N05663:43
A careful and strict enquiry into the modern prevailing notions of that freedom of…
A careful and strict enquiry into the modern prevailing notions of that freedom of will, which is supposed to be essential to moral agency, virtue and vice, reward and punishment, praise and blame. By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the church in Stockbridge. ; [One line from Romans]A careful and strict enquiry into the modern prevailing notions of that freedom of will, which is supposed to be essential to moral agency, vertue and vice, reward and punishment, praise and blame. By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the church in Stockbridge. ; [One line from Romans]
printed by S. Kneeland, 1754
Part 1 › Section 2: Concerning the Determination of the Will.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
2. When I say, the Will is as the greatest apparent Good is, or (as I have explained it) that Volition has always for its Object the Thing which appears most agreeable; it must be carefully observed, to avoid Confusion and needless Objection, that I speak of the direct and immediate Object of the Act of Volition; and not some Object that the Act of Will has not an immediate, but only an indirect and remote Respect to. Many Acts of Volition have some remote Relation to an Object, that is different from the Thing most immediately willed and chosen. Thus, when a Drunkard has his Liquor before him, & he has to choose whether to drink it, or no; the proper and immediate Objects, about which his present Volition is conversant, and between which his Choice now decides, are his own Acts, in drinking the Liquor, or letting it alone; and this will certainly be done according to what, in the present View of his Mind, taken in the whole of it, is most agreeable to him. If he chooses or wills to drink it, and not to let it alone; then this Action, as it stands in the View of his Mind, with all that belongs to its Appearance there, is more agreeable and pleasing than letting it alone.
2. When I say, the Will is as the greatest apparent Good is, or (as I have explain'd it) that Volition has always for its Object the Thing which appears most agreable; it must be carefully observed, to avoid Confusion and needless Objection, that I speak of the direct and immediate Object of the Act of Volition; and not some Object that the Act of Will has not an immediate, but only an indirect and remote Respect to. Many Acts of Volition have some remote Relation to an Object, that is different from the Thing most immediately will'd and chosen. Thus, when a Drunkard has his Liquor before him, & he has to chuse whether to drink it, or no; the proper and immediate Objects, about which his present Volition is conversant, and between which his Choice now decides, are his own Acts, in drinking the Liquor, or letting it alone; and this will certainly be done according to what, in the present View of his Mind, taken in the whole of it, is most agreable to him. If he chuses or wills to drink it, and not to let it alone; then this Action, as it stands in the View of his Mind, with all that belongs to its Appearance there, is more agreable and pleasing than letting it alone.