A careful and strict enquiry into the modern prevailing notions of that freedom of…

Now the Question is, whether ever the Soul of Man puts forth any Act of Will, while it yet remains in a State of Liberty, in that Notion of a State of Liberty, viz. as implying a State of Indifference; or whether the Soul ever exerts an Act of Choice or Preference, while at that very Time the Will is in a perfect Equilibrium, not inclining one Way more than another. The very putting of the Question is sufficient to show the Absurdity of the affirmative Answer: For how ridiculous would it be for any Body to insist, that the Soul chooses one Thing before another, when at the very same Instant it is perfectly indifferent with Respect to each! This is the same Thing as to say, the Soul prefers one Thing to another, at the very same Time that it has no Preference.— Choice and Preference can no more be in a ⟨p. 68⟩State of Indifference, than Motion can be in a State of Rest, or than the Preponderation of the Scale of a Balance can be in a State of Equilibrium, Motion may be the next Moment a•te• Re••; but can't co-exist with it, in any, even the least Part of it. So Choice may be immediately after a State of Indifference, but has no Co-existence wi•h it: Even the very Beginning of it is not in a State of Indifference. And therefore if this be Liberty, no Act of the Will, in any Degree, is ever performed in a State of Liberty, or in the Time of Liberty. Volition and Liberty are so far from agreeing together, and being essential one to another, that they are contrary one to another, and one excludes and destroys the other, as much as Motion and Rest, Light and Darkness, or Life & Death. So that the Will acts not at all, does not so much as begin to act in the Time of such Liberty: Freedom is perfectly at an End, and has ceased to be, at the first Moment of Action; and therefore Liberty can't reach the Action, to affect, or qualify it, or give it a Denomination, or any Part of it, any more than if it had ceased to be twenty Years before the Action began. The Moment that Liberty ceases to be, it ceases to be a Qualification of any Thing. If Light and Darkness succeed one another instantaneously, Light qualifies Nothing after it is gone out, to make any thing lightsome or bright, any more at the first Moment of perfect Darkness, than Months or Years after. Life denominates Nothing vital at the first Moment of perfect Death.