The first hour of the lecture on March 24 was devoted to the Hobbes-Bramhall controversy as seen by Leibniz, in "Réflexions sur l'ouvrage que M. Hobbes a publié en Anglois de la liberté, de la nécessité et du hazard". In this monograph, Leibniz argues the elements of John Davies de Kiwelly's preface - which he attributes to Hobbes - to Of Liberty and Necessity. Taken up and sanctioned by Leibniz, the debate appears as a quaestio ad utramque partem, to which Hobbes and Bramhall would bring their own answers, arguments and counter-arguments. From the record, Leibniz extracts four "Hobbesian" theses:
- T1. It is not in man's present power to choose for himself the will he ought to have;
- T2. Chance (" chance " in English, " casus " in Latin) produces nothing;
- T3. All events have their necessary causes;
- T4. God's will makes all things necessary.
And five "Bramhallian" theses:
- *T1. Man is not only free (absolutely) to choose what he wants to do, but also to choose what he wants to will;
- *T2. When man wills a good deed, God's will concurs with his own, otherwise (i.e. when he wills a bad deed) not
- *T3. The will can choose whether it wants to will, or not
- *T4. Things happen without necessity, by chance
- *T5. Notwithstanding that God foresees that an event will happen, it is not necessary for it to happen, God foreseeing things, not as future and as in their causes, but as present.
Leibniz approves of Hobbes's T1 thesis, but qualifies it, reducing it to the assertion that " one is not the absolute master of one's will, to change it on the spot ". Analysis of this stance led us back to Locke's three questions and the "when?" question, raised in the lecture of January 27 (first hour and second hour). After a final visit to Buridan's donkey, which became an "ass"(Asina Buridani) under Spinoza's pen, we emphasized the importance of the "Bramhall topic", the triple distinction between " will ", " nill ", and " forbear" : "to will" (V), "to knot" (VN), and "to defer" (NV). To illustrate the Bramhallian "defer", "postpone" or "suspend", we've reopened the file on the Paris condemnations of March 7, 1277, evoking the censure by Bishop Étienne Tempier and his commission of the thesis asserting that the will cannot fail to follow what reason presents to it (".. necessario prosequitur quod firmiter creditum est a ratione"), nor even abstain from it ("et quod non potest abstinere ab eo quod ratio dictat") according to the statement of proposition 163 of the Articuli condempnati.
