Wesley Corpus

The premises indeed are a little different, but the conclusion is one and the same. If every thought, word, and action necessarily depends upon those traces in the brain, which are formed whether we will or no, without either our consent or knowledge; then the man has no more liberty in thinking, speaking, or acting, than the stone has in falling. III. That great man, President Edwards, of New-England, places this in a still stronger light. He says,-- 1. The whole frame of this world wherein we are placed is so constituted, that, without our choice, visible objects affect our eyes, sounds strike upon the ear, and the other things which surround us affect the other bodily organs, according to their several natures. 2. The nerves, which are spread all over the body, without anv choice of ours, convey the impression made on the out ward organ to the common sensory; supposed to be lodged either in the pineal gland, or in some other part of the brain. 3. Immediately, without our choice, the perception or sensation follows: And from this, 4. The simple apprehension, (analogous to sensation,) which furnishes us with simple ideas. 5. These ideas are more and more associated together, still without our choice; and we understand, judge, reason accord ingly; yea, love, hate, joy, grieve, hope, or fear. 6. And according to our passions we speak and act. Where is liberty then? It is excluded. All you see, is one con nected chain, fixed as the pillars of heaven. IV. To the same effect, though with a little variation, speaks the ingenious Lord Kames. He says,-- The universe is one immense machine, one amazing piece of clock-work, consisting of innumerable wheels fitly framed, and indissolubly linked together. Man is one of these wheels, fixed in the middle of this vast automaton. And he moves just as necessarily as the rest, as the sun or moon, or earth. Only with this difference, (which was necessary for completing the design of the great Artificer,) that he seems to himself perfectly free; he imagines that he is unnecessitated, and master of his own motion; whereas in truth he no more directs or moves himself, than any other wheel in the machine.