for which he is designed; and that in this, as in every other respect, the Creator has acted with wonderful wisdom.

X. After what has been said concerning the nature, operations, and use of liberty, it may seem perhaps unnecessary to attempt here to prove that man is indeed a free agent, and that we are as really invested with this as with an other faculty.

Nevertheless, as it is an essential principle, and one of the fundamental supports of our edifice, it is proper to make the reader sensible of the indubitable proof with which we are furnished by daily experience. Let us therefore consult only ourselves. Every one finds that he is master, for instance, to walk or sit, to speak or hold his tongue. Do not we also experience continually, that it depends entirely on ourselves to suspend our judgment, in order to proceed to a new inquiry? Can any one seriously deny, that in the choice of good and evil our resolutions are unconstrained; that, notwithstanding the first impression, we have it in our power to stop of a sudden, to weigh the arguments on both sides, and to do, in short, whatever can be expected from the freest agent? Were I invincibly drawn towards one particular good rather than another, I should feel then the same impression as that which inclines me to good in general, that is, an impression that would necessarily drag

CHAPTER VI.

OF CAUSE AND EFFECT.

I HAVE alread explained the sense in which I use the terms, cause and effect. Here I would consider the sense in which they are used by *President Edwards, in his works on the Freedom of the Will. In page 53d he says, "Before I enter on my argument on this subject, I would explain how I would be understood, when I use the word cause in this discourse: since for want of a better word, I shall have occasion to use it in a sense, which is more extensive, than that in which it is sometimes used. The word is often used in so restrained a sense as to signify only that which has a positive efficiency or influence to produce a thing, or bring it to pass. But there are many things, which have no such positive productive influence;

*Note. When I speak of President Edwards, or Mr. Ed, wards, I mean Jonathan Edwards, the first President; and I refer only to his book called, Freedom of the Will.

which yet are causes in that respect, that they have truly the nature of a ground or reason why some things are rather than others; or why they are as they are, rather than otherwise. Thus the absence of the sun in the night, is not the cause of the falling of dew at that time, in the same manner as its beams are the cause of the ascending of the vapours in the day time; and its withdrawment in the winter, is not in the same manner the cause of freezing of waters, as its approach in the spring is the cause of their thawing. But yet the withdrawment or absence of the sun is an antecedent, with which these effects in the night and winter are connected, and on which they depend; and is one thing that belongs to the ground and reason, why they come to pass at that time, rather than at other times; though the absence of the sun is nothing positive, nor has any positive influence.

It may be further observed, that when I speak of connexion of causes and effects, I have respect to moral causes, as well as those that are called natural in distinction from them. Moral causes may be causes in as proper a sense, as any causes whatever; may have as real an influence, and may as truly be the ground, and reason of an event's coming to pass. Therefore, I sometimes use the word, cause, in this inquiry, to signify any antecedent, either natural or moral; positive, or

negative, on which an event, either a thing, er the manner and circumstance of a thing, so depends, that it is the ground and reason, either in whole or in part, why it is, rather than not; or why it is as it is, rather than otherwise; or in other words, any antecedent with which a consequent event is so connected, that it belongs to the reason, why the proposition, which affirms that event is true; whether it has any positive influence or not. And in agreeableness to this, I sometimes use the word, effect, for the consequence of another thing, which is perhaps rather an occasion than a cause, more properly speaking.

I am more careful to explain my meaning that I may cut off occasion, from any that might seek occasion to cavil and object against some things which I might say concerning the dependence, of all things which come to pass, on some cause, and their connexion with their cause.

Having thus explained what I mean by cause, I assert that nothing ever comes to pass without a cause." Free Will, 54, 5.

After this definition of cause and effect, Mr. Edwards could safely assert, that "nothing ever comes to pass without a cause; for this was only to say that every thing has a positive, or negative cause. By positive cause he means that which produces an effect; and by a negative cause, that

which does not produce an effect; but is an antecedent. But I believe if the sun be the cause of waters freezing, in the sense I use the word, cause, and as it is generally understood, there could be no more freezing of waters in the winter, without the efficiency of the sun to produce it, than there could be motion in the last link of a chain, when the other links are at rest. If the sun when absent has no positive influence on the waters, when they freeze, it has no influence; for a negative influence is the same as no influence at all: if then freezing be an effect it must have a positive productive cause. So if freezing be connected with and dependent on the withdrawment or absence of the sun, and there be nothing positive in the withdrawment or absence, then freezing is connected with, and dependent on a negative, which is the same as having no connexion nor dependence. I hold that waters freeze whenever there is a positive cause operating sufficient to make them freeze, and at no other time. To say freezing has only a negative cause, is to say it has no cause at all, consequently it is no effect.

I should imagine, that enough is said 40 establish the point, that the human mind wills with liberty; but it is not enough, if our volitions be effec's.Therefore, it is necessary to examine whether