X42 SCIENCE AND MORALS. ra 



existence of uncaused phenomena. And the es- 

 sence of that which is improperly called the free- 

 will doctrine is that occasionally, at any rate, hu- 

 man volition is self-caused, that is to say, not 

 caused at all; for to cause oneself one must have 

 anteceded oneself — which is, to say the least of it, 

 difficult to imagine. 



Whoever accepts the existence of an omniscient 

 Deity as a dogma of theology, affirms that the 

 order of things is fixed from eternity to eternity; 

 for the fore-knowledge of an occurrence means 

 that the occurrence will certainly happen; and the 

 certainty of an event happening is what is meant 

 by its being fixed or fated.* 



* I may cite, in support of this obvious conclusion of 

 sound reasoning, two authorities who will certainly not 

 be regarded lightly by Mr. Lilly. These are Augustine 

 and Thomas Aquinas. The former declares that " Fate " 

 is only an ill-chosen name for Providence. 



" Prorsus divina providentia regna constituuntur hu- 

 mana. Quse si propterea quisquam fato tribuit, quia 

 ipsam Dei voluntatem vel potestatem fati nomine appel- 

 lat, sententiam teneat, linguam corrigat " (Augustinus 

 De Civitate Dei, V. c. i.). 



The other great doctor of the Catholic Church, " Divus 

 Thomas," as Suarez calls him, whose marvellous grasp 

 and subtlety of intellect seem to me to be almost without 

 a parallel, puts the whole case into a nutshell, when he 

 says that the ground for doing a thing in the mind of 

 the doer is as it were the pre-existence of the thing done: 



" Ratio autem alicujus fiendi in mente actoris existens 

 est qusedam prae-existentia rei fiendae in eo " (Summa, 

 Qu. xxiii. Art. i.). 



If this is not enough, I may further ask what " Ma- 

 terialist " has ever given a better statement of the case 

 for determinism on theistic grounds, than is to be found 

 in the following passage of the Summa, Qu. xiv. Aart. xiii. 



