of the understanding; and that, when two objects are presented to man’s choice, one whereof appears better than the other, he cannot choose the worst; that is, cannot choose evil as evil. And since they acknowledge these things to be true, they yield up the question of liberty to their adversaries, who only contend, that the will or choice is always determin’d by what seems best. I will give my reader one example thereof in the most acute and ingenious Dr. Clarke, whose authority is equal to that of many others put together, and makes it needless to cite others after him. He asserts[1] that the will is determin’d by moral motives, and calls the necessity, by which a man chooses in virtue of those motives, moral necessity. And he explains himself with his usual candor and perspicuity by the following instance. A man, says he, entirely free from all pain of body and disorder of mind, judges it unreasonable for him to hurt or destroy himself; and being under no temptation or external violence, he cannot possibly act contrary to this judgment; not because he wants a natural or physical power so to do, but because it
- ↑ Demonst. of the Being and Attribut. of God, p. 105. of the 4th Edition 1716.
