If the good man be in the right, he
is eternally happy; if he mistakes, he's not miserable, he feels
nothing. On the other side, if the wicked man be in the right, he is
not happy; if he mistakes, he is infinitely miserable. Must it not
be a most manifest wrong judgment that does not presently see to which
side, in this case, the preference is to be given? I have forborne
to mention anything of the certainty or probability of a future state,
designing here to show the wrong judgment that any one must allow he
makes, upon his own principles, laid how he pleases, who prefers the
short pleasures of a vicious life upon any consideration, whilst he
knows, and cannot but be certain, that a future life is at least
possible.
73. Recapitulation- liberty of indifferency. To conclude this
inquiry into human liberty, which, as it stood before, I myself from
the beginning fearing, and a very judicious friend of mine, since
the publication, suspecting to have some mistake in it, though he
could not particularly show it me, I was put upon a stricter review of
this chapter. Wherein lighting upon a very easy and scarce
observable slip I had made, in putting one seemingly indifferent
word for another that discovery opened to me this present view,
which here, in this second edition, I submit to the learned world, and
which, in short, is this: Liberty is a power to act or not to act,
according as the mind directs.
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