A man loves his own house better than another man’s; yet he cannot but esteem many others better than his own. His other instance, ‘how can it be proved that eternity is not _nunc stans_, to a man that says these words by custom, and never considers how he can conceive the thing itself in his mind’, is just like the former, not to be proved by reason, but by fancy, which is the way he takes. And it is not unlike the counsel which one gave to a novice about the choice of his wife, to advise with the bells: as he fancied so they sounded, either take her or leave her. (_c_) “Then for his assumption, it is as defective as his proposition, that by those words spontaneity, &c, men do understand as he conceives. No rational man doth conceive a _spontaneous_ action and an _indeliberate_ action to be all one. Every _indeliberate_ action is not _spontaneous_; the fire considers not whether it should burn, yet the burning of it is not _spontaneous_. Neither is every _spontaneous_ action _indeliberate_; a man may deliberate what he will eat, and yet eat it _spontaneously_. (_d_) Neither doth _deliberation_ properly signify, the considering of the good and evil sequels of an action to come, but the considering whether this be a good and fit means, or the best and fittest means for obtaining such an end. The physician doth not deliberate whether he should cure his patient, but by what means he should cure him. Deliberation is of the means, not of the end. (_e_) Much less doth any man conceive with T. H. that deliberation is an _imagination_, or an act of fancy not of reason, common to men of discretion with madmen, and natural fools, and children, and brute beasts. (_f_) Thirdly, neither doth any understanding man conceive, or can conceive, that ‘the will is an act of our deliberation’; (the understanding and the will are two distinct faculties); or that ‘only the last appetite is to be called our will’. So no man should be able to say, this is my will, because he knows not whether he shall persevere in it or not. (_g_) Concerning the fourth point we agree, that ‘he is a free agent that can do if he will, and forbear if he will’. But I wonder how this dropped from his pen. What is now become of his absolute necessity of all things, if a man be free to do and to forbear anything? Will he make himself guilty of the _nonsense_ of the Schoolmen, and run with them into contradictions for company? It may be he will say, he can do if he will, and forbear if he will, but he cannot will if he will. This will not serve his turn; for if the cause of a free action, that is, the will to do it be determined, then the effect, or the action itself is likewise determined; a determined cause cannot produce an undetermined effect; either the agent can will and forbear to will, or else he cannot do and forbear to do. (_h_) But we differ wholly about the fifth point. He who conceives _liberty_ aright, conceives both a