ns, and imagine we feel that the will itself is subject
to nothing; because when by a denial of it we are provoked to try, we
feel that it moves easily every way, and produces an image of itself
even on that side, on which it did not settle. This image or faint
motion, we persuade ourselves, coued have been compleated into the thing
itself; because, should that be denyed, we find, upon a second trial,
that it can. But these efforts are all in vain; and whatever capricious
and irregular actions we may perform; as the desire of showing our
liberty is the sole motive of our actions; we can never free ourselves
from the bonds of necessity. We may imagine we feel a liberty within
ourselves; but a spectator can commonly infer our actions from our
motives and character; and even where he cannot, he concludes in
general, that he might, were he perfectly acquainted with every
circumstance of our situation and temper, and the most secret springs
of our complexion and disposition. Now this is the very essence of
necessity, according to the foregoing doctrine.

A third reason why the doctrine of liberty has generally been better
received in the world, than its antagonist, proceeds from religion,
which has been very unnecessarily interested in this question. There is
no method of reasoning more common, and yet none more blameable, than in
philosophical debates to endeavour to refute any hypothesis by a pretext
of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality. When any opinion
leads us into absurdities, it is certainly false; but it is not certain
an opinion is false, because it is of dangerous consequence. Such
topics, therefore, ought entirely to be foreborn, as serving nothing
to the discovery of truth, but only to make the person of an antagonist
odious. This I observe in general, without pretending to draw any
advantage from it. I submit myself frankly to an examination of this
kind, and dare venture to affirm, that the doctrine of necessity,
according to my explication of it, is not only innocent, but even
advantageous to religion and 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 union and conjunction of like objects, or in the inference of
the mind from the one to the other. Now necessity, in both these senses,
has universally, though tacitely, in the schools, in the pulpit, and in
common life, been allowed to b