Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

CHAP. rx. of Necessity. 243
that which was not its combatant, or its coercer, but its
cause. 1
Now it is evident that such a scheme as this is necessi
tarian, and is inconsistent with the ordinary doctrine of
freewill; because freewill is here not truly self-moving,
and an original spring of action. It is not a first cause,
but a second cause, subordinated to another above it, which
sets it in motion. But the will, as a link in a chain of
causes and effects, is not freewill, in the common and true
understanding of that term, according to which it means
an original source of action. Freewill is here reconciled
and made consistent with the Divine Power ; brought into
the same scheme and theory. But it is of itself a sufficient
test that a system is necessitarian, that it maintains the
Divine Power in harmony with freewill. The will as an
original spring of action is irreconcilable with the Divine
Power, a second first cause in nature being inconsistent
with there being only one First Cause. To reconcile free
will, then, with the Divine Power is to destroy it ; because
such a reconciliation can only be effected by subordinating
one to the other, in the way just described, as second cause
to first cause, and so depriving the will of that which con
stitutes its freedom, in the common acceptation of the
word, viz. its originality. Freewill to be true freewill
must be inconsistent with the other great truth ; it must
be held as something existing side by side with the Divine
Attribute, but never uniting to our understanding with it.
This inconsistency, this absence of relation, is the only
the removal of which is, there
security for its genuineness ;
fore, fatal to it. When, in the place of philosophical dis
agreement, we have philosophical unity, one consistent
scheme and theory, one connection of part with part, one
1
Hsecigitur coactionis necessitas dum inclinationem voluntatis. Sicut
omnino repugnat voltmtati. Nam ergo impossibile est quod aliquid
hoc dicimus esse violentum quod est simul sit violentum et naturale ; ita
contra inclinationem rei. Ipseautem impossibile est quod aliquid simpli-
motus voluntatis est inclinatio quae-
citer sit coactum, sive vioientum, et
dam in aliquid : et ideo, sicut dicitur voluntarium. Necessitas autem na-
aliquid naturale, quia est secundum turalis non repugnat voluntati.
inclinationem naturae ; ita dicitur l m "
aliquid voluntarium, quia
est secun-
B 2
Q. 82. A. 4.