In the same easy way, President Edwards, as he imagines, demolishes the doctrine of indifference. He supposes that, according to this doctrine, the will does not choose when it does choose; and, having supposed this, he proceeds to demolish it, as if he were contending with a thousand adversaries; and yet, I will venture to affirm, that no man in his senses ever maintained such a position. The most contemptible advocate of free-agency that ever lived, has maintained nothing so absurd as that the mind ever chooses without choosing. This is the light in which the doctrine of indifference is frequently represented by Edwards, but it is a gross misrepresentation. "The question is," says Edwards, "whether ever the soul of man puts forth an act of will, while it yet remains in a state of liberty, viz: as implying a state of indifference; or whether the soul ever exerts an act of preference, while at the very time _the will_ is in a perfect equilibrium, not inclining one way more than another," p. 72. If this be the point in dispute, he may well add, that "the very putting of the question is sufficient to show the absurdity of the affirmative answer;" and he might have added, the utter futility of the negative reply. "How ridiculous," he continues, "for any body to insist that the soul chooses one thing before another, when, at the very same instant, it is perfectly indifferent with respect to each! This is the same thing as to say, we shall prefer one thing to another, at the very same time that it has no preference. Choice and preference can no more be in a state of indifference than motion can be in a state of rest," &c. p. 72. And he repeats it over and over again, that this is to put "the soul in a state of choice, and in a state of equilibrium at the same time;" "choosing one way, while it remains in a state of perfect indifference, and has no choice of one way more than the other;" p. 74. "To suppose the will to act at all in a state of indifference, is to assert that the mind chooses without choosing," p. 64; and so in various other places. Now, if the doctrine of the indifference of the will, as commonly understood, amounts to this, that the will does not choose when it chooses, then Edwards was certainly right in opposing it; but how could he have expected to correct such incorrigible blockheads as the authors of such a doctrine must have been, by the force of logic?