‘MY REASONS.—For the first five points, wherein it is explicated—1. what spontaneity is; 2. what deliberation is; 3. what will, propension and appetite are; 4. what a free agent is; 5. what liberty is; there can no other proof be offered but every man’s own experience, by reflection on himself, and remembering what he himself meaneth when he saith an action is spontaneous: a man deliberates: such is his will: that agent or that action is free. Now he that reflecteth so on himself, cannot but be satisfied, that deliberation is the consideration of the good or evil sequels of an action to come; that by spontaneity is meant inconsiderate action (or else nothing is meant by it); that will is the last act of our deliberation; that a free agent is he that can do if he will, and forbear if he will; and that liberty is the absence of external impediments. But, to those that out of custom speak not what they conceive, but what they hear, and are not able, or will not take the pains to consider what they think when they hear such words, no argument can be sufficient; because experience and matter of fact is not verified by other men’s arguments, but by every man’s own sense and memory. For example, how can it be proved that to love a thing and to think it good is all one, to a man that hath not marked his own meaning by those words? or how can it be proved that eternity is not _nunc stans_ to a man that says those words by custom, and never considers how he can conceive the thing in his mind? Also the sixth point, that a man cannot imagine any thing to begin without a cause, can no other way be made known, but by trying how he can imagine it; but if he try, he shall find as much reason (if there be no cause of the thing) to conceive it should begin at one time as another, that he hath equal reason to think it should begin at all times, which is impossible, and therefore he must think there was some special cause why it began then, rather than sooner or later, or else that it began never, but was eternal.