(_a_) “‘If it be an agent,’ saith he, ‘it can work’. What of this? _A posse ad esse non valet argumentum_; from _can work_ to _will work_, is a weak inference. And from _will work_ to _doth work upon absolute necessity_, is another gross inconsequence.” Here he has gotten a just advantage; for I should have said, if it be an agent it worketh, not it can work. But it is an advantage which profiteth little to his cause. For if I repeat my argument again in this manner: that which is an agent, worketh; that which worketh, wanteth nothing requisite to produce the action or the effect it produceth, and consequently is thereof a sufficient cause; and if a sufficient cause, then also a necessary cause: his answer will be nothing to the purpose. For whereas to these words, ‘that which worketh, wanteth nothing requisite to produce the action or the effect it produceth,’ he answereth, “it is true, but there may want much to produce that which was intended”, it is not contrary to any thing that I have said. For I never maintained, that whatsoever a man intendeth, is necessarily performed; but this, whatsoever a man performeth, is necessarily performed, and what he intendeth, necessarily intended, and that from causes antecedent. And therefore to say, as he doth, that the cause is sufficient to do what it doth, but not always sufficient to do what a man should or would do, is to say the same that I do. For I say not, that the cause that bringeth forth a monster, is sufficient to bring forth a man; but that every cause is sufficient to produce only the effect it produceth; and if sufficient, then also necessary.