternal; in this judgment all rational beings agree. Let us,

then, consider what eternity is. For this word carries with it a

revelation alike of the Divine nature and of the Divine knowledge. Now,

eternity is the possession of endless life whole and perfect at a single

moment. What this is becomes more clear and manifest from a comparison

with things temporal. For whatever lives in time is a present proceeding

from the past to the future, and there is nothing set in time which can

embrace the whole space of its life together. To-morrow's state it

grasps not yet, while it has already lost yesterday's; nay, even in the

life of to-day ye live no longer than one brief transitory moment.

Whatever, therefore, is subject to the condition of time, although, as

Aristotle deemed of the world, it never have either beginning or end,

and its life be stretched to the whole extent of time's infinity, it yet

is not such as rightly to be thought eternal. For it does not include

and embrace the whole space of infinite life at once, but has no present

hold on things to come, not yet accomplished. Accordingly, that which

includes and possesses the whole fulness of unending life at once, from

which nothing future is absent, from which nothing past has escaped,

this is rightly called eternal; this must of necessity be ever present

to itself in full self-possession, and hold the infinity of movable time

in an abiding present. Wherefore they deem not rightly who imagine that

on Plato's principles the created world is made co-eternal with the

Creator, because they are told that he believed the world to have had

no beginning in time,[S] and to be destined never to come to an end. For

it is one thing for existence to be endlessly prolonged, which was what

Plato ascribed to the world, another for the whole of an endless life to

be embraced in the present, which is manifestly a property peculiar to

the Divine mind. Nor need God appear earlier in mere duration of time to

created things, but only prior in the unique simplicity of His nature.

For the infinite progression of things in time copies this immediate

existence in the present of the changeless life, and when it cannot

succeed in equalling it, declines from movelessness into motion, and

falls away from the simplicity of a perpetual present to the infinite

duration of the future and the past; and since it cannot possess the

whole fulness of its life together, for the very reason that in a manner

it never ceases to be, it seems, up to a certain point, to rival that

which it cannot complete and express by attaching itself indifferently

to any present moment of time, however swift and brief; and since this

bears some resemblance to that ever-abiding present, it bestows on

everything to which it is assigned the semblance of existence. But since

it cannot abide, it hurries along the infinite path of time, and the

result has been that it continues by ceaseless movement the life the

completeness of which it could not embrace while it stood still. So, if

we are minded to give things their right names, we shall follow Plato in

saying that God indeed is eternal, but the world everlasting.

'Since, then, every mode of judgment comprehends its objects conformably

to its own nature, and since God abides for ever in an eternal present,

His knowledge, also transcending all movement of time, dwells in the

simplicity of its own changeless present, and, embracing the whole

infinite sweep of the past and of the future, contemplates all that

falls within its simple cognition as if it were now taking place. And

therefore, if thou wilt carefully consider that immediate presentment

whereby it discriminates all things, thou wilt more rightly deem it not

foreknowledge as of something future, but knowledge of a moment that

never passes. For this cause the name chosen to describe it is not

prevision, but providence, because, since utterly removed in nature from

things mean and trivial, its outlook embraces all things as from some

lofty height. Why, then, dost thou insist that the things which are

surveyed by the Divine eye are involved in necessity, whereas clearly

men impose no necessity on things which they see? Does the act of vision

add any necessity to the things which thou seest before thy eyes?'

'Assuredly not.'

'And yet, if we may without unfitness compare God's present and man's,

just as ye see certain things in this your temporary present, so does He

see all things in His eternal present. Wherefore this Divine

anticipation changes not the natures and properties of things, and it

beholds things present before it, just as they will hereafter come to

pass in time. Nor does it confound things in its judgment, but in the

one mental view distinguishes alike what will come necessarily and what

without necessity. For even as ye, when at one and the same time ye see

a man walking on the earth and the sun rising in the sky, distinguish

between the two, though one glance embraces both, and judge the former

voluntary, the latter necessary action: so also the Divine vision in its

universal range of view does in no wise confuse the characters of the

things which are present to its regard, though future in respect of

time. Whence it follows that when it perceives that something will come

into existence, and yet is perfectly aware that this is unbound by any

necessity, its apprehension is not opinion, but rather knowledge based

on truth. And if to this thou sayest that what God sees to be about to

come to pass cannot fail to come to pass, and that what cannot fail to

come to pass happens of necessity, and wilt tie me down to this word

necessity, I will acknowledge that thou affirmest a most solid truth,

but one which scarcely anyone can approach to who has not made the

Divine his special study. For my answer would be that the same future

event is necessary from the standpoint of Divine knowledge, but when

considered in its own nature it seems absolutely free and unfettered.

So, then, there are two necessities--one simple, as that men are

necessarily mortal; the other conditioned, as that, if you know that

someone is walking, he must necessarily be walking. For that which is

known cannot indeed be otherwise than as it is known to be, and yet this

fact by no means carries with it that other simple necessity. For the

former necessity is not imposed by the thing's own proper nature, but by

the addition of a condition. No necessity compels one who is voluntarily

walking to go forward, although it is necessary for him to go forward at

the moment of walking. In the same way, then, if Providence sees

anything as present, that must necessarily be, though it is bound by no

necessity of nature. Now, God views as present those coming events which

happen of free will. These, accordingly, from the standpoint of the

Divine vision are made necessary conditionally on the Divine

cognizance; viewed, however, in themselves, they desist not from the

absolute freedom naturally theirs. Accordingly, without doubt, all

things will come to pass which God foreknows as about to happen, but of

these certain proceed of free will; and though these happen, yet by the

fact of their existence they do not lose their proper nature, in virtue

of which before they happened it was really possible that they might not

have come to pass.

