Is man free? We can reduce this question which has been so much vexed, and so often obscured, to terms of entire simplicity. It has been most forcibly presented by Hobbes, the vile apostle at once of atheism and despotism, who seems to have striven to unite the most pernicious doctrines with an example, which merits execration. ‘Two objects,’ he remarks, ‘attract us in opposite directions. As long as they produce impressions nearly equal, our mind, in a state of uncertainty, vacillates from the one to the other; and we believe, that we are deliberating. Finally, one of the objects strikes us with a stronger impression than the other. We are drawn towards it; and we believe that it is because we will it.--Thus, man, always passive, yields to the strongest and most vivid sensation. Free actions would be an effect without a cause.’ Admirable reasoning! What other freedom could I wish, than to prefer what seems to me the most desirable? Let the disciples of Hobbes instruct me how they would choose that man should determine, in order to be conscious of liberty? Would they wish him to choose the object that is repugnant to him? This is too evidently absurd. Should he vacillate in indifference between the one object and the other? This would be to sink into an existence of perfect apathy, without reason or will. Man has all the liberty, of which such a being is capable--all, in fact, which he could desire. How puerile are these metaphysical subtleties, when employed upon moral truths![56] What a monster would man become on the system of the fatalists! What is that system worth, the consequences of which cannot be admitted? If we act under the inevitable empire of fatalism, why is he who proclaims this doctrine, indignant at the thought of crime? Does he contemplate Socrates and his executioners with the same approbation?--Will he regard with the same feeling Antoninus dictating pious lessons to his son, and Nero assassinating his mother? Will he estimate as alike meritorious a persecuted Christian praying for his enemies, and the monarch ordering the massacre of St Bartholomew? Do such contrasts offend us? And why? According to the system of fatalism, the good ought to inspire us with less interest than the wicked. A blind fatality awards to the virtuous that pure pleasure, that is inseparably connected with good actions. They receive a high reward without any merit; while the others are a prey to remorse, and the incessant object of public hatred and abhorrence. If they are innocent, as on the principles of fatalism they must be, how ought we to mourn over them, and pity them! What purpose can these doctrines serve? He who advocates them, is conscious of impulses to do good, and deliberates upon alternatives in the courses which honor and duty call him to pursue. His principles, then, are contradicted by the voice of his own heart. When he has committed a fault, it declares to him that he might have chosen a contrary part.--When he has done