e. prefers his stay to going away. I ask,
is not this stay voluntary? I think nobody will doubt it: and yet,
being locked fast in, it is evident he is not at liberty not to
stay, he has not freedom to be gone. So that liberty is not an idea
belonging to volition, or preferring; but to the person having the
power of doing, or forbearing to do, according as the mind shall
choose or direct. Our idea of liberty reaches as far as that power,
and no farther. For wherever restraint comes to check that power, or
compulsion takes away that indifferency of ability to act, or to
forbear acting, there liberty, and our notion of it, presently ceases.
11. Voluntary opposed to involuntary, not to necessary. We have
instances enough, and often more than enough, in our own bodies. A
man's heart beats, and the blood circulates, which it is not in his
power by any thought or volition to stop; and therefore in respect
of these motions, where rest depends not on his choice, nor would
follow the determination of his mind, if it should prefer it, he is
not a free agent. Convulsive motions agitate his legs, so that
though he wills it ever so much, he cannot by any power of his mind
stop their motion, (as in that odd disease called chorea sancti viti),
but he is perpetually dancing; he is not at liberty in this action,
but under as much necessity of moving, as a stone that falls, or a
tennis-ball struck with a racket.
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