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

3. As the Word Necessity, in it's vulgar and common Use, is relative, and has always Reference to some supposable insufficient Opposition; so when we speak of any Thing as necessary to us, it is with Relation to some supposable Opposition of our Wills, or some voluntary Exertion or Effort of ours to the contrary. For we don't properly make Opposition to an Event, any otherwise than as we voluntarily oppose it. Things are said to be what must be, or necessarily are, as to us, when they are, or will be, tho' we desire or endeavour the contrary, or try to prevent or remove their Existence: But such Opposition of ours always either consists in, or implies Opposition of our Wills.

'Tis manifest that all such like Words & Phrases, as vulgarly used, are used and accepted in this Manner. A Thing is said to be necessary, when we can't help it, let us do what we will. So any Thing is said to be impossible to us, when we would do it, or would have it brought to pass, and endeavour it; or at least may be supposed to desire and seek it; but all our Desires and Endeavours are, or would be vain. And that is said to be irresistible, which overcomes all our Opposition, Resistance, and Endeavour to the contrary. And we are to be said Unable to do a Thing, when our supposable Desires and Endeavours to do it are insufficient.

We are accustomed, in the common Use of Language, to apply & understand these Phrases in this Sense: We grow up with such a Habit; which by the daily Use of these Terms, in such a Sense, from our Childhood, becomes fixed and settled; so that the Idea of a Relation to a supposed Will, Desire and Endeavour of ours, is strongly connected with ⟨p. 15⟩these Terms, and naturally excited in our Minds, whenever we hear the Words used. Such Ideas, and these Words, are so united and associated, that they unavoidably go together; one suggests the other, and carries the other with it, and never can be separated as long as we live. And if we use the Words, as Terms of Art, in another Sense, yet, unless we are exceeding circumspect and wary, we shall insensibly slide into the vulgar Use of them, and so apply the Words in a very inconsistent Manner: this habitual Connection of Ideas will deceive & confound us in our Reasonings & Discourses, wherein we pretend to use these Terms in that Manner, as Ter of Art.