De convenientia institutorum Romanae Ecclesiae cum Evangelica libertate

1. The account of absolute liberty having been confirmed and constituted, we must define into what parts liberty is to be divided.

2. Therefore, since liberty includes a certain negation of violence and necessity: while, I say, it has a way toward diverse things tending to one end, and into either part of contradiction as we have exposed; to their number, which are accustomed to infer force and necessity, the parts of liberty are to be bounded. For all these negations have this in common, that they are to be defined by the number of affirmations to which they naturally repugn. For five negations of the senses there are, if we posit the senses at some time, which no one ignores. For just as the one negation of visual virtue is called blindness, so also hearing has its negation, which can be called deafness. The same is to be said of the other senses.

3. But violence is threefold: likewise necessity is threefold.

4. For some violence is absolute and perfect in every part: namely that by which we are driven and urged to some certain thing by so immobile a necessity that we can by no reason diverge from it; for while I am detained somewhere by someone with repugnant will, I suffer violence. While the name of happy is offered to me, and it is asked of me whether I wish to be happy, I cannot renounce the condition of happiness, but am drawn into such a necessity that I cannot will misery. One species of liberty therefore is that which excludes all this violence and all absolute necessity. For thus is he said to be free in acting, on whom no violence, no necessity of acting weighs. But this species of liberty is also divided twofold: One liberty is that which eliminates both violence and absolute necessity; and this claims for itself the account of perfect liberty, which we defined in the preceding chapter. The other truly is that which wards off all violence, yet admits some necessity of natural inclination. For in the appetite for happiness, the account of the first liberty is by no means found, when the will of all is affected by a certain natural desire. But by the other species of liberty we will to be happy: because not by violence, but by appetite of inclination we desire to be happy.

5. Another necessity is that which has the account of imperfect necessity, since it is rather some impulse than necessity: yet it participates in the account of necessity by this reason, that it is a great inconvenience and impediment to living well and fruitfully: such are sacrileges, thefts, adulteries, and other vices of that kind, which by their own weight draw to perdition. This necessity, or if you prefer to call it an impediment to well-doing of life, another species of liberty excludes, which we call liberty from sin.

6. Third necessity is that which also participates imperfectly in the account of necessity: which, I say, by its weight injects difficulty into the expediting of a good work: as happens in sickness, as in misfortunes of fortune, as in domestic troubles. This necessity, or this impediment of free action, the third species of liberty explodes, which is called liberty from misery. For sickness, misfortunes, troubles of mind make a man miserable.

7. Threefold therefore is the genus of liberty: from necessity; from sin; from misery. To these that same liberty could also be added which the Apostle Paul, writing to the Romans, calls liberty from justice¹. But this, if we consider the thing itself, is more rightly called servitude than liberty. For since every will is by nature prone to good, and never insinuates itself into evil unless it is deceived by some species of good; that liberty which removes impediments to living well cannot be worthy of the account of true liberty. But that which shakes off impediment to perdition of morals, that is not true liberty, but bears a certain species of liberty, while justice being rejected, which like a bridle moderated the sicknesses of the human mind, we acquire a certain license of living badly.

8. Others also bring forth modes of liberty from² Bernard³. For with him are: liberty of free choice, liberty of counsel, liberty of good pleasure. But this division of liberty is posterior, and is to be placed among material partitions. For that alone is the formal partition of liberty which is drawn from the exclusion of necessity, which the account of liberty excludes. Bernard indeed did not take species of liberty from the exclusion of necessity, but from diverse comparison to good. For that is liberty of free choice by which we choose that good which has the species of honesty by our own will. Liberty of counsel, by which we use those things which serve for happiness. Liberty of beneplacitum, by which we delight spontaneously in attaining the good⁴ Beautiful truly is this partition of liberty, but since it serves either nothing or little for our purpose, it being omitted, we shall more happily use the prior one, as the opportunity shall have offered itself.