esistible power working within
his mind, say the power of the Almighty, yet he would be free, provided
there were no impediments to prevent the external effects of his
volitions. This is the liberty which water, impelled by the power of
gravity, possesses in descending the channel of a river. It is the liberty
of the winds and waves of the sea, which, by a sort of metaphor, is
supposed to reign over the dominions of a mechanical and materialistic
fate. It is the most idle of all idle things to speak of such a liberty,
_or rather, to use the word in such a sense_, when the controversy relates
to the freedom of the mind itself. What has such a thing to do with the
origin of human volitions, or the nature of moral agency? Is there no
difference between the motion of the body and the action of mind? Or is
there nothing in the universe of God but mere body and local motion? If
there is not, then, indeed, we neither have nor can conceive any higher
liberty than that which the philosopher is pleased to allow us to possess;
but if there be mind, then there may be things in heaven and earth which
are not dreamed of in his philosophy.

The definition which Collins, the disciple of Hobbes, has given of
liberty, is the same as that of his master. "I contend," says he, "for
liberty, as it signifies a power in man to do as he wills or pleases." The
doing here refers to the external action, which, properly speaking, is not
an act at all, but merely a change of state in the body. The body merely
_suffers_ a change of place and position, in obedience to the act of the
will; it does not act, nor can it act, because it is passive in its
nature. To _do_ as one wills, in this sense, is a freedom of the body from
co-action; it is not a freedom of the will from internal necessity.
Collins says this is "a valuable liberty," and he says truly; for if one
were thrown into prison, he could not go wherever he might please, or do
as he might will. But the imprisonment of the body does not prevent a man
from being a free-agent. He also tells us truly, that "many philosophers
and theologians, both ancient and modern, have given definitions of
liberty that are consistent with fate and necessity." But then, their
definitions, like his own, had no reference to the acts of the mind, but
to the motions of the body; and it is a grand irrelevancy, we repeat, to
speak of such a thing, when the question relates, not to the freedom of
the body, but the freedom