The only method of
undeceiving us is to mount up higher; to examine the narrow extent
of science when applied to material causes; and to convince
ourselves that all we know of them is the constant conjunction and
inference above mentioned. We may, perhaps, find that it is with
difficulty we are induced to fix such narrow limits to human
understanding: But we can afterwards find no difficulty when we come
to apply this doctrine to the actions of the will. For as it is
evident that these have a regular conjunction with motives and
circumstances and characters, and as we always draw inferences from
one to the other, we must be obliged to acknowledge in words that
necessity, which we have already avowed, in every deliberation of
our lives, and in every step of our conduct and behaviour.*
* The prevalence of the doctrine of liberty may be accounted for,
from another cause, viz. a false sensation or seeming experience which
we have, or may have, of liberty or indifference, in many of our
actions. The necessity of any action, whether of matter or of mind, is
not, properly speaking, a quality in the agent, but in any thinking or
intelligent being, who may consider the action; and it consists
chiefly in the determination of his thoughts to infer the existence of
that action from some preceding objects; as liberty, when opposed to
necessity, is nothing but the want of that determination, and a
certain looseness or indifference, which we feel, in passing, or not
passing, from the idea of one object to that of any succeeding one.
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