8. Liberty, what.
All the actions that we have any idea of reducing themselves, as has been said, to these two, viz.,
thinking and motion; so far as a man has power to think or not to think, to move or not to move, according to the
preference or direction of his own mind, so far is a man free. Wherever any performance or forbearance are not
equally in a man's power; wherever doing or not doing will not equally follow upon the preference of his mind
directing it, there he is not free, though perhaps the action may be voluntary. So that the idea of liberty is, the idea
of a power in any agent to do or forbear any particular action, according to the determination or thought of the
mind, whereby either of them is preferred to the other: where either of them is not in the power of the agent to be
produced by him according to his volition, there he is not at liberty; that agent is under necessity. So that liberty
cannot be where there is no thought, no volition, no will; but there may be thought, there may be will, there may
be volition, where there is no liberty. A little consideration of an obvious instance or two may make this clear.
