circumstances, and causes concurrent, they have their whole weight from the understanding; so as they do not press the horse’s back at all, until reason lay them on. Thirdly, he conceives that as each feather has a certain natural weight, whereby it concurs not arbitrarily, but necessarily towards the overcharging of the horse; so all objects and causes have a natural efficiency, whereby they do physically determine the will; which is a great mistake. His objects, his agents, his motives, his passions, and all his concurrent causes, ordinarily do only move the will morally, not determine it naturally. So as it hath in all ordinary actions a free dominion over itself. “His other example, of a man that strikes, ‘whose will to strike followeth necessarily that thought he had of the sequel of his stroke, immediately before the lifting up of his hand’: as it confounds passionate, indeliberate thoughts, with the dictates of right reason, so it is very uncertain; for between the cup and the lip, between the lifting up of the hand and the blow, the will may alter, and the judgment also. And lastly, it is impertinent; for that necessity of striking proceeds from the free determination of the agent, and not from the special influence of any outward determining causes. And so it is only a necessity upon supposition. “Concerning Medea’s choice, the strength of the argument doth not lie either in the fact of Medea, which is but a fiction, or in the authority of the poet, who writes things rather to be admired than believed, but in the experience of all men: who find it to be true in themselves, that sometimes reason doth shew unto a man the exorbitancy of his passion, that what he desires is but a pleasant good, that what he loseth by such a choice is an honest good, that that which is honest is to be preferred before that which is pleasant; yet the will pursues that which is pleasant, and neglects that which is honest. St. Paul (Rom. vii. 15) saith as much in earnest, as is feigned of Medea: that _he approved not that which he did_, and that _he did that which he hated_. The Roman story is mistaken: there was no bribe in the case but affection. Whereas I urge, that those things which are nearer to the senses do move more powerfully, he lays hold on it; and without answering to that for which I produced it, infers, ‘that the sense of present good, is more immediate to the action than the foresight of evil consequents’: which is true; but it is not absolutely true by any antecedent necessity. Let a man do what he may do, and what he ought to do, and sensitive objects will lose that power which they have by his own fault and neglect. Antecedent or indeliberate concupiscence doth sometimes, but rarely, surprise a man, and render the action not free. But consequent and deliberated concupiscence, which proceeds from the rational will, doth render the action more free, not less free, and introduceth only a necessity upon supposition.