as no effect exists without some adequate cause, so neither is it possible to acknowledge that any cause is adequate which does not determine the existence of the effect. Nor can any effect be determined to exist by a cause containing nothing that requires its existence rather than its nonexistence. Compare the Demonstration of God of the distinguished [Joseph] Raphson, part II, proposition 11.13 And of course it is far from being the case that man is made the master of his own action by absolute indifference in acting; on the contrary, the action itself is conceived, on that hypothesis, as some sort of entity which is independent or born as of its own accord from nothing. But these points belong elsewhere.14 [I.1.9.i]
I have sufficiently indicated in the preceding paragraph what sort of spontaneity and liberty we should affirm. It is the conception which is briefly explained at pp. 25–26 and at much greater length and with much greater power by the famous John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, book II, chapter 21, where it is centered on this point: that one acts or does not act as one wishes to act or not to act.15 In whatever created thing therefore this condition of action is found, it is precisely there that there is room for reasons drawn from the representation of good or evil. And in a mind capable of knowing spiritual things, the strongest of these ought to be those which are drawn from the prescriptions of the divine law, so that as one is prompted by these reasons to perform at the command of God’s will the actions He prescribes, and to omit those He forbids, so one is to be considered as giving evidence of, on the one hand, love and veneration of God himself, and on the other hand, of neglect and contempt. One must therefore expect the consequences of the two actions which it is worthy of the majesty, wisdom, and sanctity of the supreme deity to dispense on the one hand to his worshippers and on the other to those who despise him. The prejudice that absolute indifference is required for this effect is puerile, and is perhaps the “archetypal lie” of all the errors in this doctrine.16 It is indeed true that duty, even when it is left undone, may be said to be capable of being chosen, so far as it is capable of being known (see above, p. 32). Thus it may be said, first, in the wider sense, that a faculty of reason is implanted in the mind, and signs of good and evil are manifested, such that if a man used his reason with the greatest care, he would be determined to embrace the good. Or it may be said, in a narrower sense, that there is in the mind a vigor of reason and that the signs of good and evil are so clearly represented to it that a man would be determined to embrace the good, provided ordinary constancy of will accompanied ordinary attention of intellect. Of these the former is the standard for imputation in the court of God and of conscience: but we do not deny that the latter is rightly the most that is required in the human court. [I.1.10.i]
The author does not seem to have intended here to teach a complete distribution of goods, but only of terrestrial goods, the same distinction of goods as is suggested by the Apostle (1 John, II.16).17 Therefore, since that good toward which the will is perpetually set serves toward attaining or preserving happiness, that is, pleasure or immunity from pain, an aim to which it contributes either directly or indirectly, it is clear that all that is good is pleasant or useful (taking these terms in a rather wide sense). [I.1.11.i]
Actions which are involuntary because of force, or compelled, should rather be called passions (passiones) as the distinguished Gerard de Vries noted, Pneumatological Determinations, section II, chapter VII.6.18 Also when it is a question of actions which are involuntary by reason or ignorance, or mixed, the same author gives an equally correct account: in the former, the so-called involuntary element is something which is merely incidental to the action, apart from the intention; the latter are actually free actions, since they have been undertaken as a result of a previous choice, though joined with a tendency in the opposite direction. [I.1.16.i]
It is his own free actions and omissions, as we have defined them at pp. 25–26 and above at 35–36, which are in a man’s power to do or not to do. If anyone insists that some notion of indifference is relevant here, it is obvious that this indifference is contained in the notion of freedom given in the aforesaid passages, in that an agent is determined to act or not to act precisely in the same way that he is determined to will or not to will. We do not deny that the one is connected with the other in a man (and perhaps in any free created agent), because if we look at its mere essence, he may be determined to either of the two. But if anything beyond the indifference explained here is required for the effect of imputation in the human court, it includes only this, that a man being placed in such circumstances (so far as these can be known by men before the actual event) without the supernatural intervention of the Deity, can be determined to choose either direction. But this is not required in the divine court either. Further, actual imputation also requires a law by a man who pays due attention and when known may move him to obedience, provided only he rightly trains his reason. We have indicated above, p. 32, and pp. 35–36, in what sense both points ought to be understood with regard to both the divine and the human court. [I.1.17.i]
[Pufendorf held that a man is not responsible for actions taken under duress: when one is forced to do or suffer something, or secondly, when one is threatened with some serious harm unless one acts or abstains from acting. Carmichael comments:]
This second mode of compulsion, as it does not prevent the action from being truly free (that is, undertaken here and now by command of the will), cannot diminish responsibility for it either. (Whether it excuses an action which would otherwise have been bad, and makes it good, is another question.) But it cannot be admitted in the court of God with respect to actions by which reverence for the Deity is directly violated, a perfect right of another man is injured, or harm inflicted in other ways on us or on other innocent persons, especially a greater or an equal harm to those things which a man has no right to freely dispose of, such as life and limbs. Otherwise, the infliction of a serious injury may necessitate many actions which it would not be right to do apart from that. And it often extenuates those actions which it does not excuse in the divine court, and usually removes responsibility in the human court, if the evil represented would cause terror to a grave and constant man. [I.1.24.i]
This [absence of responsibility of an agent who acts simply as the instrument of another] is never to be admitted in actions in which a man interposes the command of his will, whatever necessity he may be under. But it is true that these actions are not always imputed to the immediate agent, nor are they of the same type of morality (far less of the same degree) as if he had done them of his own accord. This is all that the author seems to mean here, as in every passage where he denies responsibility for such actions. But this should not be extended to those actions which we have said in the previous note cannot be excused by the second kind of compulsion. [I.1.27.i]
The author is right to point out here that it contributes to the security of the human race that men’s actions be restrained by a certain rule; he illustrates the same point more fully at Of the Law of Nature and Nations, II.I. But the assertion that man actually is subject to such a rule needs to be proved from the supreme perfections of God himself, from the rational nature of Man, and from the total dependence of man on God. Cf. the early part of Supplement I, pp. 21 ff. [I.2.1.i]
[Pufendorf defines Law as “a decree by which a superior obliges one who is subject to him to conform his actions to the superior’s prescript.” Carmichael comments:]
The distinguished [commentators] Titius and Barbeyrac2 object that this
