osition, to refer to the case of a caused life, in regard
to which, by universal consent, we do not and cannot act at all?

The younger Edwards asserts, that "to say that an agent that is acted upon
cannot act, is as groundless as to say that a body acted upon cannot
move." Again: "My actions are _mine_; but in what sense can they be
properly called mine, if I be not the efficient cause of them?--Answer: my
thoughts and all my perceptions and feelings are _mine_; yet it will not
be pretended that I am the efficient cause of them."(132) But in regard to
all our thoughts and feelings, we are, as we have seen, altogether
passive; and these are ours, because they are necessarily produced _in
us_. Is it only in this sense that our acts are ours? Are they ours only
because they are necessarily caused to exist in our minds? If so, then
indeed we understand these writers; but if they are not merely passive
impressions, why resort to states of the intelligence and the sensibility,
which are conceded to be passive, in order to illustrate the
reasonableness of their scheme, and to expose the unreasonableness of the
opposite doctrine? We admit that every passive impression is caused; but
the question is, Can the mind be caused to act? As we lay all the stress
on the _nature of an act_, as seen in the light of consciousness, what
does it signify to tell us that another thing, which possesses no such
nature, may be efficiently caused? All such illustrations overlook the
essential difference between action and passion, between _doing_ and
_suffering_.

Section VI.

The scheme of necessity is rendered plausible by a false phraseology.

The false psychology, of which we have spoken, has been greatly
strengthened and confirmed in its influences by the phraseology connected
with it. As Mr. Locke distinguished between will and desire, partially at
least, so he likewise distinguished a preference of the mind from a
volition. But President Edwards is not satisfied with this distinction.
"_The instance he mentions_," says Edwards, "does not prove there is
anything else in _willing_ but merely preferring."(133) This may be very
true; but is there nothing in willing, in _acting_, but merely
_preferring_? This last term, however it may be applied, seems better
adapted to express a state of the intelligence, than an act of the will.
Two objects are placed before the mind: one affects the sensibility in a