o article 35, page 327, that there results only a hypothetical
necessity, such as we all grant to events in relation to the foreknowledge
of God, while Mr. Hobbes maintains that even divine foreknowledge alone
would be sufficient to establish an absolute necessity of events. This was
also the opinion of Wyclif, and even of Luther, when he wrote _De Servo
Arbitrio_; or at least they spoke so. But it is sufficiently acknowledged
to-day that this kind of necessity which is termed hypothetical, and
springs from foreknowledge or from other anterior reasons, has nothing in
it to arouse one's alarm: whereas it would be quite otherwise if the thing
were necessary of itself, in such a way that the contrary implied
contradiction. Mr. Hobbes refuses to listen to anything about a moral
necessity either, on the ground that everything really happens through
physical causes. But one is nevertheless justified in making a great
difference between the necessity which constrains the wise to do good, and
which is termed moral, existing even in relation to God, and that blind
necessity whereby according to Epicurus, Strato, Spinoza, and perhaps Mr.
Hobbes, things exist without intelligence and without choice, and
consequently without God. Indeed, there would according to them be no need
of God, since in consequence of this necessity all would have existence
through its own essence, just as necessarily as two and three make five.
And this necessity is absolute, because everything it carries with it must
happen, whatever one may do; whereas what happens by a hypothetical
necessity happens as a result of the supposition that this or that has been
foreseen or resolved, or done beforehand; and moral necessity contains an
obligation imposed by reason, which is always followed by its effect in the
wise. This kind of necessity is happy and desirable, when one is prompted
by good reasons to act as one does; but necessity blind and absolute would
subvert piety and morality.

4. There is more reason in Mr. Hobbes's discourse when he admits that [396]
our actions are in our power, so that we do that which we will when we have
the power to do it, and when there is no hindrance. He asserts
notwithstanding that our volitions themselves are not so within our power
that we can give ourselves, without difficulty and according to our good
pleasure, inclinations and wills which we might desire. The bishop does not
appear to have taken notice of this reflexion, w