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.The same experienc'd union hasthe same effect on the mind, whether the united objects be motives,volitions and actions; or figure and motion.We may change the names of things; but their nature and their operation on the understanding neverchange.I dare be positive no one will ever endeavour to refute these reasoningsotherwise than by altering my definitions, and assigning a differentmeaning to the terms of cause, and effect, and necessity, and liberty, andchance.According to my definitions, necessity makes an essential part ofcausation; and consequently liberty, by removing necessity, removes alsocauses, and is the very same thing with chance.As chance is commonlythought to imply a contradiction, and is at least directly contrary toexperience, there are always the same arguments against liberty or free-will.If any one alters the definitions, I cannot pretend to argue with him,`till I know the meaning he assigns to these terms.SECT.II The same subject continu'dI believe we may assign the three following reasons for the prevalance ofthe doctrine of liberty, however absurd it may be in one sense, andunintelligible in any other.First, After we have perform'd any action; tho'we confess we were influenc'd by particular views and motives; `tisdifficult for us to persuade ourselves we were govern'd by necessity, andthat `twas utterly impossible for us to have acted otherwise; the idea ofnecessity seeming to imply something of force, and violence, andconstraint, of which we are not sensible.Few are capable ofdistinguishing betwixt the liberty of spontaniety, as it is call'd in theschools, and the liberty of indifference; betwixt that which is oppos'd toviolence, and that which means a negation of necessity and causes.Thefirst is even the most common sense of the word; and as `tis only thatspecies of liberty, which it concerns us to preserve, our thoughts havebeen principally turn'd towards it, and have almost universallyconfounded it with the other.Secondly, There is a false sensation or experience even of the liberty ofindifference; which is regarded as an argument for its real existence.Thenecessity of any action, whether of matter or of the mind, is not properlya quality in the agent, but in any thinking or intelligent being, who mayconsider the action, and consists in the determination of his thought toinfer its existence from some preceding objects: As liberty or chance, onthe other hand, is nothing but the want of that determination, and acertain looseness, which we feel in passing or not passing from the ideaof one to that of the other.Now we may observe, that tho' in reflecting on human actions we seldom feel such a looseness or indifference, yet itvery commonly happens, that in performing the actions themselves weare sensible of something like it: And as all related or resembling objectsare readily taken for each other, this has been employ'd as ademonstrative or even an intuitive proof of human liberty.We feel thatour actions are subject to our will on most occasions, and imagine wefeel that the will itself is subject to nothing; because when by a denial ofit we are provok'd to try, we feel that it moves easily every way, andproduces an image of itself even on that side, on which it did not settle.This image or faint motion, we persuade ourselves, cou'd have beencompleated into the thing itself; because, shou'd that be deny'd, we find,upon a second trial, that it can.But these efforts are all in vain; andwhatever capricious and irregular actions we may perform; as the desireof showing our liberty is the sole motive of our actions; we can never freeourselves from the bonds of necessity.We may imagine we feel a libertywithin ourselves; but a spectator can commonly infer our actions fromour motives and character; and even where he cannot, he concludes ingeneral, that he might, were he perfectly acquainted with everycircumstance of our situation and temper, and the most secret springs ofour complexion and disposition.Now this is the very essence ofnecessity, according to the foregoing doctrine.A third reason why the doctrine of liberty has generally been betterreceiv'd in the world, than its antagonist, proceeds from religion, whichhas been very unnecessarily interested in this question.There is nomethod of reasoning more common, and yet none more blameable, thanin philosophical debates to endeavour to refute any hypothesis by apretext of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality.Whenany opinion leads us into absurdities, `tis certainly false; but `tis notcertain an opinion is false, because `tis of dangerous consequence.Suchtopics, therefore, ought entirely to be foreborn, as serving nothing to thediscovery of truth, but only to make the person of an antagonist odious.This I observe in general, without pretending to draw any advantagefrom it.I submit myself frankly to an examination of this kind, and dareventure to affirm, that the doctrine of necessity, according to myexplication of it, is not only innocent, but even advantageous to religionand morality.I define necessity two ways, conformable to the two definitions of cause,of which it makes an essential part.I place it either in the constant unionand conjunction of like objects, or in the inference of the mind from the one to the other
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