d we only have to vary the
force in order to vary the motion. Hence, freedom in this sense of the
word is perfectly consistent with the absolute and uncontrolled dominion
of causes over the will; for what can be more completely necessitated than
the motions of the body?

The demand of his own nature, which so strongly impelled Leibnitz to seek
and cling to the freedom of the mind, as the basis of moral and
accountable agency, could not rest satisfied with so unsubstantial a
shadow. After all, he has felt constrained to have recourse to the
hypothesis of a preestablished harmony in order to restore, if possible,
the liberty which his scheme of necessity had banished from the universe.
It is no part of our intention to examine this obsolete fiction; we merely
wish to show how essential Leibnitz regarded it to a solution of the
difficulty under consideration. "I come now," says he, "to show how the
action of the will depends on causes; that there is nothing so agreeable
to human nature as this dependence of our actions, and that otherwise we
should fall into an absurd and insupportable fatality; that is to say,
into the _Mohammedan fate_, which is the worst of all, because it does
away with foresight and good counsel. However, it is well to explain how
this dependency of our voluntary actions does not prevent that there may
be at the bottom of things a marvellous spontaneity in us, which in a
certain sense renders the mind, in its resolutions, independent of the
physical influence of _all other creatures_. This spontaneity, _but little
known hitherto_, which raises our empire over our actions as much as it is
possible, _is a consequence of the system of preestablished harmony_."
Thus, in order to satisfy himself that our actions are really free and
independent of the physical influence of _other creatures_, he has
recourse to a fiction in which few persons ever concurred with him, and
which is now universally regarded as one of the vagaries and dreams of
philosophy. If we are to be saved from an insupportable fate only by such
means, our condition must indeed be one of forlorn hopelessness.

Before we take leave of Leibnitz, there is one view of the difficulty in
question which we wish to notice, not because it is peculiar to him, but
because it is very clearly stated and confidently relied on by him. It is
common to most of the advocates of necessity, and it is exceedingly
imposing in its appearance and effect. "Men of al