Once more. In relation to the acts of the will, he adopts the following language to show that they are necessarily dependent on the influence of motives: "For an event 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 the cause, it is not dependent on its cause; its _existence_ is as it were _loose from its influence_; and it may attend it, or it may not; its being a mere contingency, whether it follows or attends the influence of the cause, or not; and that is the same thing as not to be dependent on it. And to say the event is not dependent on its cause, _is absurd_; it is the same thing as to say, it is not its cause, nor the event the effect of it; for dependence on _the influence of a cause is the very notion of an effect_. If there be no such relation between one thing and another, consisting in the connexion and dependence of one thing on the influence of another, then it is certain there is no such relation between them as is signified by the relation of cause and effect," p. 77-8. Now, here we are told, that it is the very notion of an effect, that it owes its existence to the influence of its cause; and that _it is absurd_ to speak of an effect which is loose from the influence of its cause. It is this influence, "which causes volition to arise and come forth into existence." Any other notion of cause and effect is absurd and unmeaning. And yet, President Edwards informs us, that he sometimes uses the term cause to signify any antecedent, though it may exert no influence; and that he so employs it, in order to prevent cavilling and objecting. Now, what is all this taken together, but to inform us, that he sometimes uses the word in question _very absurdly_, in order to keep us from finding fault with him? The truth is, that whatever apparent concession President Edwards may have made, he does habitually bring down the term _cause_ to its narrow and restrained sense, to its strict and proper meaning, when he says, that motive is the cause of volition. He loses sight entirely of the idea, that it is only the _occasion_ on which the mind acts.