49S A BRIEF SOMME OF ONTOLOGY. impression be made or no; or when a child honours his father, the father is the patient in a philosopical sense, and the child the agent. Here it is proper to introduce all the needful distinctions of action. (l.) It is immanent or transient. (2.) It is natural, supernatural, voluntary, or accidental. (3.) It is necessary or free. 1. Immanent action has no different patient but continues in the agent ; se a man forms ideas, or he loves himself. Transient action passes over to some other object as a patient : So a man draws a picture on a canvas So a father loves his son, and feeds or clothes him. 2. Natural action; so the fire hardens clay. Supernatural action ; so Elishamade iron swim by casting a stick into the wa- ter. Voluntary action; so the potter moulds his clay into a ves- sel. Accidental action; so a servant heedlessly throws down a glass and breaks it. 3. Necessary action ; so the sun warms the earth ; free action; so man chuses what food he likes and eats it when he pleases. Note, Necessaryagents act always, and that to the utmost of their power, i. e. when things requisite to their agency are present : But free agents act what, and when, and as far as they will. Perhaps the doctrine of liberty and necessity might be here properly inserted. We have already spoken of necessity of ex- istence as it is opposed to contingency : Herenecessity of action stands rather distinguished from freedom or liberty, yet is not universally and utterly inconsistent with it, as will appear in what follows. Necessity has been before distinguished into natural, moral, and logical. See chap. iii. Natural necessity is either internal or external. Internal necessity is that which arises from the very nature of the thing itself, so a sensible being seeks its own pre- servation, a fish avoids dry land, and a fox the water, and lead sinks in the sea : That necessity is external which arises from some outward force of restraint or constraint; so lead is up- held on the surface of the water ; so a fox is driven into the sea, or a fish drawn in a net to land, and so a man is con- strained to wound himself. This is sometimes called a forcible, necessity. Liberty is applied to the will, or to the inferior and execu- tive powers. The will is always free in its choice of what it likes : The lower powers are not always free to act or do what the will chases. A man close fettered cannot walk, nor can he fight when his hands are tied, though he may will or chose to do it. On this account freedom is better described by chasing than by acting.
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