shows, like others before him, that the certainty of events, and necessity itself, if there were any in the way our actions depend upon causes, would not prevent us from employing deliberations, exhortations, blame and praise, punishments and rewards:  for these are of service and prompt men to produce actions or to refrain from them.  Thus, if human actions were necessary, they would be so through these means.  But the truth is, that since these actions are not necessary absolutely whatever one may do, these means contribute only to render the actions determinate and certain, as they are indeed; for their nature shows that they are not subject to an absolute necessity.  He gives also a good enough notion of freedom, in so far as it is taken in a general sense, common to intelligent and non-intelligent substances:  he states that a thing is deemed free when the power which it has is not impeded by an external thing.  Thus the water that is dammed by a dyke has the power to spread, but not the freedom.  On the other hand, it has not the power to rise above the dyke, although nothing would prevent it then from spreading, and although nothing from outside prevents it from rising so high.  To that end it would be necessary that the water itself should come from a higher point or that the water-level should be raised by an increased flow.  Thus a prisoner lacks the freedom, while a sick man lacks the power, to go his way.

5.  There is in Mr. Hobbes’s preface an abstract of the disputed points, which I will give here, adding some expression of opinion. On one side (he says) the assertion is made, (1) ’that it is not in the present power of man to choose for himself the will that he should have’.  That is well said, especially in relation to present will:  men choose the objects through will, but they do not choose their present wills, which spring from reasons and dispositions.  It is true, however, that one can seek new [397] reasons for oneself, and with time give oneself new dispositions; and by this means one can also obtain for oneself a will which one had not and could not have given oneself forthwith.  It is (to use the comparison Mr. Hobbes himself uses) as with hunger or with thirst.  At the present it does not rest with my will to be hungry or not; but it rests with my will to eat or not to eat; yet, for the time to come, it rests with me to be hungry, or to prevent myself from being so at such and such an hour of day, by eating beforehand.  In this way it is possible often to avoid an evil will.  Even though Mr. Hobbes states in his reply (No. 14, p. 138) that it is the manner of laws to say, you must do or you must not do this, but that there is no law saying, you must will, or you must not will it, yet it is clear that he is mistaken in regard to the Law of God, which says non concupisces, thou shalt not covet; it is true that this prohibition does not concern the first motions, which are involuntary.