Page:A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty (3rd ed., 1735).djvu/65

 5. Lastly, a celebrat'd author seems to understand by liberty, a faculty, which, being indifferent to objects, and over-ruling our passions, appetites, sensations, and reason, chuses arbitrarily among objects; and renders the object chosen agreeable, only because it has chosen it.

My design here is to consider this definition, with the same view, that I have consider'd the several foregoing definitions, viz., to show, that liberty, inconsistent with necessity, however describ'd or defin'd, is an imperfection. Referring therefore my reader for a confutation of this new notion of liberty to the other parts of my book, wherein I have already prov'd, that the existence of such an arbitrary faculty is contrary to experience, and impossible; that our passions, appetites, sensations, and reason, determine us in our several choices; and that we chuse objects because they please us, and not as the author pretends, that objects please us, only because we chuse them: I proceed to show the imperfection of this last kind of liberty.

1. First, the pleasure or happiness accruing from the liberty here assert'd is less than accrues from the hypothesis of necessity. All