Page:Philosophical Review Volume 4.djvu/397

381 language. By the 'necessity' and 'immutability' of the Laws of Nature, he simply means that, if certain acts are performed, certain consequences will necessarily ensue, now and always. That the acts themselves, in the particular case, are determined, he would deny. We have already seen that human error is explained by Cumberland in the same way as by Descartes,—i.e., as resulting from a rash use of our Free Will, where we arbitrarily assent to that which is not clear and distinct.

It might seem highly improbable that so prominent and zealous a churchman as Cumberland, in treating of the 'sanction' of the Law of Nature, would fail to insist upon rewards and punishments after death; yet such is the case. In the Introduction he states that he has abstained from 'theological questions,' and has attempted to prove his position from 'reason' and 'experience.' The treatise as a whole bears out this statement fairly well, it being understood that by 'theological questions' Cumberland means those pertaining to revelation. In one passage, he says: "Among these rewards [attending obedience to the Laws of Nature] is that happy immortality which natural reason promises to attend the minds of good men, when separated from the body"; but this is almost the only instance in which he directly refers to the future life in connection with the 'sanction,' and it is significant, perhaps, that even here he does not refer to future punishments. Cumberland's reticence on this subject is by no means difficult to explain, and it argues nothing against his orthodoxy. In the first place, as we have seen, he wished to confute Hobbes on his own ground. Moreover, he doubtless knew perfectly well that, for those who believed in immortality, rewards and punishments after death would be regarded as constituting by far the most important part of the sanction, whereas, to those who were skeptical in the matter, such considerations would not appeal at all.

But what Cumberland lost by confining himself to a consideration of the consequences of actions that might be expected