I had long resisted an Inclination to desire your Thoughts upon the difficulty mentioned in my last, till I considered that the trouble in answering it would be only carrying on the general purpose of your Life, and that I might claim the same right to your Instructions with others; notwithstanding which, I should not have mentioned it to you had I not thought (which is natural when one fancies one sees a thing clearly) that I could easily express it with clearness to others. However I should by no means have given you a second trouble upon the subject had I not had your particular leave. I thought proper just to mention these things that you might not suspect me to take advantage from your Civility to trouble you with any thing, but only such objections as seem to me of Weight, and which I cannot get rid of any other way. A disposition in our natures to be influenced by right motives is as absolutely necessary to render us moral Agents, as a Capacity to discern right motives is. These two are I think quite _distinct_ perceptions, the _former_ proceeding from a desire inseparable from a Conscious Being of its own happiness, the _latter_ being only our Understanding, or Faculty of seeing Truth. Since a _disposition_ to be influenced by right motives is a _sine qua non_ to Virtuous Actions, an Indifferency to right motives must _incapacitate_ us for Virtuous Actions, or render us in that particular not moral agents. I do indeed think that no Rational Creature is _strictly speaking Indifferent_ to Right Motives, but yet there seems to be somewhat which to all intents of the present question is the same, viz. _a stronger disposition to be influenced by contrary or wrong motives_, and this I take to be always the Case when any vice is committed. But since it may be said, as you hint, that this stronger disposition to be influenced by Vicious Motives may have been contracted by repeated Acts of Wickedness, we will pitch upon the _first Vicious Action_ any one is guilty of. No man would have committed this first Vicious Action if he had not had a _stronger_ (at least as strong) _disposition_ in him to be influenced by the _Motives of the Vicious Action_, than by the _motives of the contrary Virtuous Action_; from whence I infallibly conclude, that since every man has committed some first Vice, every man had, _antecedent_ to the commission of it, a _stronger disposition_ to be influenced by the _Vicious_ than the _Virtuous_ motive. My difficulty upon this is, that a _stronger natural disposition_ to be influenced by the Vicious than the Virtuous Motive (which every one has antecedent to his first vice), seems, to all purposes of the present question, to put the Man in the same condition as though he was _indifferent to the Virtuous Motive_; and since an _indifferency to the Virtuous Motive_ would have _incapacitated_ a Man from being a _moral Agent_, or _contracting guilt_, is not a _stronger