Wesley Corpus

And according to our judgments are our passions; our love and hate, joy and sorrow, desire and fear, with their innumerable combinations. Now, all these passions together are the will, variously modified; and all actions flowing from the will are voluntary actions; consequently, they are good or evil, which otherwise they could not be. And yet it is not in man to direct his own way, while he is in the body, and in the world.” 10. The author of an “Essay on Liberty and Necessity,” published some years since at Edinburgh, speaks still more explicitly, and endeavours to trace the matter to the found ation: “The impressions,” says he, “which man receives in the natural world, do not correspond to the truth of things. Thus the qualities called secondary, which we by natural instinct attribute to Lmatter, belong not to matter, nor exist without us; but all the beauty of colours with which heaven and earth appear clothed, is a sort of romance or illusion. For in external objects there is really no other distinction, but that of the size and arrangement of their constituent parts, whereby the rays of light are variously reflected and refracted.” (Page 152, &c.) “In the moral world, whatever is a cause with regard to its proper effect, is an effect with regard to some prior cause, and so backward without end. Events, therefore, being a train of causes and effects, are necessary and fixed. Every one must be, and cannot be otherwise than it is.” (Page 157, &c.) “And yet a feeling of an opposite kind is deeply rooted in our nature. Many things appear to us, as not predetermined by any invariable law. We naturally make a distinction, between things that must be, and things that may be, or may not. “So with regard to the actions of men. We see that connexion between an action and its motive to be so strong, that we reason with full confidence concerning the future +ctions of others. But if actions necessarily arise from their proper motives, then all human actions are necessary and fixed. Yet they do not appear so to us. Indeed, before any particular action, we always judge, that the action will be the necessary result of some motive. But afterwards the feeling instantly varies. We accuse and condemn a man for doing what is wrong.