PART (which is the same thing) alternate hope and fear, or alternate appetite to do or quit the action of which he deliberateth.

III.

[Reply.]

J. D.—If I did not know what deliberation was, I should be little relieved in my knowledge by this description. Sometimes he makes it to be a consideration, or an act of the understanding; sometimes an imagination, or an act of the fancy; sometimes he makes it to be an alternation of passions, hope and fear; sometimes he makes it concern the end; sometimes to concern the means. So he makes it I know not what. The truth is this, in brief:-deliberation is an inquiry made by reason, whether this or that, definitely considered, be a good and fit means, or, indefinitely, what are good and fit means, to be chosen for attaining some wished end".

[iii. The

will the last

action.]

NUMBER XXVII.

T. H.-Thirdly, I conceive, that in all deliberations, that is step before to say, in all alternate succession of contrary appetites, the last is that which we call the will, and is immediately before the doing of the action, or next before the doing of it become impossible. All other appetites to do and to quit, that come upon a man during his deliberation, are usually called intentions and inclinations but not wills, there being but one will ; which also in this case may be called last will, though the intention change often.

[Reply.

founds the

act of voli

tion with the will

itself.]

J. D. Still here is nothing but confusion. He confounds 1. H. con- the faculty of the will with the act of volition; he makes the 715 will to be the last part of deliberation; he makes the intention, which is a most proper and elicit act of the will, or a willing of the end, as it is to be attained by certain means"," to be no willing at all, but only some antecedaneous "inclination" or propension. He might as well say, that the uncertain agitation of the needle hither and thither, to find out the pole, and the resting or fixing of itself directly towards

I.

the pole, were both the same thing. But the grossest mistake DISCOURSE is, that he will acknowledge no act of a man's will to be his will, but only the last act, which he calls the "last will." If the first were no will, how comes this to be the "last will?" According to this doctrine, the will of a man should be as unchangeable as the will of God; at least so long as there is a possibility to effect it. According to this doctrine, concupiscence with consent should be no sin, for that which is not truly willed is not a sin; or rather should not be at all, unless either the act followed, or were rendered impossible by some intervening circumstances. According to this doctrine, no man can say, this is my will, because he knows not yet whether it shall be his last will. The truth is, there be many acts of the will, both in respect of the means and of the end. But that act, which makes a man's actions to be truly free, is election, which is the 'deliberate choosing or refusing of this or that means, or the acceptation of one means before another, where divers are represented by the understanding.'

NUMBER XXVIII.

T. H.-Fourthly, that those actions, which man is said to [iv. A voluntary act do upon deliberation, are said to be voluntary, and done upon free until choice and election. So that voluntary action, and action deliberation ends.] proceeding from election, is the same thing; and that of a voluntary agent, 'tis all one to say, he is free, and to say, hath not made an end of deliberating.

he

The one is, that he confounds a

A free act is only that which

J. D. This short section might pass without an animad- [Reply.] version but for two things. voluntary act with a free act. proceeds from the free election of the rational will after deliberation; but every act that proceeds from the sensitive appetite of man or beast, without deliberation or election, is truly voluntary. The other thing observable is his conclusion,—that "it is all one to say, a man is free, and to say, he hath not made an end of deliberating." Which confession of his overturns his whole structure of absolute necessity: for if every agent be necessitated to act

P [Thom. Aquin., Summ., P. Prima, Qu. lxxxiii. art. 3.]

III.

PART what he doth act by a necessary and natural flux of extrinsecal causes, then he is no more free before he deliberates, or whilst he deliberates, than he is after; but by T. H. his confession here, he is more free whilst he deliberates than he is after. And so, after all his flourishes for an absolute or extrinsecal necessity, he is glad to sit himself down, and rest contented with a hypothetical necessity, which no man ever denied or doubted of; ascribing the necessitation of a man in free acts to his own deliberation, and in indeliberate acts to his last thought (Numb. xxv'). What is this to a natural and special influence of extrinsecal causes? Again, "liberty," saith he, is "an absence of extrinsecal impediments;" but deliberation doth produce no new extrinsecal impediments; therefore (let him choose which part he will) either he is free after deliberation by his own doctrine, or he was not free before. Our own deliberation, and the direction of our own understanding, and the election of our own will, do produce a hypothetical necessity,-that the event be such as the understanding hath directed, and the will elected. But forasmuch as the understanding might have directed otherwise, and the will have elected otherwise, this is far from an absolute necessity. Neither doth liberty respect only future acts, but present acts also. Otherwise God did not freely create the world. In the same instant wherein the will elects, it is free, according to a priority of nature though not of time, to elect otherwise. And so, in a divided sense, the will is free, even whilst it acts, though in a compounded sense it be not free. Certainly, deliberation doth constitute, not destroy liberty.

[v. Definition of liberty.]

NUMBER XXIX.

T. H.-Fifthly, I conceive liberty to be rightly defined in this manner. Liberty is the absence of all the impediments to action that are not contained in the nature and in the intrinsecal quality of the agent. As, for example, the water is said to descend freely, or to have liberty to descend by the channel of the river, because there is no impediment that way; but not across, because the banks are impediments. [Above, p. 160.]

r

I.

And though water cannot ascend, yet men never say it wants DISCOURSE the liberty to ascend, but the faculty or power; because the impediment is in the nature of the water and intrinsecal. So also we say, he that is tied wants the liberty to go, because 716 the impediment is not in him but in his bands; whereas we say not so of him that is sick or lame, because the impediment is in himself.

III.

PART the current to be more impetuous; to which motion the position of the earth doth contribute much, both by restraining that fluid body with its banks from dispersing itself, and also by affording way for a fair and easy descent by its proclivity. He tells us sadly, that "the water wants liberty to go over the banks, because there is an extrinsecal impediment; but to ascend up the channel it wants not liberty, but power." Why? Liberty is a power: if it want power to ascend, it wants liberty to ascend. But he makes the reason why the water ascends not up the channel to be intrinsecal, and the reason why it ascends not over the banks to be extrinsecal; as if there were not a rising of the ground up the channel, as well as up the banks, though it be not so discernible, nor always so sudden. The natural appetite of the water is as much against the ascending over the banks, as the ascending up the channel. And the extrinsecal impediment is as great in ascending up the channel as over the banks, or rather greater, because there it must move, not only against the rising soil, but also against the succeeding waters, which press forward the former. Either the river wants liberty for both, or else it wants liberty for neither.

[His definition far removed from the idea of moral liberty.]

[vi. All

things take

from an

antecedent

But to leave his metaphorical "faculties," and his catachrestical liberty; how far is his discourse wide from the true moral liberty, which is in question between us! His former description of a free agent,—that is, "he who hath not made an end of deliberating',"-though it was wide from the mark, yet it came much nearer the truth than this definition of liberty: unless perhaps he think that the water hath done deliberating whether it will go over the banks, but hath not done deliberating whether it will go up the channel.

NUMBER XXX.

T. H.-Sixthly, I conceive, nothing taketh beginning from their being itself, but from the action of some other immediate agent without itself. And that, therefore, when first a man had an and extrin appetite or will to something, to which immediately before he secal cause.] had no appetite nor will, the cause of his will is not the will itself, but something else, not in his own disposing. So that,