one. Men are less blamed for such evil actions, as
they perform hastily and unpremeditately, than for such as proceed from
thought and deliberation. For what reason? but because a hasty temper,
though a constant cause in the mind, operates only by intervals, and
infects not the whole character. Again, repentance wipes off every
crime, especially if attended with an evident reformation of life and
manners. How is this to be accounted for? But by asserting that actions
render a person criminal, merely as they are proofs of criminal
passions or principles in the mind; and when by any alteration of these
principles they cease to be just proofs, they likewise cease to be
criminal. But according to the doctrine of liberty or chance they never
were just proofs, and consequently never were criminal.

Here then I turn to my adversary, and desire him to free his own system
from these odious consequences before he charge them upon others. Or if
he rather chuses, that this question should be decided by fair arguments
before philosophers, than by declamations before the people, let him
return to what I have advanced to prove that liberty and chance
are synonimous; and concerning the nature of moral evidence and the
regularity of human actions. Upon a review of these reasonings, I
cannot doubt of an entire victory; and therefore having proved, that all
actions of the will have particular causes, I proceed to explain what
these causes are, and how they operate.

SECT. III OF THE INFLUENCING MOTIVES OF THE WILL

Nothing is more usual in philosophy, and even in common life, than to
talk of the combat of passion and reason, to give the preference to
reason, and assert that men are only so far virtuous as they conform
themselves to its dictates. Every rational creature, it is said, is
obliged to regulate his actions by reason; and if any other motive or
principle challenge the direction of his conduct, he ought to oppose it,
till it be entirely subdued, or at least brought to a conformity with
that superior principle. On this method of thinking the greatest part of
moral philosophy, antient and modern, seems to be founded; nor is
there an ampler field, as well for metaphysical arguments, as popular
declamations, than this supposed pre-eminence of reason above passion.
The eternity, invariableness, and divine origin of the former have
been displayed to the best advantage: The blindness, unconstancy, and
deceitfulness of the latte