: 1 stinction of Good into Pleasant, Profitable, and Honeft: Except that it refers Honest to the Duty which a Mans owes to God, himself, and other Men, as a Member of an intelligent Society, rather than NOTES. comprehend, as he says it does, most cases in Life, yet still it is not of the leaft Importance. For what does it fignifiy to me that I must necessarily take one fide or the other, right or wrong, so 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 Question. The Answer to which seems pretty easy, tho' perhaps not so reconcileable with his Hypothefis. However, instead of meddling with it, he flips this absurd Query into its Room, wiz. Whether a Man be at Liberty to will which of the two be pleases ? or which is the fame, Whether he can Will what he Wills? Sect. 25.† 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 something very different, viz. that we can't always att 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 still confined to Action, and confequently foreign to the present Question. In the next place he defines the Will over again. || Which (says he) is nothing but a power in the Mind to direct the * operative Faculties of a Man to Motion or Rest, as far as they • depend on such direction'. By which Words if he mean, that this Power of directing the operative Faculties, is properly active (in the sense abovemention'd) or Phyfically indifferent to any particular manner of directing them, i. e. is an ability to direct them either to Motion or Rest, without any natural Byass to determine it (or to determine the mind to determine it) toward one side always rather than the other: If, I say, 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 sense of the Word, i. e. a certain Indifference, or Indeterminateness in its own exercise; which is what most Men understand by Liberum Arbitrium; and whether there be such 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 these. 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 absolutely self-moving Principle, which does not want any thing out of itself to determine it; which has no physical connection : with, and of consequence, no necessary occation for that grand Determiner Anxiety, which he has afterwards taken so much pains to settle and explain, and which shall be consider'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 say, instead of stating and determining this great Question, Whether the Will or Mind be absolutely independent upon, and physically indifferent to all particular Acts, Objects, Motions, &c. or necessarily require some foreign Mover; he seems to take the latter for granted, and immediately proceeds to the following Question, What determines the Will? The Meaning of which, says he *, is this, 'What moves the Mind ⚫ in every particular instance to determine its general power of • directing to this or that particular Motion or Reft?' This Mr. Locke calls, for shortness fake, determining the Will; and declares that what thus determines it either first to continue in the same state or action, is only the present Satisfaction in it: or secondly to change, is always fome Uneasiness †. 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 Defire of raising Defires by due Consideration || 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 faid before, he is only talking of another Question, and what he has advanced on this head may readily be granted, at least without any prejudice to human Liberty. For in this sense to affirm that the Will or Mind is determin'd by something without it, is only saying that it generally has some Motives from without, according to which it determines the abovemention'd Powers, which no Man in his Senses can dispute. But * Sect. 29. + Ibid. ‡ Sect. 30. || Sect. 46. + Sect. 53. Sect. 47, 50, 53. that this proceeds from the Will itself, and that a free Agent cannot be determin'd like natural Bodies by external Impulses, or like Brutes by Objects. For this is the very difference betwixt Man NOTES. But if he intended that these Motives should be understood to rule and direct the Will absolutely and irresistibly in certain Cases:-That they have such a necessary influence on the Mind, that it can never be determin'd without or against them; in short, that the Soul of Man has not a phyfical Power of willing independent of, and consequently indifferent to all Perceptions, Reasons and Motives whatsoever; - which the general drift of his Difcourse seems 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 also §. 52. where he afferts, That all the Liberty we have, or are capable of, lies in this, 'that we can fufpend our Defires, and hold our Wills undetermin'd, till we have • examin'd the Good and Evil of what we defire; what fol• lows after that follows in a Chain of Consequences link'd one to another, all depending on the last Determination of ' the Judgment.' And when he speaks of Causes not in our Power, operating for the most part forcibly on the Will, §. 57, &c. If from these and the like Expressions, I say, we may conclude this to have been his Opinion, viz. that all the Liberty of the Mind confifts solely 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 consequently shall find no more freedom here than any where else) after which Determination all our Actions (if they can be called such *) follow necessarily: then I believe it will appear, that at the same time that he opposed the true Notion of Free-Will, he contradicted common Sense and Experience, as well as himself. For in the first place, is it not felf-evident, that we often do not follow our own present Judgment, but run counter to the clear conviction of our Understandings; which Actions accordingly appear vicious, and fill us immeditately with regret and the stings of Conscience? This he allows, [§. 35, 38.] to make Room for his Anxiety. But, upon the foregoing Hypothesis, 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 Sense) be against Confcience, which is nothing else but * See Note 42. that 1 Man and the Brutes, that these are determin'd according to their bodily Appetites, whence all their Actions are necessary, but Man has a different Principle in him, and determines himself to Action. NOTES. II. This that final Judgment? * Nay, upon the supposition of our be ing inviolably determin'd in willing by our Judgment (and, according to Mr. Locke, our Constitution puts us under a neceffity of being fo, §. 48.) it would be really impossible for us to will amiss or immorally, let our Judgments be ever so erroneous; 'The Causes of which (as he also observes, §. 64) proceed from the weak and narrow constitution of our Minds, • and are most of them out of our Power.' Either therefore we can will without and against a present Judgment, and therefore are not necessarily (i. e. physically) determin'd by it; or we cannot be guilty of a wrong Volition: whatever proves the one, by necessary confequence establishes the other. Farther, there are innumerable indifferent Actions which occur daily, both with respect to absolute choofing or refusing, or to choofing among things absolutely equal, equal both in themselves, 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 demonstrations of an active or self-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 Case 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 said to have an Idea without being confcious of it, to be anxious and yet insensible of that Anxiety, or sway'd by a Reason which we do not at all apprehend.) Neither is it necessary to a true Equality or Indifference here, that I be supposed to have no Will to use any Eggs at all (as the Author of the Philofophical Enquiry absurdly puts the Cafe.) For granting in the first Place, that I have not a will to use any Eggs at all, 'tis indeed nonsense to suppose after * See Limborch. Theol. Christ. L. 2. C. 23. Sect. 16. and for an Answer to the latter part of Locke's 48th Sect. See the same Chap. Sect. the last. P That the Good is II. This Principle whereby Man excells the chief Brutes is thus explain'd by the Defenders of the neceffari- following Opinion, if I take their Meaning right: ly defir'd, In the first place, they declare that there is fome but others Chief Good, the Enjoyment of which would make a Man compleatly happy; this he naturally and they may neceffarily defires, and cannot reject it when duly be repre- represented by the Understanding. That other fented by things which offer themselves have a Relation to are not, because the Unthis 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 since there is nothing in Nature respects. but NOTES. afterwards that I should choose any one; but let me have never so great an Inclination to eat Eggs in general, yet that general Inclination will not in the least oblige me to choose or prefer one Egg in particular *, which is the only point in Question. Numberless Instances might easily be given t, where we often approve, prefer, defire and choose; and all we know not why: where we either choose such things as have no manner of Good or Evil in them, excepting what arises purely from that Choice; or prefer some to others, when both are equal Means to the same End: in which Cafes the Judgment is not in the least concern'd; and he that undertakes to oppose the Principle by which our Author accounts for them, must either deny all fuch Equality and Indifference, or grant the Question. Not that this Principle is confined to such Cases as these; nor are they produced as the most important, but as the most evident Instances of its exertion; where no Motives can be supposed to determine the Will, because there are none. To urge, that such Elections as these 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 such a Power; there can be no reason for trying it in this sense, because we are sufficiently confcious of it before any fuch Trial. The * See Leibnitz's fifth Paper to Dr. Clarke, No. 17, and 66. † See Dr. Cheyne's Phil. Principles, Chap. 2. Sect. 13. |