liberty, which is immaterial. “How a real faculty can be defined by an absence, is”, saith he, “past my understanding.” Unless he mean by _real faculty_ a _very faculty_, I know not how a faculty is real. If he mean so, then a very absence is as real as a very faculty. And if the word defined signify an absence or negation, I hope he would not have me define it by a presence or affirmation. Such a word is liberty; for it signifieth freedom from impediments, which is all one with the absence of impediments, as I have defined it. And if this be contrary to all the rules of right reason, that is to say, of logic, that he hath learned, I should advise him to read some other logic than he hath yet read, or consider better those he did read when he was a young man and could less understand them. He adds, that “by this definition, a stone hath liberty to ascend into the air, because there is no outward impediment to hinder it”. How knows he whether there be impediments to hinder it or not? Certainly if a stone were thrown upwards, it would either go upwards eternally, or it must be stopped by some outward impediment, or it must stop itself. He hath confessed, that nothing can move itself; I doubt not therefore that he will confess also, that it cannot stop itself. But stopped we see it is; it is therefore stopped by impediments external. He hath in this part of his answer ventured a little too far in speaking of definition, and of impediments, and motion; and bewrayed too much his ignorance in logic and philosophy; and talked so absurdly of the current of rivers, and of the motion of the seas, and of the weight of water, that it cannot be corrected otherwise than by blotting it all out. NO. XXX. _T. H._ Sixthly, I conceive nothing taketh beginning from itself, but from the action of some other immediate agent without itself: and that therefore when first a man had an appetite or will to something, to which immediately before he had no appetite nor will, the cause of his will is not the will itself, but something else not in his own disposing. So that, whereas it is out of controversy that of voluntary actions the will is a necessary cause; and by this which is said, the will is also caused by other things whereof it disposeth not; it followeth that voluntary actions have all of them necessary causes, and therefore are necessitated. [Sidenote: The Bishop’s reply.]