The necessitarian pursues the opposite course. He reasons from what he does not know, that is, from the particulars of the divine foreknowledge, about which he absolutely knows nothing _a priori_, down to the facts of the actual world. Thus, quitting the light which shines so brightly within us and around us, he seeks for light in the midst of impenetrable darkness. He endeavours to determine the phenomena of the world, not by looking at them and seeing what they are; but by deducing conclusions from God's infinite foreknowledge respecting them! In doing this, a grand illusion is practised, by his merely supposing that the volitions themselves are foreknown, without taking into the supposition the whole of the case, and recollecting that God not only foresees all our actions, but also all about them. For if this were done, if it were remembered that He not only foresees that our volitions will come to pass, but also _how_ they will come to pass; the necessitarian would see, that nothing could be proved in this way except what is first tacitly assumed. The grand illusion would vanish, and it would be clearly seen, that if the argument from foreknowledge proves any thing, it just as well proves the _necessity of freedom_ as any thing else. Indeed, it does seem to me, that it is one of the most wonderful phenomena in the history of the human mind, that, in reasoning about facts in relation to which the most direct and palpable sources of evidence are open before us, so many of its brightest ornaments should so long have endeavoured to draw conclusions from "the dark unknown" of God's foreknowledge; without perceiving that this is to reject the true method, to invert the true order of inquiry, and to involve the inquirer in all the darkness and confusion inseparable therefrom: without perceiving that no powers, however great, that no genius, however exalted, can possibly extort from such a method any thing but the dark, and confused, and perplexing exhibitions of an ingenious logomachy. SECTION XII. OF EDWARDS' USE OF THE TERM NECESSITY. IN the controversy concerning the will, nothing is of more importance, it will readily be admitted, than to guard against the influence of the ambiguity of words. Yet, it may be shown, that President Edwards has used the principal terms in this controversy in an exceedingly loose and indeterminate manner. This he has done especially in regard to the term _necessity_. His very definition prepares the way for such an abuse of language.