We shall not do justice to this branch of our subject, if we leave it without laying before the reader one or two more specimens of logic from the celebrated Inquiry of President Edwards. He is opposing “the hypothesis,” he tells us, “of acts of the will coming to pass without a cause.” Now, according to his definition of the term _cause_, as laid down at the beginning of the section under consideration, it signifies any antecedent on which a thing depends, in whole or in part, for its existence, or which constitutes the reason why it is, rather than not.(113) His doctrine is, then, that nothing ever comes to pass without some “ground or reason of its existence,” without some antecedent which is necessary to account for its coming into being. And those who deny it are bound to maintain the strange thesis, that something may come into existence without any antecedent to account for it; that it may rise from nothing and bring itself into existence. It is against this thesis that his logic is directed. “If it were so,” says he, “that things only of one kind, viz., acts of the will, seemed to come to pass of themselves; and it were an event that was continual, and that happened in a course whenever were found subjects capable of such events; this very thing would demonstrate there was some cause of them, which made such a difference between this event and others. For contingency is blind, and does not pick and choose a particular sort of events. Nothing has no choice. This no-cause, which causes no existence, cannot cause the existence which comes to pass to be of one particular sort only, distinguished from all others. Thus, that only one sort of matter drops out of heaven, even water; and that this comes so often, so constantly and plentifully, all over the world, in all ages, shows that there is some cause or reason of the falling of water out of the heavens, and that something besides mere contingence had a hand in the matter.”(114) We do not intend to comment on this passage; we merely wish to advert to the fact, that it is a laboured and logical effort to demolish the hypothesis that acts of the will do not bring themselves into existence, and to show that there must be some antecedent to account for their coming into being. We shall only add, “it is true that nothing has no choice;” but who ever pretended to believe that _nothing_ puts forth volitions? that there is no mind, no motive, no ground or reason of volition? Is it not wonderful that the great metaphysician of New-England should thus worry himself and exhaust his powers in grappling with shadows and combatting dreams, which no sane man ever seriously entertained for a moment?