om thence a philosophy
full of pity, strongly attached to the good, nor more angry with the
wicked than with the whirlwind which fills one's eyes with dust." ...
"Adopt these principles if you think them good, or show me that they are
bad. If you adopt them, they will reconcile you _too_ with others and with
yourself: you will neither be pleased nor angry with yourself for being
what you are. Reproach others for nothing, and repent of nothing, this is
the first step to wisdom. Besides this all is prejudice and false
philosophy."

Though these consequences irresistibly flow from the doctrine of
necessity, yet the injury resulting from them would be far less if they
were maintained only by such men as Helvetius and Diderot. It is when such
errors receive the sanction of Christian philosophers, like Hartley and
Leibnitz, and are recommended to the human mind by a pious zeal for the
glory of God, that they are apt to obtain a frightful currency and become
far more desolating in their effects. "The doctrine of necessity," says
Hartley, "has a tendency to abate all resentment against men: _since all
they do against us is by the appointment of God, it is rebellion against
him to be offended with them_."

Section V.

The manner in which Leibnitz endeavours to reconcile liberty and
necessity.

Leibnitz censures the language of Descartes, in which he ascribes all the
thoughts and volitions of men to God, and complains that he thereby shuts
out free-agency from the world. It becomes a very curious question, then,
how Leibnitz himself, who was so deeply implicated in the scheme of
necessity, has been able to save the great interests of morality. He does
not, for a moment, call in question "the great demonstration from cause
and effect" in favour of necessity. It is well known that he has more than
once compared the human mind to a balance, in which reasons and
inclinations take the place of weights; he supposes it to be just as
impossible for the mind to depart from the direction given to it by "the
determining cause," as it is for a balance to turn in opposition to the
influence of the greatest weight.

Nor is he pleased with Descartes's appeal to consciousness to prove the
doctrine of liberty. In reply to this appeal, he says: "The chain of
causes connected one with another reaches very far. Wherefore the reason
alleged by Descartes, in order to prove the independence of our free
acti