3o6 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



whence the motives come that influence our will, but whether they do 

 it neceirarily or not ? Now, I fay, that motives, from whencefoever 

 they come, or however fuggefled, do neceflarily determine the will ; 

 nor is it poffible to conceive it otherwife determined. 



In this doc5lrine oi free ivili and nccejfity^ I am glad to find, that I 

 agree, in the main, with that great metaphyfician, whom I have fo of- 

 ten quoted, Dr Samuel Clarke, in his remarks on a book entitled, ' A 

 * Ph'ilojoph'ical Enquiry into Human Liberty,^ He maintains, as I do, 

 that iv'ill is, by its nature and effence, free^ and that it is a contradic- 

 tion in terms to fuppofe an adion proceeding from iJoilU that is a «i;(9- 

 hintary adion, not to htfree. As to necefftty, he makes a diftindion 

 betwixt the judgment of the mind, the refolution to ad, and con- 

 fequent adion. In judgment, he fays, the mind is paffive, and is as 

 neceflarily determined by what appears the better reafon, and the 

 weightier motive, as the fcale of the balance is weighed down by the 

 greater weight. But, with regard to refolution and adion, the mind is 

 adive, not paifive ; and, for that reafon, there can be no neceflity in the 

 cafe. But this appears to me to be a diftindion without a difference ; 

 for the mind is adive in all its operations, as much when it affents to 

 any propofition, as when it refolves and ads in confequence of that 

 allent ; for adion and energy are of the effence of mind. The Su- 

 preme Mind we can have no conception of, without conftant and un- 



ceafing 



power. Thus, Homer j in the beginning of the Iliad, tells us, that Juno infpired A- 



chillcs with the thought of calling an aflcnably of the Greeks, to deliberate how the 

 plague tvas to be (lopped : 



In the fame manner, iEneas, in the i2th ALnck], is infpired by his mother with 

 the thought of attacking the city of Laurcntum : 



Hie mentem iEneae genetrix puicherrima mifit, 

 Iret ut ad muios, urbique adveiteret agnien. 



