Page:A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty (3rd ed., 1735).djvu/46

 absurd as to say that men did evil voluntarily; and he asserts, that it is contrary to the nature of man, to follow evil, as evil, and not pursue good; and that when a man is compell’d to chuse between two evils, you will never find a man who chuses the greatest, if it is in his power to chuse the less; and that this is a truth manifest to all. And even the greatest modern advocates for liberty allow, that whatever the will chuseth, it chuseth under the notion of good; and that the object of the will is good in general, which is the end of all human actions.

This I take to be sufficient to shew, that man is not at liberty to will one or the other of two or more objects, between which (all things consider’d) he perceives a difference; and to account truly for all the choices of that kind, which can be assign’d.

But, secondly, some of the patrons of liberty contend, that we are free in our choice among things indifferent, or alike, as in chusing one out of two or more eggs; and that in such cases the man, having no motives from the objects, is not necessitated to chuse one rather than the other, because there is no per-