300 PHILOSOPHY OF ZOOLOGY. 
we presume none will deny. According to this view of 
the subject,. we can account for the great diversity of ac- 
tion among individuals, placed in similar external cir- 
cumstances. The external impressions may be the same ; 
but these, being subjected to different treatment during 
the process of reflection, by minds whose notions of truth 
or duty, (acquired under the influence of attention,) are 
not in unison, the resulting motives and consequent actions 
will be dissimilar. We urge, likewise, in support of this 
view of the subject, the pleasure which the mind feels upon 
acting agrecably to its rules of truth or duty, and the pain 
which accompanies their violation ;—the former being the 
proof that the action was agreeable to the constitution of 
our minds; the latter, that it was repugnant. Yet such 
transgressions with regard to our intellectual rules, are but 
too frequent; while similar violations of the rules of our 
constitution, in the case of sleeping, eating, or any of our 
instinctive powers, are seldom observed. Is there a differ- 
ence in the degree of restraint which we can exercise over 
the instinctive, when compared with the intellectual powers ? 
It appears probable, that, in reasoning upon this subject, - 
moral philosophers have seldom drawn a line of distinction 
between the exercise of the will, when directed. to the mtel- 
lectual, and when directed to the instinctive powers. The 
supporters of the doctrine of Free Agency usually derive all 
their arguments from the characters of the former ; while 
the Necessitavians rest their proofs on the powerful influence 
of the latter. It is to a want of attention to the bearings of 
the question, joined to the sophistry of words, that we can 
trace much of that difference of opinion which prevails on 
this. subject. 
From the preceding observations, the reader may per- 
ceive, that while we contend for the existence of free agency 
in all the processes about which our intellectual faculties 
are emploved, we are disposed to admit that its influence 
