ftinction of Good into Pleafant, Profitable, and Honeft: Except that it refers Honeft to the Duty which a Mans owes to God, himself, and other Men, as a Member of an intelligent Society, rather

NOTES.

than

comprehend, as he fays it does, moft cafes in Life, yet ftill it is not of the leaft Importance. For what does it fignifiy to me that I must neceffarily take one fide or the other, right or wrong, fo long as I can choose either of them indefferently? If I can will or choose either of the two, here's full room for the exercise of Liberty; and whether I can or no, ought to have been Mr. Locke's next Queftion. The Anfwer to which feems pretty easy, tho' perhaps not fo reconcileable with his Hypothefis. However, inftead of meddling with it, he flips this abfurd Query into its Room, riz. Whether a Man be at Liberty to will which of the two he pleases? or which is the fame, Whether he can Will what he Wills? Sect. 25.t. And then, instead of shewing whether the Will be naturally determin'd to one fide, in any or all cafes, or whether the Man be always free to will this way or that; (as might have been expected) he tells us fomething very different, viz. that we can't always ac in that Manner, or that Liberty of acting does not require that a Man fhou'd be able to do any Action or its contrary then he goes on to give us another Explanation of the word Liberty, which is ftill confined to Action, and confequently foreign to the prefent Question.

In the next place he defines the Will over again. Which (fays he) is nothing but a power in the Mind to direct the operative Faculties of a Man to Motion or Reft, as far as they depend on fuch direction'. By which Words if he mean, that this Power of directing the operative Faculties, is properly active (in the fenfe abovemention'd) or Phyfically indiffe rent to any particular manner of directing them, i. e. is an ability to direct them either to Motion or Reft, without any natural Byass to determine it (or to determine the mind to determine it) toward one fide always rather than the other: If, I fay, he intends to imply thus much in this definition of Will, then may Freedom be juftly predicated of that fame Will, (or of the Mind in the exercise of it,) not indeed his kind of Freedom, i. e. that of acting, which belongs to another Faculty; but Freedom in our fenfe of the Word, i.e. a certain Indifference, or Indeterminatenefs in its own exercise; which is what most Men understand by Liberum Arbitrium: and whether there be fuch a Liberty as this in human Nature, would here have been

a pro

+ See Strutt's Remarks on Locke's Chapter of Power, p. 38. Sect. 29.

&c.

than to the natural Appetites; and thinks that we are to judge of the Agreeableness of things from that, rather than from thefe. As to the Election which the Will makes on account of these, it afferts that

NOTES.

a proper Question. For if there be, then we have got an abfolutely felf-moving Principle, which does not want any thing out of itself to determine it; which has no physical connection with, and of confequence, no neceffary occation for that grand Determiner Anxiety, which he has afterwards taken fo much pains to fettle and explain, and which fhall be confider'd by and by. But here he flies off again, and instead of determining this, which is the main point of the controverfy, and wherein Liberty must be found or no where [as we observ'd in Note 42. I fay, instead of stating and determining this great Queftion, Whether the Will or Mind be abfolutely independent upon, and phyfically indifferent to all particular Acts, Objects, Motions, &c. or neceffarily require fome foreign Mover; he feems to take the latter for granted, and immediately proceeds to the following Queftion, What determines the Will? The Meaning of which, fays he *, is this, What moves the Mind in every particular inftance to determine its general power of directing to this or that particular Motion or Rett?' This Mr. Locke calls, for fhortnefs fake, determining the Will; and declares that what thus determines it either first to continue in the fame state or action, is only the prefent Satisfaction in it: or fecondly to change, is always fome Uneafinefst. By which Words if he only meant that these Perceptions are the common Motives, Inducements, or Occafions whereupon the Mind in fact : exerts its power of willing in this or that particular Manner; though in reality it always can, and often does the contrary, as he seems to intimate by speaking of a Will contrary to Defiret of raifing Defires by due Confideration || and forming Appetites, of a Power to fufpend any Defires, to moderate and reftrain the Paffions, and hinder either of them from determining the Will and engaging us in Action: ¶ Then, as we said before, he is only talking of another Queftion, and what he has advanced on this head may readily be granted, at least without any prejudice to human Liberty. For in this fenfe to affirm that the Will or Mind is determin'd by something without it, is only saying that it generally has fome Motives from without, according to which it determines the abovemention'd Powers, which no Man in his Senses can dispute.

2

But

*Sect. 29.

+ Ibid.

+ Sect. 53.

+ Sect. 30. Sect. 47, 50, 53.

Sect. 46.

that this proceeds from the Will itself, and that a free Agent cannot be determin'd like natural Bodies by external Impulfes, or like Brutes by Objects. For this is the very difference betwixt Man

NOTES.

But if he intended that these Motives fhould be understood to rule and direct the Will abfolutely and irresistibly in certain Cafes: That they have fuch a neceffary influence on the Mind, that it can never be determin'd without or against them;

in fhort, that the Soul of Man has not a physical Power of willing independent of, and confequently indifferent to all Perceptions, Reasons and Motives whatsoever; which the general drift of his Difcourfe feems to affert, particularly §. 47, 48, 49, 50. where he confounds the Determination of the Judgment with the exertion of the self-moving Power throughout. As alfo §. 52. where he afferts, That all the Liberty we have, or are capable of, lies in this, that we can suspend our Defires, and hold our Wills undetermin'd, till we have examin'd the Good and Evil of what we defire; what follows after that follows in a Chain of Confequences link'd one to another, all depending on the laft Determination of the Judgment. And when he fpeaks of Caufes not in our Power, operating for the moft part forcibly on the Will, 3. 57, &c.

