Necessitarians, an appellation which may be given to all who maintain that moral agents act from necessity. See the article Nkcessity. Some object not only to the name, but to the dispute on a subject so perplexing as the explanation of the most consistent mode of divine government, and insist that the theme should be left entirely to the future sphere, where even the truth, according to Milton, has never yet dawned. Says the poet :
"Others apart sat on a hill retired. In thonjihts more elevate, and reason'd high or providence, foreknowledge, will, and fiite, Fixed late, free-will, foreknowledge absolute; And found nu end — in wandering 'mazes lost!"
Dr. Watts thinks it probable that the discussion of this subject will constitute one of the sublime employments of the blessed in the heavenly world.
Necessity, Doctkine of. I. Definition.— In meta- physics, according to the common statement, "neces- sity" is that (juality of a thing by which it cannot but be, or whereby it cannot be otherwise. When in a proposition which attirms anything to be true there is a fixed invariable connection between the subject and the predicate, then that thing is understood to be neces- sary. Necessity is opposed to chance, accident, con- tingency, and to whatever involves the idea of uncer- tainty and of possible variation. It is usually dis- tinguished in philosophy and theology into physical, metaphysical or logical, and moral.
1. Physical necessity has its origin in the established order and laws of the material universe. It is founded in the relation of cause and effect, and implies that where certain causes or forces are present certain effects must uniformly and inevitably follow. "By natural [or physical] necessity, as applied to men," says Ed- wards, " I mean such necessity as men are under through the force of natural causes. Thus men placed in cer- tain circumstances are the subjects of particular sensa- tions by necessity; they feel pain when their bodies are wounded; they see the objects presented before them in a clear light when their eyes are opened ; so by a natural necessity men's bodies move downwards when there is nothing to support them" {]Vorks, ii, 13, Carter's ed.).
2. Metaphysical or logical necessity expresses " the nature of our belief in certain fundamental truths, such as the reality of a material v.orld, the law of causation, and the axioms of mathematics." Logical necessitj' is characteristic of truths or ideas, as physical necessity is of events or phcnonicna in the material world. "It is alleged by some iiliilosciphers that the truths held by us as most certain are the result of experience. Others contend that such first principles as the axioms of mathematics are not only true, but ?iecessarily true; we not only do believe them, but we must believe them. Such necessity, it is argued, cannot come from mera experience, and therefore implies an innate or intuitive source. Hence the theory of necessary truth is only another name for the theory of intuitive truth." This necessitj', as characteristic of certain truths, may be grounded in the impossibility of conceiving the opposite to be true. Thus Dr. Whewell, in his /'hilosophy of the Inductive Sciences (i, 54, 55), teaches that necessary truths are those in which we not only learn that the proposition is true, but see that it must be true; in which the negation of the truth is not only false, but impossible. That there are such truths cannot be doubted. We may take, for example, all relations of number. We cannot, by any freak of thought, imagine three and two to make seven. John Stuart Mill, in \\\9 System of Loyic, argues against the theory of neces- sar}' truths, especially that the common mathematical axioms are such truths. Dr. Samuel Clarke, in his argument for the existence of God, reasons from a be- lief in the existence of the Divine Being being necessary in this sense. " So," says Edwards, " the eternal exist- ence of being, generally considered, is necessary in it-
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self, because it would be in itself the greatest absurdity I to deny the existence of being in general, or to say there was absolute and universal nothing" {Works, ii, 11). Besides the meaning of the term necessary in ' connection with intuitive, or a priori truths, the truth ' of a statement is sometimes said to be necessary by ; reason of its being implied in another. "Thus if we say that all the apostles were Jews, it follows neces- I sarilv that Peter was a Jew." Here is involved the general axiom of syllogistic reasoning that what is true of a whole class is true of each individual, which , axiom may be itself an intuitive or necessary truth, j liut each particular proposition or conclusion from prem- j ises is necessary, because it is implied in the premises, or because " to withhold assent from it would be to violate the above axiom." This is, more strictly, lor/ical necessity. See Logic.
3. Moral necessi/i/ lias reference to the volitions and actions of rational agents, and is intended to express the connection between these volitions and actions and cer- tain moral causes, as inclinations, desires, or motives generally. "Whether there be any connection which, strictly speaking, may be termed necessary between such motives and the volitions and actions of men, or whether independent of them the will has a self-deter- mining power, is an inquiry wliicli has always largely engaged the attention of both philosophers and theolo- gians. See Will. The term which stands opposed to necessity in the history and literature of the subject is liberty, or freedom. See LiBiiUTY.