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.

13.  Wherever thought is wholly wanting, or the power to act or forbear according to the direction of thought, there necessity takes place.  This, in an agent capable of volition, when the beginning or continuation of any action is contrary to that preference of his mind, is called compulsion; when the hindering or stopping any action is contrary to his volition, it is called restraint.  Agents that have no thought, no volition at all, are in everything necessary agents.

14.  If this be so, (as I imagine it is,) I leave it to be considered, whether it may not help to put an end to that long agitated, and, I think, unreasonable, because unintelligible question, viz.  whether man’s will be free or no?  For if I mistake not, it follows from what I have said, that the question itself is altogether improper; and it is as insignificant to ask whether man’s will be free, as to ask whether his sleep be swift, or his virtue square:  liberty being as little applicable to the will, as swiftness of motion is to sleep, or squareness to virtue.  Every one would laugh at the absurdity of such a question as either of these:  because it is obvious that the modifications of motion belong not to sleep, nor the difference Of figure to virtue; and when any one well considers it, I think he will as plainly perceive that liberty, which is but a power, belongs only to agents, and cannot be an attribute or modification of the will, which is also but a power.

15.  Volition.