464 FREEDOM Of WILL. And let 'it be considered, that if things be not as I have hers represented them, but if on the contrary the will cannot chuse vice unless the last dictate of the understanding determine that vice is atpresent the greatest apparent good, or vice is to be pre- ferred and pursued, and if then the will must obey the under- standing, and chuse sensual vices ; then there is no such thing as sin against the convictions of the mind, or the last dictates of the.understanding : which isa very absurd proposition, and con- trary to all experience ; and it frees the criminal from all blame. even in the sight of God whohas fordledhis nature and his powers in this connexion. 3. My last reason to prove that.the last dictate ofthe under-: standing, or thegreatest apparent good, does not always deter- mine the will, is, because sometimes two things are proposed to the will, wherein the understanding can give no dictate, because it sees no manner of difference, or at least no superior fitness, nor can possibly represent one as a greater good than another; and here the will cannot be determined by the' understanding. Of this I shall say more afterward. Other philosphers, and particularly Mr. Locke supposes uneasiness to be the great principle of all the determinations of the will. See his Essay, book II. chapter 21. section 29, 33- 39. But I-think it may be proved that the will is not always de- termined by some uneasiness, as I shall shew immediately : yet by the way I may take notice, that wheresoever uneasiness Both determine the will, this does very little differ from the former principle, viz. that it is determined by the greatest apparent good ; for this uneasiness proceeds, as Mr. Locke confesses,. from the absence of somenatural good ; and the will determines itself to pursue this absent good, in order to remove this uneasi- ness. Thus it is good apprehended by the mind in its last dic- tates, that in these cases is still supposed to determine and direct the will. Or thus : The removal of this present uneasiness is itself the greatest apparent good, and if the will be determined to act thus or thus for the removal of this present uneasiness, then it is still determined by the greatest apparent good. In the 33. and 42. section, Mr. Locke himself grants, that it is good that determines the will, though not immediately; and his doc- trine seems to bethis, viz. that good, as it is apt to produce ease and pleasure in ins, is the object of our.desire; and it is this de- sire of good, raised by the present uneasiness in the want of it, that determines the will. Does it not then follow, that uneasiness is the remote mover of the will, and desireof good the proxime mover of it ? I see no great difference betwixt this and the common opinion, norground enough for that great opposition between his doctrine in this point; and the common doctrine, which he seems to represent in two whole sections; for in the
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