_J. D._ (_a_) “How that should be a right definition of liberty, which comprehends neither the genus nor the difference, neither the matter nor form of liberty, which doth not so much as accidentally describe liberty by its marks and tokens; how a real faculty or the elective power should be defined by a negation, or by an absence, is past my understanding, and contrary to all the rules of right reason which I have learned. Negatives cannot explicate the nature of things defined. By this definition, a stone hath liberty to ascend into the air, because there is no outward impediment to hinder it; and so a violent act may be a free act. Just like his definition are his instances of the liberty of the water to descend down the channel, and a sick or lame man’s liberty to go. The latter is an impotence, and not a power or a liberty. The former is so far from being a free act, that it is scarce a natural act. Certainly the proper natural motion of water, as of all heavy bodies, is to descend directly downwards towards the centre; as we see in rain, which falls down perpendicularly. Though this be far from a free act, which proceeds from a rational appetite; yet it is a natural act, and proceeds from a natural appetite, and hath its reason within itself. So hath not the current of the river in its channel, which must not be ascribed to the proper nature of the water, but either to the general order of the universe, for the better being and preservation of the creatures: (otherwise the waters should not move in seas and rivers as they do, but cover the face of the earth, and possess their proper place between the air and the earth, according to the degree of their gravity): or to an extrinsical principle, whilst one particle of water thrusteth and forceth forward another, and so comes a current, or at least so comes the current to be more impetuous; to which motion the position of the earth doth contribute much, both by restraining that fluid body with its banks from dispersing itself, and also by affording way for a fair and easy descent by its proclivity. He tells us sadly, that “the water wants liberty to go over the banks, because there is an extrinsical impediment; but to ascend up the channel, it wants not liberty, but power”. Why? Liberty is a power; if it want power to ascend, it wants liberty to ascend. But he makes the reason why the water ascends not up the channel, to be intrinsical, and the reason why it ascends not over the banks, to be extrinsical; as if there were not a rising of the ground up the channel, as well as up the banks, though it be not so discernible, nor always so sudden. The natural appetite of the water is as much against the ascending over the banks, as the ascending up the channel. And the extrinsical impediment is as great, ascending up the channel, as over the banks; or rather greater, because there it must move, not only against the rising soil, but also against the succeeding