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" ihe fccrct oppofition of contrary caufes," he muft, if he be 

 confiflent, " apply the fame reaibning to the anions and voli- 

 " tions of intelligent agents." This, however, appears to !;e 

 merely what logicians call begging the qtiejlion. The queflion is, 

 whether human adions are regulated by the fame neceffity vvhich 

 conneds material caufes and cfFeds ? The proof is, that we 

 ought to argue about the former on the fame principle as about 

 the latter. But Mr. Hume feems confcious that he had in this 

 inftance unfairly begged the queftion, for in the words immedi- 

 ately following he renounces his advantage by giving up the 

 queftion : " Or even," he fays, " when an adion, as fometimes 

 " happens, cannot be particularly accounted for, cither by the 

 " perfon himfelf or others, we know, in general, that the cha- 

 " raders of men are, to a certain degree, inconftant and irregular. 

 " This is in a manner the conftant charader of human nature ; 

 " though it be applicable in a more particular manner to fome 

 " perfons who have no fixed rule for their condud, but proceed 

 " in a continued courfe of caprice and inconftancy." In thefe 

 words he appears to me to abandon his firft principle, that the 

 fame motives always produce the fame a&ions ; to acknowledge that 

 there is in all, but more particularly in fome men, an incon- 

 ftancy of chara6ler which renders it impoffible to account for 

 their condu6t in all cafes, and confequently to leave the queftion 

 of neceflity in its original uncertainty. 



The dodrine of liberty has lately been maintained by Dodor 

 Gregory, who has undertaken to eftablifh it, by proving, on phyfi- 

 cal and mathematical principles, that the dodrine of Neceftlty is 

 abfurd. The dodrine of Neceflity, as he has ftated it, he has, I 



think, 



