Liberty, on the other side, is the power a man has to do
or forbear doing any particular action according as its doing or
forbearance has the actual preference in the mind; which is the same
thing as to say, according as he himself wills it.
16. Powers, belonging to agents. It is plain then that the will is
nothing but one power or ability, and freedom another power or ability
so that, to ask, whether the will has freedom, is to ask whether one
power has another power, one ability another ability; a question at
first sight too grossly absurd to make a dispute, or need an answer.
For, who is it that sees not that powers belong only to agents, and
are attributes only of substances, and not of powers themselves? So
that this way of putting the question (viz. whether the will be
free) is in effect to ask, whether the will be a substance, an
agent, or at least to suppose it, since freedom can properly be
attributed to nothing else. If freedom can with any propriety of
speech be applied to power, it may be attributed to the power that
is in a man to produce, or forbear producing, motion in parts of his
body, by choice or preference; which is that which denominates him
free, and is freedom itself. But if any one should ask, whether
freedom were free, he would be suspected not to understand well what
he said; and he would be thought to deserve Midas's ears, who, knowing
that rich was a denomination for the possession of riches, should
demand whether riches themselves were rich.
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