that will but confider; and he that will not be fo far a rational creature as to reflect feriously upon infinite happiness and mifery, muft needs condemn himself, as not making that ufe of his understanding he fhould. The rewards and punishments of another life, which the Almighty has eftablished as the enforcements of his law, are of weight enough to determine the choice, against whatever pleafure or pain this life can fhow, when the eternal ftate is confidered but in its bare poffibility, which nobody can make any doubt of. He that will allow exquifite and endless happiness to be but the poffible confequence of a good life here, and the contrary ftate the poffible reward of a bad one, must own himself to judge very much amifs, if he does not conclude, that a virtuous life, with the certain expectation of everlafting blifs which may come, is to be preferred to a vicious one, with the fear of that dreadful ftate of mifery, which it is very poffible may overtake the guilty; or, at beft, the terrible uncertain hope of annihilation. This is evidently fo, though the virtuous life here had nothing but pain, and the vicious continual pleasure, which yet is, for the most part, quite otherwife, and wicked men have not much the odds to brag of, even in their prefent poffeffion, nay, ll things rightly confidered, have, I think, even the worst part here. But when infinite happiness is put in one scale, against infinite mifery in the other; if the worft that comes to the pious man, if he mistakes, be the best that the wicked can attain to, if he be in the right, who can, without madness, run the venture? Who in his wits would choofe to come within a poffibility of infinite mifery, which if he mifs, there is yet nothing to be got by that hazard? Whereas, on the other fide, the fober man ventures nothing againft infinite happinefs to be got, if his expectation comes to pafs. If the good man be in the right, he is eternally happy; if he mistakes, he is not miferable, he feels nothing. On the other fide, if the wicked be in the right, he is not happy; if he mistakes, he is infinitely

miferable. Muft it not be a moft manifeft wrong judgment, that does not presently fee to which fide, in this cafe, the preference is to be given? I have forborne to mention any thing of the certainty or probability of a future ftate, defigning here to fhow the wrong judgment that any one must allow he makes upon his own principles, laid how he pleases, who prefers the fhort pleafures of a vicious life upon any confideration, whilst he knows, and cannot but be certain, that a future life is at leaft poffible.

$71. Recapitulation.

To conclude this inquiry into human liberty, which as it stood before, I myself from the beginning fearing, and a very judicious friend of mine, fince the publication, fufpecting to have fome mistake in it, though he could not particularly fhow it me, I was put upon a ftrider review of this chapter; wherein lighting upon a very cafy and fcarce obfervable flip I have made, in putting one feemingly indifferent word for another, that difcovery opened to me this prefent view, which here, in this fecond edition, I fubmit to the learned world, and which in fhort is this: Liberty is a power to act or not to act, according as the mind directs. A power to direct, the operative faculties to motion or reft, in particular inftances, is that which we call the will. That which, in the train of our voluntary actions, determines the will to any change of operation, is fome prefent uncafinefs; which is, or at leaft is always accompanied with that of defire. Defire is always moved by evil, to fly it; becaufe a total freedom from pain always makes a neceffary part of our happiness; but every good, nay every greater good, does not conftantly move defire, because it may not make, or may not be taken to make, any neceflary part of our happiness: For all that we defire, is only to be happy. But though this general defire of happiness operates conftantly and invariably, yet the fatisfaction of any particular defire can be fufpended from determining the will to any fubfervient action, till we have maturely examined, whether the particular apparent good, which we then defire, makes

