matter and to bondage. We do not allow Mr. Hobbes to declare our idea of a free-agent, as "one that, when all the circumstances necessary to produce action are present, _can nevertheless not act_;" nor do we accept of the amendment, of another, "that a free-agent is one who, when all the circumstances necessary to produce action are present, _can act_." For if all the circumstances necessary _to produce_ action are present, then they would produce it; and nothing would be left for the will to do, except to receive the producing influence. In other words, if volition is produced by circumstances, then it is a passive impression made upon the will, and not an act at all. It is contended by Edwards, that it is just as absurd to say, that a volition can come into existence without a cause, as it is that a world should do so. It is true, that a world cannot arise out of nothing, and come into existence of itself; and this is also equally true of a volition. But is the mind nothing? Is the will nothing? Is a free, intelligent, designing cause nothing? The mind is something; and it is capable of acting in order to fulfil its own designs, though it be not impelled to act. Is this idea absurd? Is it self-contradictory? Is it any thing like the assertion, that an effect has no cause? It is not. It implies no contradiction;--it is a possible idea. How does it act, then? I do not know. This is a mystery. Indeed, every ultimate fact in man's nature, and every simple exercise of his intellectual powers, is a mystery. An exercise of the power of conception, by which the past is called up, and made to pass in review before us; an exercise of the imagination, by which the world is made to teem with wonders of our own creation; and an exercise of the will, by which we produce changes in, the external world; are all mysteries? Now, shall we fly from these mysteries? Shall we strive to make the matter plain, in a single instance, by assigning an efficient cause to an act of the will? If so, whether we escape the _mystery_ or not, we shall certainly plunge into _absurdity_. We shall embrace a doctrine, which denies the nature of action, and which is necessarily involved in the great absurdity of an infinite series of causes. For my part, I prefer a simple statement of the fact of volition, with its attendant circumstances, how much soever of mystery it may seem to leave around the subject, to any _explanation_ which involves it in absurdity.