73. Recapitulation--liberty of indifferency.
To conclude this inquiry into human liberty, which, as it stood before,
I myself from the beginning fearing, and a very judicious friend of mine, since the publication, suspecting to have
some mistake in it, though he could not particularly show it me, I was put upon a stricter review of this chapter.
Wherein lighting upon a very easy and scarce observable slip I had made, in putting one seemingly indifferent
word for another that discovery opened to me this present view, which here, in this second edition, I submit to the
learned world, and which, in short, is this: Liberty is a power to act or not to act, according as the mind directs. A
power to direct the operative faculties to motion or rest in particular instances is that which we call the will. That
which in the train of our voluntary actions determines the will to any change of operation is some present
uneasiness, which is, or at least is always accompanied with that of desire. Desire is always moved by evil, to fly
it: because a total freedom from pain always makes a necessary part of our happiness: but every good, nay, every
greater good, does not constantly move desire, because it may not make, or may not be taken to make, part of our
happiness. For all that we desire, is only to be happy. But, though this general desire of happiness operates
constantly and invariably, yet the satisfaction of any particular desire can be suspended from determining the will
to any subservient action, till we have maturely examined whether the particular apparent good which we then
desire makes a part of our real happiness, or be consistent or inconsistent with it. The result of our judgment upon
that examination is what ultimately determines the man; who could not be free if his will were determined by
anything but his own desire, guided by his own judgment. I know that liberty, by some, is placed in an
indifferency of the man; antecedent to the determination of his will. I wish they who lay so much stress on such an
antecedent indifferency, as they call it, had told us plainly, whether this supposed indifferency be antecedent to
the thought and judgment of the understanding, as well as to the decree of the will. For it is pretty hard to state it
between them, i.e., immediately after the judgment of the understanding, and before the determination of the will:
because the determination of the will immediately follows the judgment of the understanding: and to place liberty
in an indifferency, antecedent to the thought and judgment of the understanding, seems to me to place liberty in a
state of darkness, wherein we can neither see nor say anything of it; at least it places it in a subject incapable of it,
no agent being allowed capable of liberty, but in consequence of thought and judgment. I am not nice about
phrases, and therefore consent to say with those that love to speak so, that liberty is placed in indifferency, but it is
an indifferency which remains after the judgment of the understanding, yea, even after the determination of the
will: and that is an indifferency not of the man, (for after he has once judged which is best, viz., to do or forbear,
he is no longer indifferent,) but an indifferency of the operative powers of the man, which remaining equally able
to operate or to forbear operating after as before the decree of the will, are in a state, which, if one pleases, may be
called indifferency; and as far as this indifferency reaches, a man is free, and no further: v.g. I have the ability to
move my hand, or to let it rest; that operative power is indifferent to move or not to move my hand. I am then, in
that respect perfectly free; my will determines that operative power to rest: I am yet free, because the indifferency
of that my operative power to act, or not to act, still remains; the power of moving my hand is not at all impaired
by the determination of my will, which at present orders rest; the indifferency of that power to act, or not to act, is
just as it was before, as will appear, if the will puts it to the trial, by ordering the contrary. But if, during the rest of
my hand, it be seized with a sudden palsy, the indifferency of that operative power is gone, and with it my liberty;
I have no longer freedom in that respect, but am under a necessity of letting my hand rest. On the other side, if my
hand be put into motion by a convulsion, the indifferency of that operative faculty is taken away by that motion;
and my liberty in that case is lost, for I am under a necessity of having my hand move. I have added this, to show
in what sort of indifferency liberty seems to me to consist, and not in any other, real or imaginary.
