Page:A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty (Foote).djvu/56

 5. Lastly, a celebrated author seems to understand by Liberty, a faculty, which being indifferent to objects, and over-ruling our passions, appetites, sensations, and reason, chooses 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 considered the several foregoing definitions, viz., to show that Liberty, inconsistent with Necessity, however described or defined, 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 proved 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 choose objects because they please us, and not as the author pretends, that objects please us only because we choose them: I proceed to show the imperfection of this last kind of Liberty.

1. First, the pleasure ofor [sic] happiness accruing from the Liberty here asserted is less than accrues from the hypothesis of Necessity.

All the pleasure and happiness said to attend this pretended Liberty consists wholly in creating pleasure and happiness by choosing objects.

Now man, considered as an intelligent necessary agent, would no less create this pleasure and happiness to himself by choosing objects, than a being endued with the said faculty: if it be true in fact, that things please us because we choose them.

But man, as an intelligent necessary agent, has these further pleasures and advantages. He, by not being indifferent to objects, is moved by the goodness and agreeableness of them as they appear to him, and as he knows them by reflection and experience. It is not in his power to be indifferent to what causes pleasure or pain. He cannot resist the pleasure