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FAT 
Proceeding by dediny; inevitable; neceflary.—Others 
delude their trouble by a graver way of reafoning, that 
thefe things are fatal and necelfary, it being in vain to be 
troubled at that which we cannot help. Tillotfon. —Ap¬ 
pointed by dediny.—It was fatal to the king to fight for 
his money ; and though he avoided to fight with enemies 
abroad, yet he was (fill enforced to fight for it with re¬ 
bels at home. Bacon's Henry VII. 
FA'T ALIST, y. One who maintains that all things 
happen by inevitable necefiity.—Will the obflinate fatali/ls 
find fufficient apology ? Watts. 
FATAL'ITY, f [fatalite, Fr.] Predeftination ; pre¬ 
determined order or feries of things and .events ; preor¬ 
dination of inevitable'caufes acting invincibly in perpe¬ 
tual fuccefiion.—The (foies held a fatality, and a fixed 
unalterable courfe of events; but then they held alfo, 
that they fell out by a necefiity emergent from, and inhe¬ 
rent in, the things themfelves, which God himfelf could 
not alter. South.. — Decree of fate. — By a drartge fatality, 
men fuffer their dilfenting to be drawn into the dream of 
the prefenr vogue. King Charles. — All the father’s pre¬ 
cautions could not fee Lire the fon from the fatality of dy¬ 
ing by a lion. L'EJlrange. —Tendency to danger ; tendency 
to lome great or hazardous event.—Seven times feven, 
or forty-nine, nine times nine, or eighty-one, and feven 
times nine, or the year fixty-three, is conceived to carry 
with it the mod confiderable fatality. Broom. 
F'A'TALLY, adv. Mortally; deftructively, even to 
death : 
’Tis the procefiton of a funeral vow, 
Which cruel laws to Indian wives allow, 
When fatally their virtue they approve; 
Cheerful in flames, and martyrs of their love. Dryden. 
By the decree of fate ; by inevitable and invincible de¬ 
termination.—To lay that the world was made cafually 
by the concurrence of atoms, is to affirm that the atoms 
compofed the world mechanically and' fatally ■, only they 
were not fenfible of it Bentley. 
FA'T ALNESS, f. Invincible necefiity. 
F’ATE.yi [ fatnm , Lat.] Dediny ; an eternal feries of 
fuccefli ve caules : 
There is a necefiity in fate 
Why dill the brave bold man is fortunate.— 
When empire in its childhood fird appears, 
A watchful fate o’erfees its riling years. Dryden. 
Event predetermined : 
Tell me what fates attend the duke of Suffolk r 
—By water (hall he die, and take his end. Shakfpcare. 
Death; dedrudfcion ; 
The whizzing arrow lings, 
And bears thy fate, Antinous, on its wings. Pope. 
Caufe of death : 
With full force his deadly bow he bent, 
And feather’d fates among the mules and fumpters fent. 
Dryden. 
The Greeks denominate fate as it were a 
chain or necelfary feries of things indiifolubly linked to¬ 
gether. It is alfo ufed to exprefs a certain unavoidable 
defignation of things, by which all agents, both necelfary 
and voluntary, are fwayed and directed to their ends. See 
Necessity. —In this fenfe, fate is didinguilhed into, 
i. Adrological fate, arifing frdm the influence and pofi- 
tion of the heavenly bodies; which it was erroneoufly 
fuppofed gave laws both to the elements and mixed bo¬ 
dies, and to the wills of men. See Astrology, vol. ii. 
p. 309-324. 2. Phyfical fate, or an order and feries of 
natural caufes appropriated to their eflefts. By this fate 
it is that fire warms, bodies communicate motion to each 
other, and the ettefts of it produce all the phenomena of 
nature. 3- D ivine fate, more ufually called Providence. 
See Providence. 
4. The Fate, or Dediny,.of the doics, which almod as 
FAT 
certainly dedroys religion, by taking, away man’s free will, 
as the doftrine of Epicurus confufes all things by denying 
a Providence. The doics defined fate, “a concatenation 
of caufes fo drpng that no man,could break through it.” 
Seneca, who was of this left, fays, in his Treatife upon 
Providence, chap. 5, that “all the good or evil which is 
to happen to us is fixed front the beginning by an eternal 
and unchangeable ordinance ; that the fame caufe which 
decided our life, hath fixed and appointed alfo our death ; 
that the gods themfelves are fubjefted to the fame ne- 
ccflity or dediny, the fame fatality includes both gods and 
men ; that the fupreme God, the creator and governor 
of all things, having once written the fates, is now fub¬ 
jeft to them himfelf; he commanded once, but now for 
ever obeys.” 
The Effenians among the Jews, held the fame opinion 
with the doics; they maintain, fays Jofephus, “that 
fate governs all things, and that nothing befals man but 
according to its determination.” Antiq. viii. 5. This 
opinion takes away the life of laws, and, in refpeft to 
man, roots out virtue and vice, rewards and punidiments. 
To what purpofe diftate laws to beings who can perform 
nothing but what they are predediued to do ? Such a dep 
mud be either nugatory orunjud; nugatory, if they pre- 
feribe to man only what they are inevitably impelled to 
perform ; unjud, if they require what is beyond his abi¬ 
lity. Why (liould men be blamed when they do evil ? 
-why praifed when they aft well ? For, in faft, they do 
neither good nor harm ; whatever they feem to do is the 
work of fate or dediny. This is what St. Epiphanius 
urges againd the doics : “ Let the laws be filent (lays he); 
it is fate which leads on both adulterers and other men. 
It is the dars only which merit punifhment, if they rule 
men’s actions, and if individuals aft but through con- 
draint.” St. Augudine himfelf acknowledges, that, if 
we take away man’s free will, there is no longer either 
fin or righteoufilefs, reward or punidiment. 
The heathens themfelves were aware of the objections 
againd prededination, and have exprelied themfelves very 
firongly upon that fubjeft, as may be feen in the follow¬ 
ing Dialogue from Lucian, entitled Minos and Sodratus : 
Sojlratus , having been fentenced to the fiery lake tor hi.s 
wicked deeds, fpeaks thus : “ I beg and beleec.h ot you, 
Minos, only to hear me fpeak, and then judge whether 
what I fay be reafonable.” 
Minos. Have not 1 heard you already ? You have been 
a wicked villain; you have feveral times committed 
murder, and have been a highwayman all your life : you 
have been fairly tried, and convifted. 
5 . I do not pretend to deny what has been fully 
proved againd nte; but the juftice of my punidiment is 
what I would beg leave to fubmit to your conlideraii.on. 
M. The judice of your punidiment ! How can it be 
otherwife than jud ? Is any thing more jud than to pu— 
nilh wickednefs ? 
S. Tell me, I pray ; did the actions of my life pro¬ 
ceed from my own voluntary motion,, or were, they or¬ 
dained by fate ? 
M. Ordained by fate; that is clear enough.. 
S. Then how can the good or the bad be more than 
feemingly fo, firice whatever we do is merely in lu.bTer— 
vience to fate ? 
M. Why, yes; to be fare Clotho does allot to every 
man that is born,.what he is to do in his life. 
S. If then a perfon, fubjeft to the will of another, 
diould be obliged to commit a murder, w hom would you 
charge with the guilt ?■ 
M. Him who commanded the murder, without all 
doubt ; for the other is only the inflrument employed, 
any more than the fword. 
S’. I thank you, Minos, for your candour, and for this 
illudration of the argument. If a fervant, by command 
of his niader, brings you money, to whom do you think 
yourfelf indebted ? which of the two is to be confidcred 
as your benefaftor > 
M.. The. 
