and qualify it, that the Neceffity, of which you treat, is no other than fixed Fate, and unavoidable* Predeftination.

YOU

SECTION I.

YOU may perhaps in fome degree answer me, by saying, that at your very beginning, when you take in hand to treat of Liberty and Neceffity; you give full fcope to the powers of man: and allow him all the freedom that can be wished, in refpect both to thinking and acting. It must be confeffed, that you do: but how this correfponds with your affertions afterwards, will be our future confideration. It may be want of difcernment on my fide, which prevents my uniformly perceiving the force of your arguments: but to the best of my judgment, the conceffions, which you make at the beginning, are inconfiftent with what you fay afterwards. They feem to be contradicted through the whole courfe of your treatife. However, as you affure us, that philofophical neceffity may be made to agree very well with human freedom, let us apply to your own words, where you first speak upon the fubject.

In the first place, I would obferve, that I allow to man all the liberty or power, that is poffible in itself, and to which the ideas of mankind in general ever go; which is the power of doing whatever they will or pleafe, both with respect to the operations of their minds, and the motions of their bodies, uncontrolled by any foreign principle or caufe. Thus every man is at liberty to turn his thoughts to whatever fubject he pleafes, to confider the reasons for or against any scheme or propofition, and to reflect upon them as long as he fball think proper; as well as to walk wherever be pleafes, and to do whatever his hands and other limbs are capable of doing. p. 2. I pafs over the paffage, which you quote from Mr. Hobbes, as well as that from Mr. Wollafton. The latter gentleman, a perfon of great learning, was a strong advocate for human liberty, and has brought the clearest arguments in defence of it and you tell us that you allow them, p. 3. Now, if I am not under an illufion, the whole feems to me a paradox: nor can I account for your making these conceffions; as they seem fo inconfiftent with the principles, which you elsewhere maintain. And though you may with great ingenuity attenuate and foften, what you fay, and make use of

many

many restrictions; yet I do not fee, how you can abide by what you have allowed; and make any compromife between freedom and neceffity. You acknowledge in your preface, that you have given up the doctrine of liberty. Pref. p. xxxi. And in another place you tell us, that the two fchemes of liberty and neceffity admit of no medium between them. p. 84. How can these jarring principles be made to agree?"

As you have however in the paffage above given your fanction to human liberty; and al lowed it its full force in respect both to thought and action, uncontrolled by any foreign power; let us fee by what means it is, that you bring. it afterwards under the thraldom of neceffity: and how can you reconcile what you have faid in one place with that, which you maintain in another? It may poffibly be want of percep tion in me; but after the conceffions made. about human liberty, I do not fee what there is, of which you can poffibly abridge it. Let us then, without any referve, have in the moft clear and precife manner your opinion upon this fubject. Your words are thefe. All the liberty, or rather power, that I fay a man has not, is that of doing feveral things, when all

the previous circumftances (including the ftate of his mind, and his views of things) are precifely the fame. p. 7. It may be, as I have before said, a want of apprehenfion in me: but I cannot after repeatedly confidering the premifes, fee the force of this argument. However let us follow you, as you proceed-“ What I contend for is, that, with the same state of mind, the fame ftrength of any particular paffion, for example, and the fame views of things, as any object appearing equally defirable, be would always, voluntarily, make the fame choice, and come to the fame determination. For instance, if I make any particular choice to-day, I should have done the fame yesterday, and shall do the fame to-morrow, provided there be no change in the state of my mind refpecting the object of my choice. Permit me for to stop here for a minute, in order to remark, that I think it impoffible for a person to be fo precifely in the fame ftate of mind and body, as is above defcribed, after any interval of time. Befides the mind is often fo fickle, and circumftances fo indifferent, that we choose, as we fay, at hazard, and with little or no confideration. So that it is hardly credible, that the fame thing fhould be uniformly at different times the fame object of our election. If an

hundred

hundred lottery tickets in a feries of numbers were laid before a perfon, void of all whim and prejudice, who was to choose one; he would with great indifference lay his hand upon that which might feem most readily to prefent itself. If the fame were to be poftponed for a day or two, it would be just an hundred to one, whether he made the fame option. But in reality no mind is fo.conftant, nor body fo uniform, as to be at different intervals precifely the fame. p. 7. But should we grant your premises, still, if in the fame circumftances repeated a man would always, as you allow, voluntarily make the fame choice: it is plain, that he would not do it neceffarily; and must therefore be at all times in a state of liberty. For though a perfon were to repeat the fame action ever so often: yet if he does it voluntarily, he must be in refpect to choice free. You can never from a voluntary act infer neceffity.

I am forry for this interruption, and will now give the reader your farther elucidation of the premises.—In other words, I maintain that there is fome fixed law of nature refpecting the will as well as the other powers of the mind, and every thing else in the conftitution of nature; and