connexion between his external
actions and their consequences, either as they affected himself or others,
he certainly would not be responsible for those consequences. This
connexion between causes and effects, this connexion between volitions and
their consequences, is indispensable to our accountability for such
consequences. But for such a connexion, nothing could be more idle and
ridiculous than to endeavour to do anything; for we might will one thing,
and another would take place.

But must the same necessary connexion exist between the causes of our
volitions and the volitions themselves, before we can be accountable for
these volitions, for these effects? This is the question. Leibnitz has
lost sight of it, and deceived himself by a false application of his
doctrine. The doctrine of necessity, when applied to volitions and their
effects, is indispensable to build up man's accountability for his
external conduct and its consequences. But the same doctrine, when applied
to establish a fixed and unalterable relation between the causes of
volition and volition itself, really demolishes all responsibility for
volition, and consequently for its external results. Leibnitz undertook to
show that a necessary connexion between volition and its causes does not
destroy man's accountability for his volitions; and he has shown, what no
one ever doubted, that a necessary connexion between volition and its
effects does not destroy accountability for those effects! Strange as this
confusion of things is, it is made by the most celebrated advocates of the
doctrine of necessity; which shows, we think, that the doctrine hardly
admits of a solid defence. Thus Edwards, for example, insists that the
doctrine of necessity is so far from rendering our endeavours vain and
useless, that it is an indispensable condition or prerequisite to their
success. In illustration of this point, he says: "Let us suppose a real
and sure connexion between a man having his eyes open in the clear
daylight, with good organs of sight, and seeing; so that seeing is
connected with opening his eyes, and not seeing with his not opening his
eyes; and also the like connexion between such a man attempting to open
his eyes and his actually doing it: the supposed established connexion
between these antecedents and consequents, let the connexion be never so
sure and necessary, certainly does not prove that it is in vain for a man
in such circumstances to attempt to ope