choosing itself in the contrast of positive and negative, the phrase _most agreeable_ or _greatest apparent good_ is convenient for general use, and sufficiently precise to express every case which comes up. It may be well here to remark, that in the system we are thus endeavouring to state and to illustrate, the word _choice_ is properly used to express the action of will, when that action is viewed in relation to its immediate effects,--as when I say, I choose to walk. _The sense of the most agreeable_, is properly used to express the same action, when the action is viewed in relation to its own cause. Choice and volition are the words in common use, because men at large only think of choice and volition in reference to effects. But when the cause of choice is sought after by a philosophic mind, and is supposed to lie in the nature and circumstances of mind and object, then the _sense of the most agreeable_ becomes the most appropriate form of expression. Edwards concludes his discussion of the cause of the most agreeable, by remarking: "However, I think so much is certain,--that volition, in no one instance that can be mentioned, is otherwise than the greatest apparent good is, in the manner which has been explained." This is the great principle of his system; and, a few sentences after, he states it as an axiom, or a generally admitted truth: "There is scarcely a plainer and more universal dictate of the sense and experience of mankind, than that when men act voluntarily and do what they please, then they do what suits them best, or what is most agreeable to them." Indeed, Edwards cannot be considered as having attempted to prove this; he has only explained it, and therefore it is only the _explanation_ of a supposed axiom that we have been following out. This supposed axiom is really announced in the first section: "Will and desire do not run counter at all: the thing which he wills, the very same he desires;" that is, a man wills as he desires, and of course wills what is most agreeable to him. It is to be noticed, also, that the title of part I. runs as follows: "Wherein are explained and stated various terms and things, &c." Receiving it, therefore, as a generally admitted truth, "that choice or volition is always as the most agreeable," and is itself only the sense of the most agreeable, what is the explanation given? 1. That will, or the faculty of choice, is not a faculty distinct from the affections or passions, or that part of our being which philosophers sometimes call the sensitivity. 2. That volition, or choice, or preference, being at any given moment and under any given circumstances the strongest inclination, or the strongest affection and desire with regard to an immediate object, appears in the constitution of our being as the antecedent of effects in the mind itself, or in the body; which effects are called voluntary actions,--as acts of attention, or of talking, or walking.