2. If this doctrine is true, it is demonstrably evident, that in no instance, real or supposable, have men any power whatever to will or to act differently from what they do. The connection between the determinations of the Will, and their consequents, external and internal, is absolutely necessary. Constituted as I now am, if I will, for example, a particular motion of my hand or arm, no other movement, in these circumstances, was possible, and this movement could not but take place. The same holds true of all consequents, external and internal, of all acts of Will. Let us now suppose that these acts themselves are the necessary consequents of the circumstances in which they originate. In what conceivable sense have men, in the circumstances in which Providence places them, power either to will or to act differently from what they do? The doctrine of ability to will or to do differently from what we do is, in every sense, false, if the doctrine of Necessity is true. Men, when they transgress the moral law, always sin, without the possibility of doing right. From this position the Necessitarian cannot escape. 3. On this theory, God only is responsible for all human volitions together with their effects. The relation between all antecedents and their consequents was established by him. If that relation be in all instances a necessary one, his Will surely is the sole responsible antecedent of all consequents. 4. The idea of obligation, of merit and demerit, and of the consequent propriety of reward and punishment, are chimeras. To conceive of a being deserving praise or blame, for volitions or actions which occurred under circumstances in which none others were possible, and in which these could not possibly but happen, is an absolute impossibility. To conceive him under obligation to have given existence, under such circumstances, to different consequents, is equally impossible. It is to suppose an agent under obligation to perform that to which Omnipotence is inadequate. For Omnipotence cannot perform impossibilities. It cannot reverse the law of Necessity. Let any individual conceive of creatures placed by Divine Providence in circumstances in which but one act, or series of acts of Will, can arise, and these cannot but arise--let him, then, attempt to conceive of these creatures as under obligation, in these same circumstances, to give existence to different and opposite acts, and as deserving of punishment for not doing so. He will find it as impossible to pass such a judgment as to conceive of the annihilation of space, or of an event without a cause. To conceive of necessity and obligation as fundamental elements of the same act, is an absolute impossibility. The human Intelligence is incapable of affirming such contradictions.