17. How the will, instead of the man, is called free.
However, the name faculty, which men have given to this
power called the will, and whereby they have been led into a way of talking of the will as acting, may, by an
appropriation that disguises its true sense, serve a little to palliate the absurdity; yet the will, in truth, signifies
nothing but a power or ability to prefer or choose: and when the will, under the name of a faculty, is considered as
it is, barely as an ability to do something, the absurdity in saying it is free, or not free, will easily discover itself
For, if it be reasonable to suppose and talk of faculties as distinct beings that can act, (as we do, when we say the
will orders, and the will is free,) it is fit that we should make a speaking faculty, and a walking faculty, and a
dancing faculty, by which these actions are produced, which are but several modes of motion; as well as we make
the will and understanding to be faculties, by which the actions of choosing and perceiving are produced, which
are but several modes of thinking. And we may as properly say that it is the singing faculty sings, and the dancing
faculty dances, as that the will chooses, or that the understanding conceives; or, as is usual, that the will directs the
understanding, or the understanding obeys or obeys not the will: it being altogether as proper and intelligible to
say that the power of speaking directs the power of singing, or the power of singing obeys or disobeys the power
of speaking.