12. Liberty, what.
As it is in the motions of the body, so it is in the thoughts of our minds: where any one is such,
that we have power to take it up, or lay it by, according to the preference of the mind, there we are at liberty. A
waking man, being under the necessity of having some ideas constantly in his mind, is not at liberty to think or
not to think; no more than he is at liberty, whether his body shall touch any other or no: but whether he will
remove his contemplation from one idea to another is many times in his choice; and then he is, in respect of his
ideas, as much at liberty as he is in respect of bodies he rests on; he can at pleasure remove himself from one to
another. But yet some ideas to the mind, like some motions to the body, are such as in certain circumstances it
cannot avoid, nor obtain their absence by the utmost effort it can use. A man on the rack is not at liberty to lay by
the idea of pain, and divert himself with other contemplations: and sometimes a boisterous passion hurries our
thoughts, as a hurricane does our bodies, without leaving us the liberty of thinking on other things, which we
would rather choose. But as soon as the mind regains the power to stop or continue, begin or forbear, any of these
motions of the body without, or thoughts within, according as it thinks fit to prefer either to the other, we then
consider the man as a free agent again.
