I might multiply extracts to the same effect almost without end; but it is not necessary. It must be evident to every impartial reader of the Inquiry, that even if the author really meant by the above extracts, that motive is merely the antecedent to volition; this was only a momentary concession made to his opponents, with the vague and ill-defined hope, perhaps, that it would render his system less obnoxious to them. It had no abiding place in his mind. It was no sooner uttered than it was repelled and driven away by the whole tenor of his system. We soon hear him, as if no such thing had ever been dreamed of in his philosophy, asking the question, and that too, in relation to motives, "What _can be meant by a cause_, but something that is the ground and reason of a thing _by its influence_, AN INFLUENCE THAT IS PREVALENT AND EFFECTUAL," p. 97. Will it be pretended, that this does not come up to his definition of an efficient cause, as that which brings something to pass by "a _positive_ influence?" Such a pretext would amount to nothing; for Edwards has said, that "motives excite volition;" and "to excite, _is to be a cause in the most proper sense, not merely a negative occasion, but a ground of existence by positive influence,_" p. 96. An efficient cause is properly defined by the Edwardses themselves. "Does not the man talk absurdly and inconsistently," says the younger Edwards, "who asserts, that a man is the efficient cause of his own volitions, yet puts forth no exertion in order to cause it? If any other way of _efficiently_ causing an effect, be possible or conceivable, let it be pointed out," p.49. President Edwards evidently entertained the same idea; for he repeatedly says, that if the mind be the cause of its own volitions, it must cause them by a preceding act of the mind. The objection which he urges against the self-determining power, is founded on this idea of a cause. It is what he means, when he says, that the term _cause_ is "often used in so restrained a sense as to signify only that which has a _positive efficiency_ or _influence_ to _produce_ a thing, or _bring it to pass_."