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

1. Moral Necessity may be as absolute, as natural Necessity. That is, the Effect may be as perfectly connected with its moral Cause, as a naturally necessary Effect is with it's natural Cause. Whether the Will in every Case is necessarily determined by the strongest Motive, or whether the Will ever makes any Resistance to such a Motive, or can ever oppose the strongest present Inclination, or not; if that Matter should be controverted, yet I suppose none will deny, but that, in ⟨p. 22⟩some Cases, a previous Bias and Inclination, or the Motive presented, may be so powerful, that the Act of the Will may be certainly and indissolubly connected therewith. When Motives or previous Bias are very strong, all will allow that there is some Difficulty in going against them. And if they were yet stronger, the Difficulty would be still greater. And therefore, if more were still added to their Strength, to a certain Degree, it would make the Difficulty so great, that it would be wholly impossible to surmount it; for this plain Reason, because whatever Power Men may be supposed to have to surmount Difficulties, yet that Power is not infinite; and so goes not beyond certain Limits. If a Man can surmount ten Degrees of Difficulty of this Kind, with twenty Degrees of Strength, because the Degrees of Strength are beyond the Degrees of Difficulty; yet if the Difficulty be increased to thirty, or an hundred, or a thousand Degrees, and his Strength not also increased, his Strength will be wholly insufficient to surmount the Difficulty. As therefore it must be allowed, that there may be such a Thing as a sure and perfect Connection between moral Causes and Effects; so this only is what I call by the Name of moral Necessity.

2. When I use this Distinction of moral and natural Necessity, I would not be understood to suppose, that if any Thing comes to pass by the former Kind of Necessity, the Nature of Things is not concerned in it, as well as in the latter. I don't mean to determine, that when a moral Habit or Motive is so strong, that the Act of the Will infallibly follows, this is not owing to the Nature of Things. But these are the Names that these two Kinds of Necessity have usually been called by; and they must be distinguished by some Names or other; for there is a Distinction or Difference between them, that is very important in its Consequences. Which Difference does not lie so much in the Nature of the Connection, as in the two Terms connected. The Cause with which the Effect is connected, is of a particular Kind; viz. that which is of a moral Nature; either some previous habitual Disposition, or some Motive exhibited to the Understanding. And the Effect is also of a particular Kind; being likewise of a moral Nature; consisting in some Inclination or Volition of the Soul, or voluntary Action.