That which most commonly causes this is, the prevalency
of some present pleasure or pain, heightened by our feeble
passionate nature, most strongly wrought on by what is present. To
check this precipitancy, our understanding and reason were given us,
if we will make a right use of them, to search and see, and then judge
thereupon. Without liberty, the understanding would be to no
purpose: and without understanding, liberty (if it could be) would
signify nothing. If a man sees what would do him good or harm, what
would make him happy or miserable, without being able to move
himself one step towards or from it, what is he the better for seeing?
And he that is at liberty to ramble in perfect darkness, what is his
liberty better than if he were driven up and down as a bubble by the
force of the wind? The being acted by a blind impulse from without, or
from within, is little odds. The first, therefore, and great use of
liberty is to hinder blind precipitancy; the principal exercise of
freedom is to stand still, open the eyes, look about, and take a
view of the consequence of what we are going to do, as much as the
weight of the matter requires. How much sloth and negligence, heat and
passion, the prevalency of fashion or acquired indispositions do
severally contribute, on occasion, to these wrong judgments, I shall
not here further inquire.
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