Page:The Works of John Locke - 1823 - vol 01.djvu/325

Ch. 21 the turn: and it passes for a good plea, that a man is not free at all, if he be not as free to will as he is to act what he wills. Concerning a man's liberty, there yet therefore is raised this farther question. Whether a man be free to will? which I think is what is meant, when it is disputed whether the will be free. And as to that I imagine,

§ 23. That willing, or volition, being an action, and freedom consisting in a power of acting or not acting, a man in respect of willing, or the act of volition, when any action in his power is once proposed to his thoughts as presently to be done, cannot be free. The reason whereof is very manifest: for it being unavoidable that the action depending on his will should exist or not exist;—and its existence, or not existence, following perfectly the determination and preference of his will;—he cannot avoid willing the existence or not existence of that action; it is absolutely necessary that he will the one or the other; i. e. prefer the one to the other: since one of them must necessarily follow; and that which does follow, follows by the choice and determination of his mind, that is, by his willing it: for if he did not will it, it would not be. So that in respect of the act of willing, a man in such a case is not free: liberty consisting in a power to act, or not to act; which, in regard of volition, a man, upon such a proposal, has not. For it is unavoidably necessary to prefer the doing or forbearance of an action in a man's power, which is once so proposed to his thoughts; a man must necessarily will the one or the other of them, upon which preference or volition the action or its forbearance certainly follows, and is truly voluntary. But the act of volition, or preferring one of the two, being that which he cannot avoid, a man in respect of that act of willing is under a necessity, and so cannot be free; unless necessity and freedom can consist together, and a man can be free and bound at once.

§ 24. This then is evident, that in all proposals of present action, a man is not at liberty to will or not to