Page:A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty (3rd ed., 1735).djvu/62

 ances of things, and few on the evident appearance of things. And therefore, if we could judge, that what appears probable, is not probable but improbable or false; we should be without the best rule of action and assent, we can have.

2. Were liberty defin’d, a power to overcome our reason by the force of choice, as a celebrat’d Author may be suppos’d to mean, when he says, the will seems to have so great a power over the understanding being over-rul’d by the election of the will, not only takes what is good to be evil, but is also compelled to admit what is false to be true; man would, with the exercise of such a power, be the most irrational and inconsistent being, and by consequence the most imperfect understanding being which can be conceiv’d. For what can be more irrational and inconsistent, than to be able to refuse our assent to what is evidently true to us, and to assent to what we see to be evidently false, and thereby inwardly give the lye to the understanding?

3. Were liberty defin’d, a power to will evil (knowing it to be evil) as well as good; that would be an Imperfection in