Page:A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty (3rd ed., 1735).djvu/31

 strenuous Asserters of Liberty, as well as himself, are driven by these supposed difficulties, to deny manifest experience. I say, manifest experience, for are we not manifestly determin’d by pleasure or pain, and by what seems reasonable or unreasonable to us, to judge or will, or act? Whereas could they see that there are not grounds for laws and morality, rewards and punishments, but by supposing the doctrine of Necessity; and that there is no foundation for laws and morality, rewards and punishments, upon the supposition of a man’s being a free agent, (as shall evidently, and demonstratively appear) they would readily allow experience to be against Free-will, and deny Liberty, when they should see there was no need to assert it, in order to maintain those necessary things. And as a farther evidence thereof, let any man peruse the discourses written by the ablest authors for liberty, and he will see (as they confess of one another) that they frequently contradict themselves, write obscurely, and know not where to place Liberty; at least he will see that he is able to make nothing of their discourses, no more than Mr.