AN ESSAY. 487 wbat can possibly remain, but that the will of the wisest being must forbear to chase, at and determine at all, or else it must determine, clìhse and act of itself and from itself, Answer II. Let it be remembered here, what has been hint- ed in some of the former sections, that though the understanding and will are not improperly represented as two distinct powers of a spirit, yet they are not two distinct beings or substances : It is one and the saine spirit, the same intelligent and rational being that both understands and wills, that perceives the fitness or goodness of ,things, and that generally acts or chines accord- ing to this perception : And therefore this one spirit, this rational being which has the determining power as well as the perceptive power, and which properly determines and chu- tes as well as perceives, is no such blind agent as the objec- tion represents. And yet it must be acknowledged, that where the fitness or 'unfitness, the good or evil of things does not appear to this ra- tional being, or this spirit, where it can discover no superior fit- ness or. goodness, there it, must act by its own choice, and deter- mine itself as it pleases, when it has no other guide or rule for self-determination : And the matter of fact in many instances is so plain as not to be denied. When two cakes are set before a hungry man, in which no manner of difference appears either in the colour, situation, quantity or inviting qualities of them, it is indeed his hunger is the motive which really determines him to eatoneof them ; and it is a rational, and not ablind irrational action to take one of these cakes and eat it. The man is guided by reason, so far as reason can possibly guide him. But when rea- son utterly ceases to guide or direct the man, because of the equality of the two cakes, there it must be merely the self-mov- in; power or the will of this rational being which determines which of the two cakes he shall eat, because there is no superior motive or reason to chute one rather than the other. One might say the same concerning two new guineas, or new halfpence offered to our choice. In such a case, I plainly feel myself to determine my own choice in and of myself, and I aiu conscious Of no superior motive, I know of nothing without me that makes Me prefer one to the other : Now is it possiblethat I can be deter- mined by a superior motiveor moral cause, of which I have no manner of knowledge, no consciousness, no idea? Is this amo- tive? Is this suasion or moral casualty ! In this place I cannot forbear to cite what I have lately read upon my review of these essays, in the notes on Archbishop King's Treatise on the Origin of Evil : To argue still that some minute imperceptible causes, someparticular circumstances in our Own bodies, or thoseabout us, must determine even these seemingly¡ i'zdiferent actions, is either running into the absurdity of making
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