24.  Liberty is freedom to execute what is willed.

This, then, is evident, That A man is not at liberty to will, or not to will, anything in his power that he once considers of:  liberty consisting in a power to act or to forbear acting, and in that only.  For a man that sits still is said yet to be at liberty; because he can walk if he wills it.  A man that walks is at liberty also, not because he walks or moves; but because he can stand still if he wills it.  But if a man sitting still has not a power to remove himself, he is not at liberty; so likewise a man falling down a precipice, though in motion, is not at liberty, because he cannot stop that motion if he would.  This being so, it is plain that a man that is walking, to whom it is proposed to give off walking, is not at liberty, whether he will determine himself to walk, or give off walking or not:  he must necessarily prefer one or the other of them; walking or not walking.  And so it is in regard of all other actions in our power they being once proposed, the mind has not a power to act or not to act, wherein consists liberty.  The mind, in that case, has not a power to forbear willing; it cannot avoid some determination concerning them, let the consideration be as short, the thought as quick as it will, it either leaves the man in the state he was before thinking, or changes it; continues the action, or puts an end to it.  Whereby it is manifest, that it orders and directs one, in preference to, or with neglect of the other, and thereby either the continuation or change becomes unavoidably voluntary.

25.  The Will determined by something without it.

Since then it is plain that, in most cases, a man is not at liberty, whether he will or no, (for, when an action in his power is proposed to his thoughts, he cannot forbear volition; he must determine one way or the other;) the next thing demanded is,—­whether A man be at liberty to will which of the two he pleases, motion or rest?  This question carries the absurdity of it so manifestly in itself, that one might thereby sufficiently be convinced that liberty concerns not the will.  For, to ask whether a man be at liberty to will either motion or rest, speaking or silence, which he pleases, is to ask whether a man can will what he wills, or be pleased with what he is pleased with?  A question which, I think, needs no answer:  and they who can make a question of it must suppose one will to determine the acts of another, and another to determine that, and so on in infinitum.

26.  The ideas of liberty and volition must be defined.