2. The universal conviction of mankind, that their former course of conduct might have been different from what it was. I will venture to affirm, that there is not a person on earth, who has not this conviction resting upon his mind in respect to his own past life. It is important to analyze this conviction, in order to mark distinctly its bearing upon our present inquiries. This conviction is not the belief, that if our circumstances had been different, we might have acted differently from what we did. A man, for example, says to himself--"At such a time, and in such circumstances, I determined upon a particular course of conduct. I might have determined upon a different and opposite course. Why did I not?" These affirmations are not based upon the conviction, that, in different circumstances, we might have done differently. In all such affirmations we take into account nothing but the particular circumstances in which our determinations were formed. It is in view of these circumstances exclusively, that we affirm that our determinations might have been different from what they were. Let the appeal be made to any individual whatever, whose mind is not at the time under the influence of any particular theory of the Will. You say, that at such a time, and under such circumstances, you determined upon a particular course, that you might then have resolved upon a different and opposite course, and that you blame yourself for not having done so. Is not this your real meaning? "If my circumstances had been different, I might have resolved upon a different course." No, he would reply. That is not my meaning. I was not thinking at all of a change of circumstances, when I made this affirmation. What I mean is, that in the circumstances in which I was, I might have done differently from what I did. This is the reason why I blame myself for not having done so. The same conviction, to wit: that without any change of circumstances our past course of life might have been different from what it was, rests upon every mind on earth in which the remembrance of the past dwells. Now this universal conviction is totally false, if the doctrine of Necessity is true. The doctrine of the Liberty of the Will must be true, or the universal Intelligence is a perpetual falsehood. 3. In favor of the doctrine of Liberty, I next appeal to the direct, deliberate, and universal testimony of consciousness. This testimony is given in three ways. (1.) In the general conviction above referred to, that without any change of circumstances, our course of conduct might have been the opposite of what it was. Nothing but a universal consciousness of the Liberty of the Will, can account for this conviction.