Now in the application of these principles, if Edwards have given us a true psychology in relation to the will, we have the means of knowing it. In the consciousness, and in the consciousness alone, can a doctrine of the will be ultimately and adequately tested. Nor must we be intimidated from making this test by the assumption that the theory of Edwards alone sustains moral responsibility and evangelical religion. Moral responsibility and evangelical religion, if sustained and illustrated by philosophy, must take a philosophy which has already on its own grounds proved itself a true philosophy. Moral responsibility and evangelical religion can derive no support from a philosophy which they are taken first to prove. But although I intend to conduct my argument rigidly on psychological principles, I shall endeavour in the end to show that moral responsibility is really sustained by this exposition of the will; and that I have not, to say the least, weakened one of the supports of evangelical religion, nor shorn it of one of its glories. The plan of my undertaking embraces the following particulars: I. A statement of Edwards's system. II. The legitimate consequences of this system. III. An examination of the arguments against a self-determining will. IV. The doctrine of the will determined by an appeal to consciousness. V. This doctrine viewed in connexion with moral agency and responsibility. VI. This doctrine viewed in connexion with the truths and precepts of the Bible. The first three complete the review of Edwards, and make up the present volume. Another volume is in the course of preparation. I. A STATEMENT OF EDWARDS'S SYSTEM. Edwards's System, or, in other words, his Philosophy of the Will, is contained in part I. of his "Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will." This part comprises five sections, which I shall give with their titles in his own order. My object is to arrive at truth. I shall therefore use my best endeavours to make this statement with the utmost clearness and fairness. In this part of my work, my chief anxiety is to have Edwards perfectly understood. My quotations are made from the edition published by S. Converse, New-York, 1829. "Sec. I.--Concerning the Nature of the Will." Edwards under this title gives his definition of the will. "_The will is, that by which the mind chooses anything_. The faculty of the _will_, is that power, or principle of mind, by which it is capable of choosing: an act of the _will_ is the same as an act of _choosing_ or _choice_." (p. 15.) He then identifies "choosing" and "refusing:" "In every act of refusal the mind chooses the absence of the thing refused." (p. 16.)