Supposes the understand

ing and will.

haps the action may be voluntary. So that the idea of liberty is the idea of a power in any agent to do or forbear any particular action, according to the determination or thought of the mind, whereby either of them is preferred to the other; where either of them is not in the power of the agent to be produced by him according to his volition, there he is not at liberty; that agent is under neceffity. So that liberty cannot be where there is no thought, no volition, no will; but there may be thought, there may be will, there may be volition, where there is no liberty. A little confideration of an obvious inftance or two may make this clear. §. 9. A tennis ball, whether in motion. by the stroke of a racket, or lying ftill at reft, is not by any one taken to be a free agent. If we inquire into the reafon, we fhall find it is because we conceive not a tennis-ball to think, and confequently not to have any volition, or preference of motion to reft, or vice verfa; and therefore has not liberty, is not a free agent; but all its both motion and reft come under our idea of neceffary, and are fo called. Likewife a man falling into the water (a bridge breaking under him) has not herein liberty, is not a free agent. For though he has volition, though he prefers his not falling to falling; yet the forbearance of that motion not being in his power, the stop or ceffation of that motion follows not upon his volition; and therefore therein he is not free. So a man ftriking himfelf, or his friend, by a convulfive motion of his arm, which it is not in his power, by volition or the direction of his mind, to ftop, or forbear; no-body thinks he has in this liberty; every one pities him, as acting by neceffity and constraint.

to volition.

§. 10. Again, fuppofe a man be carried, whilft faft afleep, into a room, where is a Belongs not perfon he longs to fee and fpeak with; and be there locked faft in, beyond his power to get out; he awakes, and is glad to find himself in fo defirable company, which he stays willingly in, i. e. prefers his ftay to going away; I afk, Is not this stay voluntary? I think no-body will doubt it; and yet being VOL. I.

locked

locked faft in, it is evident he is not at liberty not to ftay, he has not freedom to be gone. So that liberty is not an idea belonging to volition, or preferring; but to the perfon having the power of doing, or forbearing to do, according as the mind fhall chufe or direct. Our idea of liberty reaches as far às that power, and no farther. For wherever reftraint comes to check that power, or compulfion takes away that indifferency of ability on either fide to act, or to forbear acting; there liberty, and our notion of it, presently ceases.

Voluntary opposed to involuntary,

not to neceffary.

$. 11. We have inftances enough, and often more than enough, in our own bodies. A man's heart beats, and the blood circulates, which it is not in his power by any thought or volition to ftop; and therefore in refpect of thefe motions, where reft depends not on his choice, nor would follow the determination of his mind, if it fhould prefer it, he is not a free agent. Convulfive motions agitate his legs, fo that though he wills it ever fo much, he cannot by any power of his mind ftop their motion (as in that odd disease called chorea fancti Viti) but he is perpetually dancing: he is not at liberty in this action, but under as much neceffity of moving, as a ftone that falls, or a tennisball ftruck with a racket. On the other fide, a palfy or the ftocks hinder his legs from obeying the determination of his mind, if it would thereby transfer his body to another place. In all these there is want of freedom; though the fitting ftill even of a paralytick, whilft he prefers it to a removal, is truly voluntary. Voluntary then is not oppofed to neceffary, but to involuntary. For a man may prefer what he can do, to what he cannot do; the ftate he is in, to its abfence or change, though neceffity has made it in itself unalterable,

Liberty, what.

§. 12. As it is in the motions of the body, fo it is in the thoughts of our minds; where any one is fuch, that we have power to take it up, or lay it by, according to the preference of the mind, there we are at liberty. A waking man being under the neceffity of having fome ideas conftantly in

his mind, is not at liberty to think, or not to think; no more than he is at liberty, whether his body fhail touch any other or no: but whether he will remove his contemplation from one idea to another, is many times in his choice; and then he is in refpect of his ideas as much at liberty, as he is in refpect of bodies he rests on he can at pleasure remove himfelf from one to another. But yet fome ideas to the mind, like some mo+ tions to the body, are fuch as in certain circumftarces it cannot avoid, nor obtain their abfence by the ut moft effort it can ufe. A man on the rack is not at liberty to lay by the idea of pain, and divert himself with other contemplations: and fometimes a boisterous paffion hurries our thoughts as a hurricane does our bodies, without leaving us the liberty of thinking on other things, which we would rather choofe. But as foon as the mind regains the power to stop or continue, begin or forbear, any of thefe motions of the body without, or thoughts within, according as it thinks fit to prefer either to the other, we then confider the man as a free agent again.

