Further he says, _prayer_, _fasting_, &c. may alter our _habits_; it is true, but when they do so, they are _causes_ of the contrary _habit_, and make it _necessary_, as the former habit had been necessary, if _prayer_, _fasting_, &c. had not been. Besides, we are not moved or disposed to prayer or any other action, but by outward objects, as pious company, godly preachers, or something equivalent. Fourthly, he says a resolved mind is not easily surprised, as the mind of Ulysses, who when others wept, alone wept not; and of the philosopher, that abstained from striking, because he found himself angry; and of him that poured out the water when he was thirsty, and the like. Such things I confess have, or may have been done, and do prove only that it was not necessary for Ulysses then to weep, nor for that philosopher to strike, nor for that other man to drink; but it does not prove that it was not necessary for Ulysses then to abstain, as he did, from weeping, nor for the philosopher to abstain, as he did, from striking, nor for the other man to forbear drinking, and yet that was the thing his Lordship ought to have proved. Lastly his Lordship confesses, that the _dispositions_ of objects may be _dangerous_ to _liberty_, but cannot be _destructive_. To which I answer, it is impossible: for _liberty_ is never in any other danger than to be lost; and if it cannot be lost, which he confesses, I may infer, it can be in no danger at all. The fourth opinion his Lordship rejecteth, is of them that make the will necessarily to follow the last dictate of the understanding; but it seems his Lordship understands that tenet in another sense than I do; for he speaketh as if they that held it, did suppose men must dispute the sequel of every action they do, great and small, to the least grain; which is a thing his Lordship, with reason, thinks untrue. But I understand it to signify, that the _will_ follows the _last_ opinion or _judgment_ immediately preceding the _action_, concerning whether it be good to do it or not, whether he have weighed it long before, or not at all, and that I take to be the meaning of them that hold it. As for example, when a man strikes, his will to strike follows necessarily that thought he had of the sequel of his stroke, immediately before the lifting up of his hand. Now if it be understood in that sense, the _last_ dictate of the understanding does _necessitate_ the _action_, though not as the whole cause, yet as the last cause, as the last feather necessitates the breaking of a horse’s back, when there are so many laid on before, as there needed but the addition of one to make the weight sufficient. That which his Lordship allegeth against this, is first, out of a poet, who in the person of Medea says, “Video meliora, proboque, Deteriora sequor.”