'What difference, then, does the denial of necessity make, since,

through their being conditioned by Divine knowledge, they come to pass

as if they were in all respects under the compulsion of necessity? This

difference, surely, which we saw in the case of the instances I formerly

took, the sun's rising and the man's walking; which at the moment of

their occurrence could not but be taking place, and yet one of them

before it took place was necessarily obliged to be, while the other was

not so at all. So likewise the things which to God are present without

doubt exist, but some of them come from the necessity of things, others

from the power of the agent. Quite rightly, then, have we said that

these things are necessary if viewed from the standpoint of the Divine

knowledge; but if they are considered in themselves, they are free from

the bonds of necessity, even as everything which is accessible to sense,

regarded from the standpoint of Thought, is universal, but viewed in its

own nature particular. "But," thou wilt say, "if it is in my power to

change my purpose, I shall make void providence, since I shall perchance

change something which comes within its foreknowledge." My answer is:

Thou canst indeed turn aside thy purpose; but since the truth of

providence is ever at hand to see that thou canst, and whether thou

dost, and whither thou turnest thyself, thou canst not avoid the Divine

foreknowledge, even as thou canst not escape the sight of a present

spectator, although of thy free will thou turn thyself to various

actions. Wilt thou, then, say: "Shall the Divine knowledge be changed at

my discretion, so that, when I will this or that, providence changes its

knowledge correspondingly?"

'Surely not.'

'True, for the Divine vision anticipates all that is coming, and

transforms and reduces it to the form of its own present knowledge, and

varies not, as thou deemest, in its foreknowledge, alternating to this

or that, but in a single flash it forestalls and includes thy mutations

without altering. And this ever-present comprehension and survey of all

things God has received, not from the issue of future events, but from

the simplicity of His own nature. Hereby also is resolved the objection

which a little while ago gave thee offence--that our doings in the

future were spoken of as if supplying the cause of God's knowledge. For

this faculty of knowledge, embracing all things in its immediate

cognizance, has itself fixed the bounds of all things, yet itself owes

nothing to what comes after.

'And all this being so, the freedom of man's will stands unshaken, and

laws are not unrighteous, since their rewards and punishments are held

forth to wills unbound by any necessity. God, who foreknoweth all

things, still looks down from above, and the ever-present eternity of

His vision concurs with the future character of all our acts, and

dispenseth to the good rewards, to the bad punishments. Our hopes and

prayers also are not fixed on God in vain, and when they are rightly

directed cannot fail of effect. Therefore, withstand vice, practise

virtue, lift up your souls to right hopes, offer humble prayers to

Heaven. Great is the necessity of righteousness laid upon you if ye will

not hide it from yourselves, seeing that all your actions are done

before the eyes of a Judge who seeth all things.'

FOOTNOTES:

[S] Plato expressly states the opposite in the 'Timæus' (28B), though

possibly there the account of the beginning of the world in time is to

be understood figuratively, not literally. See Jowett, vol. iii., pp.

448, 449 (3rd edit.).

EPILOGUE.

Within a short time of writing 'The Consolation of Philosophy,' Boethius

died by a cruel death. As to the manner of his death there is some

uncertainty. According to one account, he was cut down by the swords of

the soldiers before the very judgment-seat of Theodoric; according to

another, a cord was first fastened round his forehead, and tightened

till 'his eyes started'; he was then killed with a club.

_Elliot Stock, Paternoster Row, London_

REFERENCES TO QUOTATIONS IN THE TEXT.

Bk. I., ch. iv., p. 17, l. 6: 'Iliad,' I. 363.

" ch. iv., p. 18, l. 7: Plato, 'Republic,'

V. 473, D; Jowett, vol. iii., pp. 170, 171

(3rd edit.).

" ch. iv., p. 22, l. 6: Plato, 'Republic,'

I. 347, C; Jowett, III., p. 25.

" ch. v., p. 30, l. 19: 'Iliad,' II., 204, 205.

Bk. II., ch. ii., p. 50, l. 21: 'Iliad.' XXIV.

527, 528.

" ch. vii., p. 78, l. 25: Cicero, 'De

Republicâ,' VI. 20, in the 'Somnium

Scipionis.'

Bk. III., ch. iv., p. 106, l. 10: Catullus, LII., 2.

" ch. vi., p. 114, l. 4: Euripides, 'Andromache,'

319, 320.

" ch. ix., p. 129, l. 3: Plato, 'Timæus,'

27, C; Jowett, vol. iii., p. 448.

" ch. xii., p. 157, l. 14: Quoted Plato,

'Sophistes,' 244, E; Jowett, vol. iv.,

p. 374.

" ch. xii., p. 157, l. 22: Plato, 'Timæus,'

29, B; Jowett, vol. iii., p. 449.

Bk. IV., ch. vi., p. 206, l. 17: Lucan, 'Pharsalia,'

I. 126.

" ch. vi., p. 210, l. 23: 'Iliad,' XII. 176.

Bk. V., ch. i., p. 227,l. 16: Aristotle, 'Physics,'

II. v. 5.

" ch. iii., p. 238, l. 20: Horace, 'Satires,'

II. v. 59.

" ch. iv., p. 243, l. 3: Cicero, 'De Divinatione,'

II. 7, 8.

" ch. vi., p. 258, l. 8: Aristotle, 'De

Cælo,' II. 1.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius