“For an event,” says he, “to have a cause and ground of its existence, and yet not be connected with its cause, is an inconsistency. For if the event be not connected with its cause, it is not dependent on the cause: _its existence is, as it were, loose from its influence, and may attend it or may not_.”(117) “Dependence on the influence of a cause is the very notion of an effect.”(118) Again, “to suppose there are some events which have a cause and ground of their existence, that yet are not necessarily connected with their cause, is to suppose that they have a cause which is not their cause. Thus, if the effect be not necessarily connected with the cause, with its influence and influential circumstances, then, as I observed before, _it is a thing possible and supposable that the cause may sometimes exert the same influence under the same circumstances, and yet the effect not follow_.”(119) He has much other similar reasoning to show that it is absurd and contradictory to say that motive is the cause of volition, and yet admit that volition may be loose from the influence of motive, or that “the cause is not sufficient to produce the effect.”(120) In all this he uses the term in its most narrow and restricted sense. It is no longer a mere antecedent or antecedents, which are sufficient to account for the existence of the phenomena of volition; it is an efficient cause which produces volitions. Thus he establishes his ambiguous proposition in one sense, and builds on it in another. He explains the term _cause_ to signify any antecedent, in order, he tells us, to prevent objection to his doctrine, when he alleges that nothing ever comes to pass without some cause of its existence; and yet, when he applies this fundamental proposition to the construction of his scheme, he returns to the restricted sense of the word, in which it signifies, “that which has a positive efficacy or influence to produce a thing.” It is thus that the great scheme of President Edwards is made up of mere words, having no intrinsic coherency of parts, and appearing consistent throughout, only because its disjointed fragments seem to be united, and its huge chasms concealed by means of the ambiguities of language. Section III. The scheme of necessity is supported by false logic.