Neceffity,

what.

§. 13. Wherever thought is wholly wanting, or the power to act or forbear according to the direction of thought; there neceffity takes place. This in an agent capable of volition, when the beginning or continuation of any action is contrary to that preference of his mind, is called compulfion; when the hindering or stopping any action is contrary to his volition, it is called reftraint. Agents that have no thought, no volition, at all, are in every thing neceffary agents.

Liberty belongs not to the will.

§. 14. If this be fo (as I imagine it is) I leave it to be confidered, whether it may not help to put an end to that long agitated, and I think, unreasonable, because unintelligible queftion, viz. Whether man's will be free, or no? For if I mistake not, it follows from what I have faid, that the queftion itself is altogether improper; and it is as infignificant to afk, whether man's will be free, as to ask whether his fleep be fwift, or his virtue fquare; liberty being as little applicable to the will, as

Q2

fwift

fwiftnefs of motion is to fleep, or fquarenefs to virtue. Every one would laugh at the abfurdity of fuch a queftion, as either of thefe; because it is obvious, that the modifications of motion belong not to fleep, nor the difference of figure to virtue: and when any one well confiders it, I think he will as plainly perceive, that liberty, which is but a power, belongs only to agents, and cannot be an attribute or modification of the will, which is alfo but a power.

Volition.

§. 15. Such is the difficulty of explaining and giving clear notions of internal actions by founds, that I must here warn my reader that ordering, directing, choofing, preferring, &c. which I have made ufe of, will not diftinctly enough exprefs volition, unless he will reflect on what he himself does when he wills. For example, preferring, which feems perhaps best to exprefs the act of volition, does it not precifely. For though a man would prefer flying to walking, yet who can fay he ever wills it? Volition, it is plain, is an act of the mind knowingly exerting that dominion it takes itfelf to have over any part of the man, by employing it in, or with-holding it from, any particular action. And what is the will, but the faculty to do this? And is that faculty any thing more in effect than a power, the power of the mind to determine its thought, to the producing, continuing,_or stopping any action, as far as it depends on us? For can it be denied, that whatever agent has a power to think on its own actions, and to prefer their doing or omiffion either to other, has that faculty called will? Will then is nothing but fuch a power. Liberty, on the other fide, is the power a man has to do or forbear doing any particular action, according as its doing or forbearance has the actual preference in the mind; which is the fame thing as to fay, according as he himfelf wills it.

Powers belonging to agents.

S. 16. It is plain then, that the will is nothing but one power or ability, and freedom another power or ability so that to afk, whether the will has freedom, is to afk whether one power has another power, one ability ano

ther

ther ability; a question at first fight too grofly abfurd to make a difpute, or need an answer. For who is it that fees not that powers belong only to agents, and are attributes only of fubftances, and not of powers themfelves? So that this way of putting the queftion, viz. Whether the will be free? is in effect to afk, Whether: the will be a fubftance, an agent? or at leaft to fuppofe it, fince freedom can properly be attributed to nothing else. If freedom can with any propriety of fpeech be applied to power, or may be attributed to the power that is in a man to produce or forbear producing motion in parts of his body, by choice or preference; which is that which denominates him free, and is freedom itself. But if any one should ask, whether freedom were free, he would be fufpected not to understand well what he faid; and he would be thought to deserve Midas's ears, who, knowing that rich was a denomination for the poffeffion of riches, fhould de-mand whether riches themselves were rich.

§. 17. However the name faculty, which men have: given to this power called the will, and whereby they have been led into a way of talking of the will as acting, may, by an appropriation that difguifes its true. fense, serve a little to palliate the abfurdity; yet the will in truth fignifies nothing but a power, or ability, to prefer or choofe: and when the will, under the name of a faculty, is confidered as it is, barely as an ability to do fomething, the abfurdity in faying it is free, or not free, will catily difcover itself. For if it be reafonable to fuppofe and talk of faculties, as diftinct beings that can act (as we do, when we fay the will orders, and the will is free) it is fit that we should make a speaking faculty, and a walking faculty, and a dancing faculty, by which thofe actions are produced, which are but feveral modes of motion; as well as we make the will and understanding to be faculties, by which the actions of choofing and perceiving are produced, which are but feveral modes of thinking: and we may as properly fay, that it is the finging faculty. fings, and the dancing faculty dances; as, that the will chooses, or that the understanding conceives; or, as is