The Religion of Nature Delineated William Wollaston (my reading book .TXT) 📖

these. For they were generally fatalists, and yet do not seem to have thought that they were not masters of their own actions.268

It is not impossible (for this is all that I contend for here), that many things, suitable to several cases, may be brought to pass by means of secret and sometimes sudden influences on our minds,269 or the minds of other men whose acts may affect us. For instance: if the case should require that N should be delivered from some threatening ruin, or from some misfortune which would certainly befall him if he should go such a way at such a time as he intended, upon this occasion some new reasons may be presented to his mind why he should not go at all, or not then, or not by that road⁠—or he may forget to go. Or, if he is to be delivered from some dangerous enemy, either some new turn given to his thoughts may divert him from going where the enemy will be, or the enemy may be after the same manner diverted from coming where he shall be, or his (the enemy’s) resentment may be qualified, or some proper method of defense may be suggested, or degree of resolution and vigor excited. After the same manner, not only deliverances from dangers and troubles, but advantages and successes may be conferred; or, on the other side, men may, by way of punishment for crimes committed, incur mischiefs and calamities. I say, these things and suchlike may be. For since the motions and actions of men, which depend upon their wills, do also depend upon their judgments, as these again do upon the present appearances or nonappearances of things in their minds, if a new prospect of things can be any way produced, the lights by which they are seen altered, new forces and directions impressed upon the spirits, passions exalted or abated, the power of judging enlivened or debilitated, or the attention taken off, without any suspension or alteration of the standing laws of nature, than without that new volitions, designs, measures, or a cessation of thinking may also be produced, and thus many things prevented that otherwise would be, and many brought about that would not. But, that this is far from being impossible seems clear to me. For the operations of the mind following in great measure the present disposition of the body, some thoughts and designs, or absences of mind, may proceed from corporeal causes, acting according to the common laws of matter and motion themselves; and so the case may fall in with no. 2, or they may be occasioned by something said or done by other men; and then the case may be brought under no. 3, or they may be caused by the suggestion, and impulse, or other silent communications of some spiritual being⁠—perhaps the Deity himself. For that such imperceptible influences and still whispers may be, none of us all can positively deny: that is, we cannot know certainly that there are no such things. On the contrary, I believe there are but few of them who have made observations upon themselves and their affairs, but must, when they reflect on life past and the various adventures and events in it, find many instances in which their usual judgment and sense of things cannot but seem to themselves to have been overruled, they knew not by what, nor how,270 nor why, (i.e. they have done things, which afterwards they wonder how they came to do), and that these actions have had consequences very remarkable in their history.271 I speak not here of men demented with wine, or enchanted with some temptation: the thing holds true of men even in their sober and more considering seasons.

That there may be possibly such inspirations of new thoughts and counsels may perhaps further appear from this: that we so frequently find thoughts arising in our heads, into which we are led by no discourse, nothing we read, no clue of reasoning, but they surprise and come upon us from we know not what quarter.272 If they proceeded from the mobility of spirits, straggling out of order, and fortuitous affections of the brain, or were of the nature of dreams, why are they not as wild, incoherent, and extravagant as they are? Not to add, that the world has generally acknowledged, and therefore seems to have experienced, some assistance and directions given to good men by the Deity; that men have been many times infatuated, and lost to themselves, etc. If anyone should object that if men are thus overruled in their actings, then they are deprived of their liberty, etc., the answer is that though man is a free agent, he may not be free as to everything. His freedom may be restrained, and he only accountable for those acts in respect of which he is free.

If this then be the case, as it seems to be, that men’s minds are susceptive of such insinuations and impressions as frequently, by ways unknown, do affect them and give them an inclination toward this or that, how many things may be brought to pass by these means without fixing and refixing the laws of nature⁠—any more than they are unfixed when one man alters the opinion of another by throwing a book, proper for that purpose, in his way? I say, how many things may be brought about thus, not only in regard of ourselves, but other people who may be concerned in our actions, either immediately,273 or in time through perhaps many intermediate events? For the prosperity or improsperity of a man, or his fate here, does not entirely depend upon his own prudence or imprudence, but in great measure upon his situation among the rest of mankind, and what they do. The natural effect of his management, meeting with such things