For, the inclination
and tendency of their nature to happiness is an obligation and
motive to them, to take care not to mistake or miss it; and so
necessarily puts them upon caution, deliberation, and wariness, in the
direction of their particular actions, which are the means to obtain
it. Whatever necessity determines to the pursuit of real bliss, the
same necessity, with the same force, establishes suspense,
deliberation, and scrutiny of each successive desire, whether the
satisfaction of it does not interfere with our true happiness, and
mislead us from it. This, as seems to me, is the great privilege of
finite intellectual beings; and I desire it may be well considered,
whether the great inlet and exercise of all the liberty men have,
are capable of, or can be useful to them, and that whereon depends the
turn of their actions, does not lie in this,- That they can suspend
their desires, and stop them from determining their wills to any
action, till they have duly and fairly examined the good and evil of
it, as far forth as the weight of the thing requires. This we are able
to do; and when we have done it, we have done our duty, and all that
is in our power; and indeed all that needs. For, since the will
supposes knowledge to guide its choice, all that we can do is to
hold our wills undetermined, till we have examined the good and evil
of what we desire.
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