a part of our real happinefs, or be confiftent or inconfiltent with it. The refult of our judgment upon that examination is what ultimately determines the man, who could not be free if his will were determined by any thing but his own defire, guided by his own judgment. I know that liberty by fome is placed in an indifferency of the man, antecedent to the determination of his will. I wish they who lay fo much stress on fuch an antecedent indifferency, as they call it, had told us plainly, whether this tuppoled indifferency be antecedent to the thought and judgment of the understanding, as well as to the decree of the will; for it is pretty hard to ftate it between them; i. e. immediately after the judgment of the understanding, and before the determination of the will, becaufe the determination of the will immediately follows the judgment of the understanding; and to place liberty in an indifferency antecedent to the thought and judgment of the understanding, feems to me to place liberty in a state of darkness, wherein we can neither fee nor fay any thing of it; at least it places it in a fubject incapable of it, no agent being allowed capable of liberty but in confequence of thought and judgment. I am not nice about phrafes, and therefore confent to say with thofe that love to fpeak fo, that liberty is placed in indifferency, but it is in an indifferency which remains after the judgment of the understanding, yea, even after the determination of the will; and that is an indifferency, not of the man (for after he has once judged which is beft, viz. to do or forbear, he is no longer indifferent), but an indifferency of the operative powers of the man, which remaining equally able to operate, or to forbear operating after, as before the decree of the will, are in a itate which, if one pleases, may be called indifferency; and as far as this indifferency reiches, a man is free, and no farther; v. g. I have the ability to move my hand, or to let it reft; that operative power is indifferent to move or not to move my hand; I am then in that refpect perfectly free. My will determines that operative power to reft; I am yet fiee, becaufe the indifferency of that my operative power to act

or not to act, still remains; the power of moving my hand is not at all impaired by the determination of my will, which at prefent orders reft; the indifferency of that power to act, or not to act, is just as it was before, as will appear, if the will puts it to the trial, by ordering the contrary. But if, during the reft of my hand, it be feized by a fudden palfy, the indifferency of that operative power is gone, and with it my liberty; I have no longer freedom in that refpect, but am under a neceffity of letting my hand reft. On the other fide, if my hand be put into motion by a convulfion, the indifferency of that operative faculty is taken away by that motion, and my liberty in that cafe is loft; for I am under a neceflity of having my hand move. I have added this, to fhow in what fort of indifferency liberty feems to me to confift, and not in any other, real or imaginary.

§ 72.

TRUE notions concerning the nature and extent of liberty, are of fo great importance, that I hope I fhall be pardoned this digreffion, which my attempt to explain it has led me into. The ideas of will, volition, liberty, and neceffity, in this chapter of power, came naturally in my way. In a former edition of this treatise, I gave an account of my thoughts concerning them, according to the light I then had; and now, as a lover of truth, and not a worshipper of my own doctrines, I own fome change of my opinion, which I think I have difcovered ground for. In what I first writ, I, with an unbiaffed indifferency, followed truth, whither I thought the led me. But neither being fo vain as to fancy infallibility, nor fo difingenuous as to diffemble my mistakes, for fear of blemishing my reputation, I have, with the fame fincere defign, for truth only, not been afhamed to publish what a feverer inquiry has fuggefted. It is not impoffible but that fome may think my former notions right, and fome (as I have already found) these latter, and fome neither. I fhall not at all wonder at this variety in mens opinions; impartial deductions of reafon in controverted points being fo ve

ry rare, and exact ones in abstract notions not so very eafy, especially if of any length. And therefore I fhould think myself not a little beholden to any one, who would upon thefe or any other grounds, fairly clear this fubject of liberty from any difficulties that may yet remain.

Before I close this chapter, it may, perhaps, be to our purpose, and help to give us clearer conceptions about power, if we make our thoughts take a little more exact survey of action. I have faid above, that we have ideas but of two forts of action, viz. mɔtion and thinking. Thefe, in truth, though called and counted actions, yet, if nearly confidered, will not be found to be always perfectly fo: For, if I mistake not, there are inftances of both kinds, which, upon due confideration, will be found rather paffions than actions, and confequently fo far the effects barely of paffive powers in thofe fubjects, which yet on their account are thought agents: For in thefe inftances, the substance that hath motion, or thought, receives the impreffion, whereby it is put into that action, purely from without, and fo acts merely by the capacity it has to receive fuch an impreflion from fome external agent; and fuch a power is not properly an active power, but a mere paffive capacity in the fubject. Sometimes the fubftance or agent puts itself into action by its own power, and this is properly active power. Whatsoever modification a fubftance has, whereby it produces any effect, that is called action; v. g. a solid fubftance by motion operates on, or alters the fenfible ideas of another fubftance, and therefore this modification of motion we call action. But yet this motion, in that folid fub... stance, is, when rightly confidered, but a paffion, if it received it only from fome external agent; fo that the active power of motion is in no fubftance which cannot begin motion in itself, or in another substance, when at reft. So likewife, in thinking, a power to receive ideas or thoughts from the operation of any external fubftance, is called a power of thinking; but this is but a paflive power, or capacity. But to be able to