Page:A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty (3rd ed., 1735).djvu/100

 stent with the doctrine of necessity, that the said natural power to do the contrary, or to hurt or destroy himself, is a consequence of the doctrine of necessity. For, if man is necessarily determin’d by particular moral causes, and cannot then possibly act contrary to what he does; he must under opposite moral causes, have a power to do the contrary. Man, as determin’d by moral causes, cannot possibly choose evil as evil, and by consequence chooses life before death, while he apprehends life to be a good, and death to be an evil; as, on the contrary, he chooses death before life, while he apprehends death to be a good, and life to be an evil. And thus moral causes, by being different from one another or differently understood, do determine men differently; and by consequence suppose a natural power to choose and act as differently, as those causes differently determine them.

If therefore men will be govern’d by authority in the questions before us, let them sum up the real asserters of the liberty of man, and they will find them