But once more I fix my attention on the apple: the desire is awakened, and I conclude to eat it. Hitherto I have done nothing except in fixing my attention on the apple. I have experienced the judgment that it is round, and felt the desire to eat it. But now I conclude to eat it, and I make an effort of the mind to put forth my hand to take the apple and eat it. It is done. Now here is an entirely new phenomenon; it is an _effort_, an _exertion_, an _act_, a _volition_ of the mind. The name is of no importance; the circumstances under which the phenomenon arises have called attention to it, and the precise thing intended is seen in the light of consciousness. Let us look at it closely, and mark its characteristic well, being careful to see neither more nor less than is presented by the phenomenon itself. We are conscious, then, of the existence of an act, of a volition: everybody can see what this is. We must not say, as the advocates of free-agency usually do, that when we put forth this act or volition we are conscious of a power to do the contrary; for this position may be refuted, and the foundation on which we intend to raise our superstructure undermined. We are merely conscious of the existence of the act itself, and not even of the power by means of which we act; the existence of the power is necessarily inferred from its exercise. This is the only way in which we know it, and not from the direct testimony of consciousness. Much less if we had refused to act, should we have been conscious of the power to withhold it; much less again are we conscious of the power to withhold the act, as we do not in the case supposed exercise this power. But certainly we are conscious of the act itself; all men will concede this, and this is all our argument really demands. Here then we are conscious of an act, of an effort, of the mind. Look at it closely. Is the mind passive in this act? No; we venture to answer for the universal intelligence of man. If this act had been produced in us by a necessitating cause, would not the mind have been passive in it? In other words, would it not have been a passive impression, and not an act, not an effort of the mind at all? Yes; we again venture to answer for the unbiassed reason of man. But it is not, we have seen, a passive impression; it is an act of the mind, and hence it is not necessitated. It is not necessitated, because it is not stamped with the characteristic of necessity. The universal reason of man declares that the will has not necessarily yielded like the intelligence and the sensibility, to motives over which it had no control. It does not bear upon its face the mark of any such subjection “to the power and action” of a cause. It is marked with the characteristic, not of necessity, but of liberty.