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induxit ob eam rem, quod veritus est, ne, si semper atomus gravitate ferretur naturali, ac necessaria, nihil liberum nobis esset, cum ita moveretur animus, ut atomorum motu cogeretur. Hinc Democritus, auctor atomorum, accipere maluit, necessitate omnia fieri, quam a corporibus individuis naturales motus avellere."-De Fato, cap. 10. But Cicero had before said, cap. 9., that he need not have denied the doctrine, maintained not only by Chrysippus, but by Leucippus and Democritus from whom he borrowed. "Nec magis erat verum, Morietur Scipio, quam, Morietur illo modo: nec minus necesse mori Scipionem, quam illo modo mori: nec magis immutabile ex vero in falsum, Necatus est Scipio, quam Necabitur Scipio : nec, cum hæc ita sint, est causa, cur Epicurus fatum extimescat, et ab atomis petat præsidium, easque de via deducat, et uno tempore suscipiat res duas inenodabiles; unam, ut sine causa fiat aliquid, ex quo exsistet, ut de nihilo quippiam fiat, quod nec ipsi, nec cuiquam physico placet; alteram, ut, cum duo individua per inanitatem ferantur, alterum e regione moveatur, alterum declinet. Licet enim Epicuro, concedenti, omne enuntiatum aut verum, aut falsum esse, non vereri, ne omnia fato fieri sit necesse : non enim æternis causis, naturæ necessitate manantibus, verum est id, quod ita enuntiatur: Descendit in Academiam Carneades: nec tamen sine causis: sed interest inter causas fortuito antegressas, et inter causas cohibentes in se efficientiam naturalem. Ita et semper verum fuit, Morietur Epicurus, cum duo et septuaginta annos vixerit, Archonte Pytharato; neque tamen erant causæ fatales, cur ita accideret: sed, quod ita cecidisset, certe casurum, sicut cecidit, fuit."

In this illustration touching the period of Epicurus's death, Cicero seems to have laid hold of the subtle, but true distinction, that there were no necessary causes why he should die just at that time; but its having so happened, shows that it was so to happen from accidental causes. Now the question is, whether the tertius motus of Epicurus, whimsical as it is in his application of it, may not enable us to avoid the extremes of predestination or the denial of foreknowledge. We probably increase our own difficulties, by looking too exclusively at the final act as a single point, which confessedly must either be or not be, and negligently passing over all that vacillation of purpose and alternation of opinion on the part of the person ultimately acting either right or wrong, which Epicurus would ascribe to the atoms declining from the direct line in the vacuum, but which middle state of mind is as much the subject of that foreknowledge, with the exact moment at which hesitation shall subside into resolution, as the overt act which closes the whole. The. foreknowledge in question therefore is prophetic, and it is judicial; but it is not compulsory. As the subtlety of the distinction can only be rendered tangible, to those who are not habituated to these discussions, by familiar illustration, the foreknowledge of God may perhaps be best reconciled with the free-will of man, the mercies of his moral providence with the allowance of evil in the world, by running a parallel, but at a vast distance, between his conduct and that of an earthly father. The father, wise and experienced, is anxious to preserve the innocence and virtue of his son; but is aware of all the influence which the temptations of the world exercise over the young and thoughtless. He

man.

might indeed ensure his great object by locking his son up, or at least by never trusting him out of his sight but he considers that forced virtue is no virtue at all; that a slave, however well he may conduct himself, holds not the moral rank of a free He therefore throws his son into general society, at the risk of his plunging into all manner of vice, and with the certainty that he will fall into many errors. How then is his paternal watchfulness to be reconciled with this abandonment? By the indirect mode of its operation. He looks at his son's movements from a distance, he exercises an unperceived influence, by means which thoughartificially contrived, appear to the subject acted upon not only natural, but accidental. But these means, because they must not be visible nor operate by force, do not always accomplish their end: and the father foreknows such occasional failure, for which he provides this remedy. He lays such a train of consequences, he graduates such a scale of penalty, that the first transgression shall operate as a warning, the second shall produce suffering, but without absolute ruin, the third shall be accompanied with such severe results, as shall be calculated to ensure repentance without engendering despair. Superinduce upon the erroneous calculations of man, perfection and unerring wisdom, and you have something like a theory of Divine Providence, not at variance with free agency.

* After all, I am conscious of having rather removed the difficulty one step higher, than explained it away. Prescience itself seems accounted for by the analogy given in illustration; but the question remains how to reconcile it with power, and that power almighty. The earthly father, though he foresee evil, cannot prevent it; the Heavenly Father might, but does not. We must here limit our opinions within the sphere of revelation, and abandon vain philosophy.

But to return to Epicurus; we have not yet done with that precious contrivance of his, the declination of atoms. Rather than give up his point to his adversary, he proposes an hypothesis connecting two propositions, between which there is neither connection nor dependence. The soul of man is composed of atoms, which have the common property of other atoms, that they move necessarily in right lines; but the atoms composing the soul are in one respect sui generis, that they decline a little from the straight way: therefore the soul of man is a free agent. It is impossible not to ask, Wherefore? Let us hear Cicero's criticism on this declination. "Hoc persæpe

facitis, ut, cum aliquid non verisimile dicatis, et effugere reprehensionem velitis, afferatis aliquid, quod omnino ne fieri quidem possit; ut satius fuerit illud ipsum, de quo ambigebatur, concedere, quam tam impudenter resistere: velut Epicurus, cum videret, si atomi ferrentur in locum inferiorem suopte pondere, nihil fore in nostra potestate, quod esset earum motus certus et necessarius; invenit, quo modo necessitatem effugeret, quod videlicet Democritum fugerat. Ait atomum, cum pondere et gravitate directo deorsum feratur, declinare paullulum. Hoc dicere turpius est, quam illud, quod vult, non posse defendere." De Natura Deor. lib. i. cap. 25. So must we think and the apology of Epicurus for the liberty taken by this class of his atoms, that they have deviated from the up and down of their fellows only paullulum, reminds me of an amusing passage in Froissart. The quaint old historian softens down the act of the Count de Foix, in killing his son and heir, Gaston, by alleging ill luck, an evil hour,

the boy's weakness, and the extreme smallness of the point of the knife: in short, he killed his son paullulum. The circumstances of the murder, and the causes which led to it, are altogether whimsical. The count had promised his subjects, with whom Gaston was a favourite, that he would not put him to death, though he deserved it; but would only chastise him by two or three months' imprisonment, and then send him on his travels. The youth took his confinement in dudgeon, and would not eat. The count fell into a passion at this, and, in the words of my late friend Mr. Johnes's translation, "without saying a word, left his apartment and went to the prison of his son. In an evil hour, he had in his hand a knife, with which he had been paring and cleaning his nails, he held it by the blade so closely that scarcely the thickness of a groat appeared of the point, when, pushing aside the tapestry that covered the entrance of the prison, through ill luck, he hit his son on a vein of the throat, as he uttered, Ha, traitor, why dost thou not eat?' and instantly left the room, without saying or doing any thing more. The youth was much frightened at his father's arrival, and withal exceedingly weak from fasting. The point of the knife, small as it was, cut a vein, which as soon as he felt, he turned himself on one side and died." Let it not be supposed, however, that the Count de Foix was a monster: he behaved like the rest of the world on melancholy occasions : "he ordered his barber to be sent for, and was shaven quite bare: he clothed himself, as well as his whole household, in black."

Carneades, according to Cicero, invented a more subtle solution than that of the Epicureans. "Acu

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