Page:A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty (3rd ed., 1735).djvu/82

 pleasure and pain, rightly understood and apprehended. But if man be indifferent to pleasure and pain, or is not duly affected with them; he cannot know what morality is, nor distinguish it from immorality, nor have any motive to practise morality, and abstain from immorality; and will be equally indifferent to morality and immorality, or virtue and vice. Man in his present condition is sufficiently immoral by mistaking pain for pleasure, and thereby judging, willing, and practising amiss: but if he was indifferent to pleasure and pain, he would have no rule to go by, and might never judge, will, and practise right.

Tho’ I conceive I have so proposed my arguments, as to have obviated most of the plausible objections usually urg’d against the doctrine of necessity; yet it may not be improper to give a particular solution to the principal of them.

I. First then it is objected, that if men are necessary agents and do commit necessarily all breaches of the law, it would be unjust to punish them for doing what they cannot avoid doing.