An Examination of President Edwards' Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will

But a power to act, it will be said, is not a sufficient reason to account for the existence of action. This is true. The _reason_ is to come. The sufficient reason, however, is...

There is an inconsistency, I am aware, in supposing a choice to be induced by the force of external circumstances, or by the force of motives, whether external or internal; but...

And this question, I contend, is not to be decided by abstract considerations, nor yet by the laying of words together, and drawing conclusions from them. It is a question, not...

If we keep the distinction between the will and the sensibility in mind, it will throw much light on what has been written in regard to the subject of indifference. If you offer...

"Man, as the minister and interpreter of nature, does and understands as much as his observations on the order of nature, either with regard to things or the mind, permit him, a...

No one, that I know of, has ever denied that a body may be caused to move; the only point on which we desire to be enlightened is, whether the mind may be caused to act. To this...

IN a former section, I referred to some of the false assumptions which have been incautiously conceded to the necessitarian, and in which he has laid the foundations of his syst...

It is taken for granted by President Edwards, that volition is an effect, and consequently has a cause. The great question, according to his work, is, what is this cause? He say...

This is the portion of the Inquiry on which the younger Edwards founds his conclusion, that his father did not regard motive as the _efficient_ cause of volition, but only as th...

The fallacy of the author's argument, I conceive, has arisen from the ambiguity of the term principle. As it is truly said, that a holy action can proceed only from a holy princ...

The subject of the last section furnishes a striking illustration of the justness of this remark. From the proposition that a volition is certainly and infallibly foreknown, it...

No better illustration of the fallacy of this prejudice could be furnished, than that which Edwards has given in his definition of philosophical or metaphysical necessity. Under...

Hence, when we witness a change _in the world of matter_, we are authorized to apply the maxim we have derived in the manner above explained. We have really no idea of an effici...

The first argument of President Edwards is as follows. When the existence of a thing is infallibly and indissolubly connected with something else, which has already had existenc...

In short, if the advocates of free-agency had shaken off the common illusion that there is a real efficiency, or causal influence, exerted by the desires of the soul, they would...

If Edwards means that a thing cannot be foreknown unless it has a sufficient ground and reason for its existence, and does not of itself come forth out of nothing, we are not at...

I have said, that we are not conscious that there is no producing cause of volition. No man can be conscious of that which does not exist. Hence, it is highly absurd to require...