Are these two questions really distinct? Can there be one cause of volition, and another cause of its particular direction? I answer, there cannot. No such distinction can be shown to exist by a reference to the cause of motion. Force is the cause of motion. One force may put a body in motion; and, afterwards, another force may change the direction of its motion. Upon a superficial observation, this may seem to illustrate the distinction in question; but, upon more mature reflection, it will not appear to do so. For the force which sets a body in motion necessarily causes it to move in one particular direction, and not another; because it is impossible for a body to move without moving in a particular direction. After one force has put a body in motion, another force, it is true, may change its direction; but in such a case, it is not correct to say, that one force caused its motion and another the direction of that motion. For, in reality, both the motion of the body and its direction, result from the joint action of the two forces; or, in other words, each force contributes to the motion, and each to its direction. Both the motion and its direction are caused by what is technically called, in mechanical philosophy, the "resultant" of the two forces; and the case is really not different, so far as the distinction in question is concerned, from the case of motion produced by the action of a single force. The absurdity of this distinction consists, in supposing that a body may be put in motion without moving in a particular direction; and that something else beside the cause of its motion, is necessary to account for the direction of that motion. The illustration, therefore, drawn from the phenomena of motion, fails to answer the purpose for which President Edwards has produced it. The same absurdity is involved in the supposition, that one thing may cause volition to exist, and another may cause it to be directed to and fixed upon a particular object. No man can conceive of a choice as existing, which has not some particular object. It is of the very nature and essence of a choice to have some particular direction and determination. If a choice exists at all, it must be a choice of some particular thing. Hence, whatever causes a volition to exist, must cause it to have a particular direction and determination. Let any one show a choice, which is not the preference of one thing rather than another, and then we may admit that there is some reason for the distinction in question; but until then, we must be permitted to regard it as having no foundation in the nature of things. If it were necessary, this matter might be fully and unanswerably illustrated; but a bare statement of it is sufficient to render it perfectly clear.