en of the power by means of which we act; the existence of the
power is necessarily inferred from its exercise. This is the only way in
which we know it, and not from the direct testimony of consciousness. Much
less if we had refused to act, should we have been conscious of the power
to withhold it; much less again are we conscious of the power to withhold
the act, as we do not in the case supposed exercise this power. But
certainly we are conscious of the act itself; all men will concede this,
and this is all our argument really demands.

Here then we are conscious of an act, of an effort, of the mind. Look at
it closely. Is the mind passive in this act? No; we venture to answer for
the universal intelligence of man. If this act had been produced in us by
a necessitating cause, would not the mind have been passive in it? In
other words, would it not have been a passive impression, and not an act,
not an effort of the mind at all? Yes; we again venture to answer for the
unbiassed reason of man. But it is not, we have seen, a passive
impression; it is an act of the mind, and hence it is not necessitated. It
is not necessitated, because it is not stamped with the characteristic of
necessity. The universal reason of man declares that the will has not
necessarily yielded like the intelligence and the sensibility, to motives
over which it had no control. It does not bear upon its face the mark of
any such subjection "to the power and action" of a cause. It is marked
with the characteristic, not of necessity, but of liberty.

We would not say, with Dr. Samuel Clarke, that "action and liberty are
identical ideas;" but we will say, that the idea of action necessarily
implies that of liberty; for if we duly reflect on the nature of an act we
cannot conceive it as being necessitated. This consideration furnishes an
easy and satisfactory solution of a problem, by which necessitarians are
sadly perplexed. They endeavour in various ways to account for the fact
that we believe our volitions to be free, or not necessarily caused. Some
resolve this belief and feeling of liberty into a deceitful sense; some
imagine that we are deceived by the ambiguities of language; and some
resort to other methods of explaining the phenomenon. "It is true," says
President Edwards, "I find myself possessed of my volitions before I can
see the effectual power of any cause to produce them, for the power and
efficacy of the cause is not seen but by the eff