their feveral provinces and authorities, and did command, obey, and perform feveral actions, as fo many diftinct beings, which has been no fmall occafion of wrangling, obfcurity, and uncertainty, in questions relating to them.

$7. Whence the bleas of Liberty and Neceffity. EVERY one, I think, finds in himself a power to begin or forbear, continue or put an end to several actions in himself. From the confideration of the extent of this power of the mind over the actions of the man, which every one finds in himself, arife the ideas of liberty and neceffity.

$8. Liberty, what.

ALL the actions that we have an idea of, reducing themselves, as has been faid, to these two, viz. think-. ing and motion,*fo far as a man has a power to think or not to think, to move or not to move, according to the preference or direction of his own mind, fo far is a man free. Wherever any performance or forbearance are not equally in a man's power, wherever doing or not doing will not equally follow upon the preference of his mind directing it, there he is not free, though perhaps the action may be voluntary; fo 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; fo that liberty cannot be where there is no though, no volition, no will; but there may be thought, there may be will, there may be volition, where there is no liverty. A little contideration of an obvious mitance or two may make this clear.

§ 9. Suppojes the Understanding and Will. A TENNIS-BALL, whether in motion by the Itroke of a racket, or lying fill at reft, is not by any one taken to be a free agent. If we inquire into the reason, we shall 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. Likewise 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 ftop or ceffation of that motion follows not upon his volition, and therefore therein he is not free. So a man ftriking himfeif 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 stop or forbear, nobody thinks he has in this liberty; every one pities him, as acting by neceffity and conftraint.

§ 10. Belongs not to Volition.

AGAIN, fuppofe a man be carried, whilft fast asleep, into a room, where is a perfon he longs to fee and speak 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 alk, Is not this stay voluntary? I think nobody will doubt it'; and yet, be ing locked faft in, it is evident he is not at liberty not to stay, he has not freedom to be gone; fo 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 choofe or direct. Our idea of liberty reaches as far as that power, and no far. ther; 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 prefently ceafes.

11. Voluntary oppofed to Involuntary, not to Necef

fary.

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 rett 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 so much, he cannot by any power of his mind ftop their motion (as in that odd difeafe called chorea fancti viti), but he is perpctually dancing: He is not at liberty in this action, but under as much neceflity. of moving as a ftone that falls, or a tennis-ball 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 paralytic, whilft he prefers it to a removal, is truly voluntary. Voluntary, then, is not opposed to neceffary, but to involuntary; for a man may prefer what he can do to what he cannot do, the state he is in to its abfence or change, though neceffity has made it in itself unalterable.

$12. Liberty, what.

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 shall 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 respect of his ideas, as much at liberty as he is in refpect of bodies he refts on; he can at pleafure remove himself from one to another: But yet fome ideas to the mind, like fome motions to the body, are fuch as in certain circumftances it cannot avoid, nor obtain their abfence by the utmost effort it can use. 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 ftop 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.

$13. Neceffity, what. WHEREVER thought is wholly wanting, or the power to act or forbear according to the direction of thought, there neceflity 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.

$14. Liberty belongs not to the Will.

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 unreafonable, 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 afk, whether his fleep be fwift, or his virtue fquare; liberty being as little applicable to the will as fwiftnefs of motion is to fleep, or fquarenefs to virtue. Every one would laugh at the abfurdity of fuch a question 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.

$15. Volition.

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, chofing, prefer ring, &c. which I have made ufe of, will not diftinctly enough exprefs volition, unlefs he will reflect on what

he himself does when he wills. For example, preferring, which feems perhaps beft 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 itself to have over any part of the man, by employing it in or withholding 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 himself wills it.

16. Powers belong to Agents.

Ir is plain, then, that the will is nothing but one power or ability, and freedom another power or ability; fo that to afk, whether the will has freedom, is to afk, whe ther one power has another power, one ability another ability; a queftion at first fight too grofsly abfurd to make a difpute, or need an anfwer; for who is it that fees not that powers belong only to agents, and are attributes only of fubflances, and not of powers themfelves? So that this way of putting the question, viz. Whether the ill be free? is in effect to afk, Whether the will be a fubftance, an agent? or at least to fuppofe it, fince freedom can properly be attributed to nothing elfe. If freedom can with any propriety of fpeech be applied to power, it may be attributed to the power that is in a man to produce or forbear producing motion int parts of his body by choice or preference, which is that which denominates him free, and is freedom itself. But if any one fhould afk, whether freedom were free,