ell say, indeed, that "a body may move while it is in a state
of rest," as to say that "the mind may choose without choosing," or
without having a choice. He is very clearly involved in an absurdity; and
if he can read the three hundred pages of the Inquiry, without being
convinced of his error, his case must indeed be truly hopeless.

Edwards is far from being the only necessitarian who has fallen into the
error of identifying the sensibility with the will; thus reducing his
doctrine to an unassailable truism. In his famous controversy with Clarke,
Leibnitz has done the same thing. "Thus," says he, "in truth, the motives
comprehend all the dispositions which the mind can have to act
voluntarily; for they include not only reasons, but also the inclinations
and passions, or other preceding impressions. Wherefore if the mind should
prefer a weak inclination to a strong one, _it would act against itself,
and otherwise than it is disposed to act_."

Now is it not wonderful, that so profound a thinker, and so acute a
metaphysician, as Leibnitz, should have supposed that he was engaged in a
controversy to show that the mind never acts otherwise than it acts; that
it never acts against itself? Having reduced his doctrine to this truism,
he says, this "shows that the author's notions, contrary to mine, are
superficial, and appear to have no solidity in them, when they are well
considered." True, the notions of Clarke were superficial, and worse than
superficial, if he supposed that the mind ever acts contrary to its act,
or otherwise than it really acts. But Clarke distinguished between the
disposition and the will.

In like manner Thummig, the disciple of Leibnitz, has the following
language, as quoted by Sir William Hamilton: "It is to philosophize very
crudely concerning mind, and to image everything in a corporeal manner, to
conceive that actuating reasons are something external, which make an
impression on the mind, and _to distinguish motives from the active
principle itself_." Now this language, it seems, is found in Thummig's
defence of the last paper of Leibnitz (who died before the controversy was
terminated) against the answer of Clarke. But, surely, if it is a great
mistake, as the author insists it is, to distinguish motives from the
active principle itself; then to say that the active principle is
determined by motives, is to say that the active principle is determined
by itself. And having reached this point, th