472 REMARKS ON MR. LOCKE'S ESSAY. and cannot be an attribute; or modification, or power of the will, which is also but a power. But in answer to this I would say, That perhaps in strict and philosophic speech it may be better to say, The nnan, or the soul is free, yet sine this is the common language of men, and the usual way of speaking on this subject, and since this way of speaking, viz. ascribing liberty to the will, has no such tendency to lead one to mistaken ideas, (if the nature of the soul be but a little explained, and the powers of it proved not to be two distinct beings or substances) I can see no necessity that a philosopher should change the common forms of speech : And notwithstanding all that Mr. Locke has said, I see no impro- priety in asking, Whether the will befree or no, or in attributing liberty to the will, since it signifies no more than if we enquired, Whether the mind in its volitions is free to will or not ? And to will this or that ? Common forms of speech should not be renounced and abandoned without evident necessity, and Mr. Locke awns this is the meaning of the question in the latter end of section 22. There is another objection which Mr. Locke raises against the ascribing freedom to the will, (viz.) " That a man in respect of the act of volition, when any action in his power is once proposed to his thoughts, as a thing presently to be done, caunbt be free ;" for he must will to do it, or to neglect and omit it; and being under this necessity to exert some volition about it, the will is not free, i. e. the man is not free whether to will or not. But I think this is a mere fallacy, for the question is not whether the than can abstain from all volitions in general, but whether the will can determine itself to chuse or refuse this or that object or act proposed. It is not whether he can neither chose nor refuse, but whether he 'can either chase or refuse ? For it is this that spews the freedom of t é will: And I would remark here, ás I have found sometimes occasion to do, that It is possible for a Vast and sagacious genius to be not always the fairest disputant; the raisinga cloud of dust will sometimes evade the true question, and appear tei gain the victory, when the disputant only bidet himself. The debates of Mr. Locke relating to the principle or cause which determines the will to act, and other things relating to that itnportant question are-set, I think, in so clear a light in a late Essay of the Freedom of Will in Godand Man, that I chuse to remit my reader to that little book. SECT. VÍ. -Of complex Ideas, andmixed Modes. IN the 12t1í chapter of the second book of Mr. Loéke's 43say on the Understanding, in the 18th, 24th, and several
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