. . . But I expect, that the adversaries of this opinion will appeal back again to our own experience, and urge afresh, what? Do we not often find ourselves forced by the tyranny of ill men, and the overbearing torment of our own passions, and the strong bent of natural sympathies and antipathies? Do not these compel us to do and suffer many things against our wills; and such as no man in his senses would choose, if it were in his power to avoid?
To this my answer is still the same, that notwithstanding all this, our liberty is not destroyed, but the choice upon these occasions is still free, and our own. For here are two things proposed; and, though the side we take, be not eligible for its own sake, and when considered absolutely; yet it is so, with regard to the present straits we are in, and when compared with something which we avoid by this means; and for this reason it is, that we make choice of it.
And it is utterly impossible that a man should be carried to do anything without the consent of his own mind; For he, that does a thing without his own choice, is like a man thrust down a precipice by some stronger hand, which he cannot resist; and this person is at that time under the circumstance of an inanimate creature; he does not act at all, but is purely passive in the case. So that, when we really do act, though with never so great unwillingness and reluctancy, yet still we choose to act, after such and such a manner.
This is further evident from men’s own practice. For we find several persons take several ways, when yet the necessity that lies upon them is the same. Some choose to comply with what is imposed upon them, for fear of enduring some greater evil, if they refuse it; others again are peremptory in the refusing it, as looking upon such compliance to be a greater evil, than any punishment they can possibly undergo, upon account of their refusal. So that, even in those actions that seem most involuntary, there is still a place for liberty and choice.
For we must distinguish between what is voluntary, and what is free. That only is voluntary, which would be chosen for its own sake ; but that is free, which we have power to choose, not only for its own sake, but for the sake of avoiding some greater mischief.
And indeed, there are some cases, in which we find both something voluntary, and something involuntary meet. For which reason those are properly called mixed actions; that is, when what is eligible upon these occasions, is not simply and absolutely so, but carries something along with it, which we should never choose, if we could help it. And Homer very elegantly describes the perplexity of thought, this mixture of voluntariness and involuntariness, in the soul, when he say to this purpose,
Great strife in my divided breast I find, A will consenting, yet unwilling mind.
These things I thought fit rather to enlarge upon, because almost all the following book depends upon this distinction of the things in our own power: for, the design of it being wholly moral and instructive, he lays the true foundation here at first; and shows us, what we ought to place all our happiness and all our unhappiness in; and that, being at our own disposal, and endued with a principle of motion from within, we are to expect it all from our own actions.
For things that move mechanically and necessarily, as they drive their being from, so they owe all the good and evil they are capable of to, something else; they depend upon the impressions made upon them from without, both for the thing itself, and for the degree of it.
But those creatures, which act freely, and are themselves the cause of their own motions and operations, receive all their good and evil from these operations. Now these operations, properly speaking, with regard to knowledge and speculative matters, are their opinions and apprehensions of things; but with regard to desirable objects, and matters of practice, they are the appetites, and aversions, and the affections of the soul.
When therefore we have just ideas, and our notions agree with the things themselves; and when we apply our desires and our aversions to such objects, and in such measures, as we ought to do; then we are properly happy, and attain to that perfection, which nature has designed us for, and made peculiar to us: but when we fail in these matters, then we fail of that happiness and perfection too.
Now by our own actions, I mean such, as are wrought by ourselves only, and need nothing more to effect them, but our own choice. For as to actions that concern things without us, such as sciences and trades, and supplying the necessities of human life, and the making ourselves masters of knowledge, and the instructing others in it, or any other employments and professions of credit and reputation in the world; these are not entirely in our own power, but require many helps and external advantages, in order to the compassing of them.
But the regulating of our opinions, and our own choices, is properly and entirely our own work, and stands in need of no foreign assistances. So that our good and evil depend on ourselves; for this we may be sure of, that no man is accountable for those things, that do not come within the compass of his own power. . . .
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