If the scheme of moral necessity be true, then, according to which our volitions are absolutely caused by the "action or influence of motive," it is idle to talk about free acts of the will; for there are no acts of the will at all. If our wills are caused to put forth volitions, and are turned to one side or the other, by the controlling influence of motives, it is idle to talk about a free-will; for we have no will at all. I know full well, that President Edwards admits that we have a will; and that the will does really act; but this admission is contradicted by bringing the will and all its exercises under the domination and absolute control of motives. He obliterates the distinction between cause and effect, between action and passion, between mental activity and bodily motion; and thereby draws the phenomena of will, the volitions of all intelligent creatures, under the iron scheme of necessity. We are eternally reminded that Edwards believes in the existence of a will, and in the reality of its acts. We know it; but let us not be accused of misrepresenting him, unless it can be shown that one part of his system does not contradict another,--unless it can be shown, not by false analogies and an abuse of words, but by valid evidence, that _an act of the mind may be necessarily caused_. This never has been shown; and the attempts of the necessitarian to show it, as we have seen, are among the most signal failures in the whole range of human philosophy. Until this be shown, we must contend that there is nothing in the universe so diametrically opposed to all free-agency--to all liberty of the will, as the scheme of moral necessity; which so clearly overthrows and, demolishes the very idea of a will and all its volitions. Indeed, what is called natural necessity does not properly interfere with the liberty of _the will_ at all; it merely restrains the freedom of _motion_. It is moral necessity that reaches the seat of the mind, and takes away all the freedom thereof; even denying to us the possession of a will itself. When my hand is bound, I may strive to move it in vain; in this case, my _will_ is free, because I may strive, or I may not; but the hand is not free, because it cannot move. But if motives cause the mind to follow their influence, so that it may not possibly depart or be loose from that influence; then we have no will at all; and it is idle and a mockery to talk about freedom of the will. And yet, although Edwards would have us to believe that no system is consistent with free-agency but his own; he occupies the position, that it is absurd to suppose, that a volition may possibly be loose from the influence of motive; that this is to suppose that it is the effect of motive, and at the same time that it is not the effect of motive!