seeming experience on their side, and are thereby very numerous;[1] They, as he observes, allege one thing of moment in which they triumph, viz. “that the will is determin’d by the understanding: and assert, that unless it were so; the will would be a blind faculty, and might make evil, as evil, its object; and reject what is pleasant and agreeable: And by consequence, that all persuasions, promises, reasonings and threats, would be as useless to a Man as to a stock or a stone.” This, he allows to be very plausible, and to have the appearance of probability; to be the common sentiment of the schools; to be the rock on which the ablest defenders of liberty have split, without being able to answer it; and to be the reason, or argument (or rather the matter of experience) which has made men in all ages, and not a few in this age, fall into the opinion of the fatal necessity of all things. But because it makes all our actions necessary, and thereby, in his opinion, subverts all religion, laws, rewards and punishments; he concludes it to be most certainly false: and religion makes him quit this common and plausible opinion. Thus also many other
- ↑ Opera Vol. I. p. 198, 199, 200.
