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 n.any 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 himself from one to another. But yet fome ideas to the mind, like some motions to the body, are fuch as in certain circumstances it cannot avoid, nor obtain their abfence by the utmost 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 choose. 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.

what.

§. 13. Wherever thought is wholly wanting, or the power to act or forbear accord- Neceffity, ing 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 itfelf is altogether improper; and it is as infignificant to afk, whether man's will be free, as to ask whether his fleep be swift, 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 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 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 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 ftopping 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.

§. 16. It 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 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 question, 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 elfe. If freedom can with any propriety of Speech 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 itfelf. But if any one fhould afk, 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 demand whether riches themfelves 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 fenfe, ferve 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 eatily difcover itfelf. 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 fhould make a fpeaking 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

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ufual, that the will directs the understanding, or the understanding obeys, or obeys not the will: it being altogether as proper and intelligible to fay, that the power of speaking directs the power of finging, or the power of finging obeys or difobeys the power of speaking.

§. 18. This way of talking, nevertheless, has preyailed, and, as I guefs, produced great confufion. For thefe being all different powers in the mind, or in the man, to do several actions, he exerts them as he thinks fit: but the power to do one action, is not operated on by the power of doing another action. For the power of thinking operates not on the power of choofing, nor the power of choofing on the power of thinking; no more than the power of dancing operates on the power of finging, or the power of finging on the power of dancing; as any one, who reflects on it, will easily perceive and yet this is it which we fay, when we thus speak, that the will operates on the understanding, or the understanding on the will.

§. 19. I grant, that this or that actual thought may be the occafion of volition, or exercising the power a man has to choose; or the actual choice of the mind, the cause of actual thinking on this or that thing: as the actual finging of fuch a tune, may be the caufe of dancing fuch a dance, and the actual dancing_of fuch a dance the occafion of finging fuch a tune. But in all these it is not one power that operates on another but it is the mind that operates, and exerts thefe powers; it is the man that does the action, it is the agent that has power, or is able to do. For powers are relations, not agents: and that which has the power, or not the power to operate, is that alone which is or is not free, and not the power itfelf. For freedom, or not freedom, can belong to nothing, but what has or has not a power to act.

Liberty belongs not to the will.

§. 20. The attributing to faculties that which belonged not to them, has given occafion to this way of talking: but the introducing into difcourfes concerning the mind,

with the name of faculties, a notion of their operating, has, I fuppofe, as little advanced our knowledge in that part of ourselves, as the great ufe and mention of the like invention of faculties, in the operations of the body, has helped us in the knowledge of phyfick. Not that I deny there are faculties, both in the body and mind they both of them have their powers of operat→ ing, elfe neither the one nor the other could operate. For nothing can operate that is not able to operate; and that is not able to operate, that has no power to operate. Nor do I deny, that thofe words, and the like, are to have their place in the common ufe of languages, that have made them current. It looks like too much affectation wholly to lay them by and philofophy itself, though it likes not a gaudy drefs, yet when it appears in public, must have fo much complacency, as to be clothed in the ordinary fashion and language of the country, fo far as it can confift with truth and perfpicuity. But the fault has been, that faculties have been fpoken of and reprefented as fo many diftinct agents. For it being afked, what it was that digefted the meat in our ftomachs? it was a ready and very fatisfactory answer, to fay, that it was the digeftive faculty. What was it that made any thing come out of the body? the expulfive faculty. What moved? the motive faculty. And fo in the mind, the intellectual faculty, or the understanding, understood; and the elective faculty, or the will, willed or commanded. This is in fhort to fay, that the ability to digeft, digefted; and the ability to move, moved; and the ability to understand, understood. For faculty, ability, and power, I think, are but different names of the fame things; which ways of fpeaking, when put into more intelligible words, will, I think, amount to thus much; that digeftion is performed by fomething that is able to digeft, motion by fomething able to move, and understanding by fomething able to understand. And in truth it would be very ftrange if it fhould be otherwise; as ftrange as it would be for a man to be free without being able to be free.

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