If from thefe and the like Expreffions, I fay, we may conclude this to have been his Opinion, viz. that all the Liberty of the Mind confifts folely in directing the Determination of the Judgment, (though if the Mind be always determin'd from without, we must have a Motive also for this Direction, and confequently fhall find no more freedom here than any where elfe) after which Determination all our Actions (if they can be called fuch *) follow_neceffarily: then I believe it will appear, that at the fame time that he opposed the true Notion of Free-Will, he contradicted common Senfe and Experience, as well as himself. For in the first place, is it not self-evident, that we often do not follow our own prefent Judgment, but run counter to the clear conviction of our Understandings; which Actions accordingly appear vicious, and fill us immeditately with regret and the ftings of Confcience? This he al-' lows, [S. 35, 38.] to make Room for his Anxiety. But, upon the foregoing Hypothefis, How can any Action appear to be irregular? How can any thing that is confequent upon the final Result of Judgment, (if this Word be used in its proper Senfe) be against Confcience, which is nothing else but that

* See Note 42.

Man and the Brutes, that thefe are determin'd according to their bodily Appetites, whence all their Actions are neceffary, but Man has a different Principle in him, and determines himself to Action.

NOTES.

II. This

that final Judgment?* Nay, upon the fuppofition of our be ing inviolably determin'd in willing by our Judgment (and, according to Mr. Locke, our Conftitution puts us under a neceffity of being fo, §. 48.) it would be really impoffible for us to will amifs or immorally, let our Judgments be ever fo erroneous; The Caufes of which (as he also obferves, §. 64) proceed from the weak and narrow conftitution of our Minds, and are most of them out of our Power.' Either therefore we can will without and againft a prefent Judgment, and therefore are not neceffarily (i. e. phyfically) determin'd by it; or we cannot be guilty of a wrong Volition: whatever proves the one, by neceffary confequence establishes the other. Farther, there are innumerable indifferent Actions which occur daily, both with refpect to abfolute choofing or refufing, or to choofing among things abfolutely equal, equal both in themfelves, and to the Mind, on which we evidently pass no manner of Judgment, and confequently cannot be faid to follow its Determination in them. To will the eating or not eating of an Egg is a Proof of the former; to choose one out of two or more Eggs apparently alike, is a proverbial Instance of the latter; both which are demonftrations of an active or felf-moving Power; either way we determine and act when the Motives are entirely equal, which is the fame as to act without any Motive at all. In the former Cafe I perceive no previous Inclination to direct my Will in general, in the latter no Motive to influence its Determination in particular; and in the present Cafe, not to perceive a Motive is to have none; (except we could be faid to have an Idea without being confcious of it, to be anxious and yet infenfible of that Anxiety, or fway'd by a Reason which we do not at all apprehend.) Neither is it neceffary to a true Equality or Indifference here, that I be fuppofed to have no Will to use any Eggs at all (as the Author of the Philofophical Enquiry abfurdly puts the Cafe.) For granting in the firft Place, that I have not a will to use any Eggs at all, 'tis indeed nonfenfe to fuppofe

after

*See Limborch. Theol. Chrift. L. 2. C. 23. Sect. 16. and for an Anfwer to the latter part of Locke's 48th Sect. See the fame Chap. Sect. the last.

P

That the chief

Good is

because

II. This Principle whereby Man excells the Brutes is thus explain'd by the Defenders of the neceffari- following Opinion, if I take their Meaning right: ly defir'd, In the firft place, they declare that there is fome but others Chief Good, the Enjoyment of which would make are not, a Man compleatly happy; this he naturally and they may neceffarily defires, and cannot reject it when duly be repre- reprefented by the Understanding. That other fented by things which offer themfelves have a Relation to this Good, or fome Connection with it, and are to derstanding in be esteem'd Good or Evil, as they help or hinder our different obtaining it; and fince there is nothing in Nature refpe&ts.

the Un

NOTES.

but

afterwards that I fhould choose any one; but let me have never fo great an Inclination to eat Eggs in general, yet that general Inclination will not in the leaft oblige me to choose or prefer one Egg in particular*, which is the only point in Question. Numberlefs Inftances might eafily be given †, where we often approve, prefer, defire and choose; and all we know not why: where we either choose fuch things as have no manner of Good or Evil in them, excepting what arifes purely from that Choice; or prefer fome to others, when both are equal Means to the fame End: in which Cafes the Judgment is not in the leaft concern'd; and he that undertakes to oppose the Principle by which our Author accounts for them, muft either deny all fuch Equality and Indifference, or grant the Question. Not that this Principle is confined to fuch Cafes as thefe; nor are they produced as the most important, but as the most evident Inftances of its exertion; where no Motives can be fuppofed to determine the Will, because there are none. To urge, that fuch Elections as thefe are made on purpose to try my Liberty, which End, fay fome becomes the Motive; is in effect granting the very thing we contend for, viz. that the Pleasure attending the exercise of the Will is often the fole reason of Volition. Besides, that Motive is one of the Mind's own making; and to be able to produce the Motive for Action, is the fame thing, with regard to Liberty, as to be able to act without one. If by trying our Liberty be meant an Experiment to affure us that we have really fuch a Power; there can be no reason for trying it in this fenfe, because we are fufficiently confcious of it before any fuch Trial.

The

*See Leibnitz's fifth Paper to Dr. Clarke, N°. 17, and 66. See Dr. Cheyne's Phil. Principles, Chap. 2. Sect. 13.