The soundness of much of his argument depends, as I have said, upon the confusion or the identification of these two properties of the mind; the soundness of much of it also depends upon the fact that they are not identical, but distinct. From a great number of similar passages, we may select the following, as an illustration of the justness of this remark: "Moral necessity," says he, "may be as _absolute_, as natural necessity. That is, the effect may be as powerfully connected with its moral cause, as a natural necessary effect is with its natural cause. Whether the will in every case is necessarily determined by the strongest motive, or whether the will ever makes any resistance to such a motive, or can ever oppose the strongest present inclination, or not; if that matter should be controverted, yet I suppose none will deny, but that, in some cases, a previous bias, or inclination, or the motive presented, may be so POWERFUL, THAT THE ACT OF THE WILL MAY BE CERTAINLY AND INDISSOLUBLY CONNECTED THEREWITH. When motives or previous bias are very strong, all will allow that there is some _difficulty_ in going against them. And if they were yet stronger, the difficulty would be still greater. And, therefore, if more be still added to their strength, to a certain degree, it would make the difficulty so great, that it would be wholly _impossible_ to surmount it; for, this plain reason, because whatever power men may be supposed to have to surmount difficulties, yet that power is not infinite; and so goes not beyond certain limits. If a man can surmount ten degrees of difficulty of this kind with twenty degrees of strength, because the degrees of strength are beyond the degrees of difficulty; yet if the difficulty be increased to thirty, or an hundred, or a thousand degrees, and his strength not also increased, his strength will be wholly insufficient to surmount the difficulty. As, therefore, it must be allowed, that there may be such a thing as a _sure_ and _perfect_ connexion between moral causes and effects; so this only is what I call by the name of _moral necessity_." Now he here speaks of inclination and previous bias, as elsewhere of appetite and disposition, as distinct from volition. In this he is right; even the necessitarian will not, at the present day, deny that our desires, affections, &c., are different from volition. "Between motive and volition," says President Day, "there must intervene an apprehension of the object, and _consequent feeling excited in the mind_." Thus, according to President Day, feeling is not volition; it intervenes between the external object and volition. But although Edwards is right in this; there is one thing in which he is wrong. He is wrong in supposing that our feelings possess a real strength, by which they act upon and control the will.