"Will and endeavour against, or diverse from _present_ acts of the will, are in no case supposable, whether those acts be _occasional_ or _habitual_; for that would be to suppose the will at present to be otherwise than at present it is." (ibid.) The passage which follows deserves particular attention. It may be brought up under the following question: Although will cannot be exerted against present acts of the will, yet can present acts of the will be exerted to produce future acts of the will, opposed to present habitual or present occasional acts? "But yet there may be will and endeavour against _future_ acts of the will, or volitions that are likely to take place, as viewed at a distance. It is no contradiction, to suppose that the acts of the will at one time may be against the act of the will at another time; and there may be desires and endeavours to prevent or excite future acts of the will; but such desires and endeavours are in many cases rendered insufficient and vain through fixedness of habit: when the occasion returns, the strength of habit overcomes and baffles all such opposition." (p. 37.) Let us take the instance of the drunkard. The choice or volition to drink is the fixed correlation of his disposition and the strong drink. But we may suppose that his disposition can be affected by other objects likewise: as the consideration of the interest and happiness of his wife and children, and his own respectability and final happiness. When his cups are removed, and he has an occasional fit of satiety and loathing, these considerations may awaken at the time the sense of the most agreeable, and lead him to avoid the occasions of drunkenness, and to form resolutions of amendment; but when the appetite and longing for drink returns, and he comes again in the way of indulgence, then these considerations, brought fairly into collision with his habits, are overcome, and drinking, as the most agreeable, asserts its supremacy. "But it may be comparatively easy to make an alteration with respect to such future acts as are only _occasional_ and _transient_; because the occasional or transient cause, if foreseen, may often easily be prevented or avoided." (ibid.)