disposition_ to be influenced by the _Vicious_ Motive as great an _Incapacity_? Suppose I have two diversions offered me, _both_ of which I could not enjoy, I like both of them, but yet have a _stronger_ inclination to one than to the other, I am not indeed strictly _indifferent_ to either, because I should be glad to _enjoy both_; but am I not exactly _in the same case_, _to all intents and purposes of acting_, as though I was _absolutely indifferent_ to that diversion which I have the _least_ inclination to? You suppose Man to be endued naturally with a _disposition to be influenced by Virtuous Motives_, and that _this Disposition is a sine qua non to Virtuous Actions_, both which I fully believe; but then you _omit_ to consider the natural Inclination to be influenced by Vicious Motives, which, _whenever a Vice is committed_, is at least _equally strong_ with the other, and in the first Vice _is not affected by Habits_, but is as _natural_, and as much _out of a man's power_ as the other. I am much obliged to your offer of writing to Mr. Laughton, which I shall very thankfully accept of, but am not certain when I shall go to Cambridge; however, I believe it will be about the middle of the next month. I am, Rev. Sir, Your most obliged humble Servant, J. BUTLER. Oriel, Oct. the 6th. THE ANSWER. Your objection seems indeed very dexterous, and yet I really think that there is at bottom nothing in it. But of this you are to judge, not from my assertion, but from the reason I shall endeavour to give to it. I think then, that a _disposition to be influenced by right motives_ being what we call _rationality_, there cannot be on the contrary (properly speaking) any such thing naturally in rational creatures as a _disposition to be influenced by wrong motives_. This can be nothing but mere _perverseness of will_; and whether even that can be said to amount to a disposition to be influenced by wrong motives, _formally_, and as such, may (I think) well be doubted. Men have by nature strong inclinations to certain objects. None of these inclinations are vicious, but vice consists in pursuing the inclination towards any object in certain circumstances, notwithstanding _reason_, or the natural disposition to be influenced by right motives, declares to the man's conscience at the same time (or would do, if he attended to it) that the object ought not to be pursued in those circumstances. Nevertheless, where the man commits the crime, the _natural disposition_ was only towards the _object_, not formally towards the doing it upon wrong motives; and generally the very essence of the crime consists in the liberty of the will forcibly overruling the _actual disposition towards being influenced by right motives_, and not at all (as you suppose) in the man's having any _natural disposition to be influenced by wrong motives_, as such. III. From the original, now in the library at the British Museum. [Add. MS. 12,101.] REV. SIR,