_liberty in the subject_ to will or not to will, and a _liberty to the object_ to will this or that, and a _liberty from impediments_. T. H. by a new way of his own cuts off the _liberty of the subject_; as if a stone was free to ascend or descend, because it hath no outward impediment: and the _liberty towards the object_; as if the needle touched with the loadstone were free to point either towards the north or towards the south, because there is not a barricado in its way to hinder it. Yea, he cuts off the _liberty from inward impediments_ also; as if a hawk were at liberty to fly when her wings are plucked, but not when they are tied. And so he makes _liberty from extrinsical impediments_ to be complete liberty; so he ascribes _liberty_ to brute beasts, and _liberty_ to rivers, and by consequence makes beasts and rivers to be capable of sin and punishment. Assuredly Xerxes, who caused the Hellespont to be beaten with so many stripes, was of this opinion. Lastly, T. H.’s reason, that ‘it is custom, or want of ability, or negligence, which makes a man conceive otherwise’, is but a begging of that which he should prove. Other men consider as seriously as himself, with as much judgment as himself, with less prejudice than himself, and yet they can apprehend no such sense of these words. Would he have other men feign they see fiery dragons in the air, because he affirms confidently that he sees them, and wonders why others are so blind as not to see them? (_i_) “The reason for the sixth point is like the former, a fantastical or imaginative reason. ‘How can a man imagine anything to begin without a cause, or if it should begin without a cause, why it should begin at this time rather than at that time?’ He saith truly, nothing can _begin_ without a cause, that is, _to be_; but it may _begin to act_ of itself without any other cause. Nothing can begin without a cause; but many things may begin, and do begin without necessary causes. A free cause may as well choose his time when he will begin, as a necessary cause be determined extrinsically when it must begin. And although free effects cannot be foretold, because they are not certainly predetermined in their causes; yet when the free causes do determine themselves, they are of as great certainty as the other. As when I see a bell ringing, I can conceive the cause of it as well why it rings now, as I know the interposition of the earth to be the cause of the eclipse of the moon, or the most certain occurrent in the nature of things.