ficiently that there is no
such necessity in voluntary actions. Nevertheless it was well to show that
_imperfect freedom_ alone, that is, freedom which is exempt only from
constraint, would suffice as foundation for chastisements and rewards of
the kind conducive to the avoidance of evil, and to amendment. One sees
also from this that some persons of intelligence, who persuade themselves
that everything is necessary, are wrong in saying that none must be praised
or blamed, rewarded or punished. Apparently they say so only to exercise
their wit: the pretext is that all being necessary nothing would be in our
power. But this pretext is ill founded: necessary actions would be still in
our power, at least in so far as we could perform them or omit them, when
the hope or the fear of praise or blame, of pleasure or pain prompted our
will thereto, whether they prompted it of necessity, or in prompting it
they left spontaneity, contingency and freedom all alike unimpaired. Thus
praise and blame, rewards and punishments would preserve always a large
part of their use, even though there were a true necessity in our actions.
We can praise and blame also natural good and bad qualities, where the will
has no part--in a horse, in a diamond, in a man; and he who said of Cato of
Utica that he acted virtuously through the goodness of his nature, and that
it was impossible for him to behave otherwise, thought to praise him the
more.

76. The difficulties which I have endeavoured up to now to remove have been
almost all common to natural and revealed theology. Now it will be
necessary to come to a question of revealed theology, concerning the
election or the reprobation of men, with the dispensation or use of divine
grace in connexion with these acts of the mercy or the justice of God. But
when I answered the preceding objections, I opened up a way to meet those
that remain. This confirms the observation I made thereon (_Preliminary
Dissertation,_ 43) that there is rather a conflict between the true [164]
reasons of natural theology and the false reasons of human appearances,
than between revealed faith and reason. For on this subject scarcely any
difficulty arises that is new, and not deriving its origin from those which
can be placed in the way of the truths discerned by reason.

77. Now as theologians of all parties are divided among themselves on this
subject of predestination and grace, and often give different answers to
the same