16. Powers, belonging to agents.
It is plain then that the will is nothing but one power or ability, and freedom
another power or ability so that, to ask, whether the will has freedom, is to ask whether one power has another
power, one ability another ability; a question at first sight too grossly absurd to make a dispute, or need an answer.
For, who is it that sees not that powers belong only to agents, and are attributes only of substances, and not of
powers themselves? So that this way of putting the question (viz., whether the will be free) is in effect to ask,
whether the will be a substance, an agent, or at least to suppose it, since freedom can properly be attributed to
nothing else. If freedom can with any propriety of speech be applied to power, it may be attributed to the power
that is in a man to produce, or forbear producing, motion in parts of his body, by choice or preference; which is
that which denominates him free, and is freedom itself. But if any one should ask, whether freedom were free, he
would be suspected not to understand well what he said; and he would be thought to deserve Midas's ears, who,
knowing that rich was a denomination for the possession of riches, should demand whether riches themselves
were rich.