17. How the will, instead of the man, is called free. However, the
name faculty, which men have given to this power called the will,
and whereby they have been led into a way of talking of the will as
acting, may, by an appropriation that disguises its true sense,
serve a little to palliate the absurdity; yet the will, in truth,
signifies nothing but a power or ability to prefer or choose: and when
the will, under the name of a faculty, is considered as it is,
barely as an ability to do something, the absurdity in saying it is
free, or not free, will easily discover itself For, if it be
reasonable to suppose and talk of faculties as distinct beings that
can act, (as we do, when we say the will orders, and the will is
free,) it is fit that we should make a speaking faculty, and a walking
faculty, and a dancing faculty, by which these actions are produced,
which are but several modes of motion; as well as we make the will and
understanding to be faculties, by which the actions of choosing and
perceiving are produced, which are but several modes of thinking.
And we may as properly say that it is the singing faculty sings, and
the dancing faculty dances, as that the will chooses, or that the
understanding conceives; or, as is usual, that the will directs the
understanding, or the understanding obeys or obeys not the will: it
being altogether as proper and intelligible to say that the power of
speaking directs the power of singing, or the power of singing obeys
or disobeys the power of speaking.
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