23. How a man cannot be free to will.
Secondly, 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 non-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. Besides to make a man free after this manner, by
making the action of willing to depend on his will, there must be another antecedent will, to determine the acts of
this will, and another to determine that, and so in infinitum: for wherever one stops, the actions of the last will
cannot be free. Nor is any being, as far I can comprehend beings above me, capable of such a freedom of will, that
it can forbear to will, i.e., to prefer the being or not being of anything in its power, which it has once considered as
such.
