gic is directed.

"If it were so," says he, "that things only of one kind, viz., acts of the
will, seemed to come to pass of themselves; and it were an event that was
continual, and that happened in a course whenever were found subjects
capable of such events; this very thing would demonstrate there was some
cause of them, which made such a difference between this event and others.
For contingency is blind, and does not pick and choose a particular sort
of events. Nothing has no choice. This no-cause, which causes no
existence, cannot cause the existence which comes to pass to be of one
particular sort only, distinguished from all others. Thus, that only one
sort of matter drops out of heaven, even water; and that this comes so
often, so constantly and plentifully, all over the world, in all ages,
shows that there is some cause or reason of the falling of water out of
the heavens, and that something besides mere contingence had a hand in the
matter."(114) We do not intend to comment on this passage; we merely wish
to advert to the fact, that it is a laboured and logical effort to
demolish the hypothesis that acts of the will do not bring themselves into
existence, and to show that there must be some antecedent to account for
their coming into being. We shall only add, "it is true that nothing has
no choice;" but who ever pretended to believe that _nothing_ puts forth
volitions? that there is no mind, no motive, no ground or reason of
volition? Is it not wonderful that the great metaphysician of New-England
should thus worry himself and exhaust his powers in grappling with shadows
and combatting dreams, which no sane man ever seriously entertained for a
moment?

"If we should suppose non-entity to be about to bring forth," he
continues, "and things were coming into existence without any cause or
_antecedent_ on which the existence, or kind or manner of existence
depends, or which could at all determine whether the things should be
stones or stems, or beasts or angels, or human bodies or souls, or only
some new motion or figure in natural bodies, or some new sensation in
animals, or new idea in the human understanding, or new volition in the
will, or anything else of all the infinite number of possibles,--then it
certainly would not be expected, although many millions of millions of
things were coming into existence in this manner all over the face of the
earth, that they should all be only of one particular kind, and tha