morality. The ordinary mode of meeting
the argument is by appealing to consciousness. We know that we are free,
as Dr. Johnson said, and there's an end on't. Edwards argues at great
length, and in many forms, that this summary reply involves a confusion
between the two very different propositions: 'We can do what we will,'
and 'We can will what we will.' Consciousness really testifies that, if
we desire to raise our right hand, our right hand will rise in the
absence of external compulsion. It does not show that the desire itself
may either exist or not exist, independently of any preceding causes
either external or internal. The ordinary definition of free-will
assumes an infinite series of volitions, each determining all that has
gone before; or, to let Edwards speak for himself, and it will be a
sufficient specimen of his style, he says in a passage which sums up the
whole argument, that the assertion of free-will either amounts to the
merely verbal proposition that you have power to will what you have
power to will; 'or the meaning must be that a man has power to will as
he pleases or chooses to will; that is, he has power by one act of
choice to choose another; by an antecedent act of will to choose a
consequent act, and therein to execute his own choice. And if this be
their meaning, it is nothing but shuffling with those they dispute with,
and baffling their own reason. For still the question returns, wherein
lies man's liberty in that antecedent act of will which chose the
consequent act? The answer, according to the same principle, must be,
that his liberty lies also in his willing as he would, or as he chose,
or agreeably to another act of choice preceding that. And so the
question returns _in infinitum_ and again _in infinitum_. In order to
support their opinion there must be no beginning, but free acts of the
will must have been chosen by foregoing acts of will in the soul of
every man without beginning, and so before he had a beginning.'

The heads of most people begin to swim when they have proceeded but a
short way into such argumentation; but Edwards delights in applying
similar logical puzzles over and over again to confute the notions of a
'self-determining power in the will,' or of a 'liberty of indifferency;'
of the power of suspending the action even if the judgment has
pronounced its verdict; of Archbishop King's ingenious device of putting
the cart before the horse, and declaring that our delight