Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bring_v	effect_n	good_a	1,532	5	3.6660	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44006	Of libertie and necessitie a treatise, wherein all controversie concerning predestination, election, free-will, grace, merits, reprobation, &c. is fully decided and cleared, in answer to a treatise written by the Bishop of London-derry, on the same subject / by Thomas Hobs.	Hobbes, Thomas, 1588-1679.	1654 (1654)	Wing H2252; ESTC R20187	27,647	98

is the same thing and that of a voluntarie Agent it is all one to say he is free and to say he hath not made an end of deliberating Fifthly I conceive Libertie to be rightly defined in this manner Libertie is the absence of all the impediments to Action that are not contained in the nature and intrinsecal qualitie of the Agent As for example the water is said to descend freely or to have libertie to descend by the channel of the river because there is no impediment that way but not across because the banks are impediments And though the water cannot ascend yet men never say it wants the libertie to ascend but the faculty or power because the impediment is in the nature of the water and intrinsecal So also we say he that is tied wants the libertie to go because the impediment is not in him but in his bands whereas we say not so of him that is sick or lame because the impediment is in himself Sixthly I conceive that nothing taketh beginning from it self but from the Action of some other immediate Agent without it self And that therefore when first a man hath 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 it self but something else not in his own disposing So that whereas it is out of controversie that of voluntarie actions the will is the necessarie cause and by this which is said the will is also caused by other things whereof it disposeth not it followeth that voluntarie actions have all of them necessarie causes and therefore are necessitated Seventhly I hold that to be a sufficient cause to which nothing is wanting that is needfull to the producing of the effect The same also is a necessarie cause For if it be possible that a sufficient cause shall not bring forth the effect then there wanteth somewhat which was needfull to the producing of it and so the cause was not sufficient but if it be impossible that a sufficient cause should not produce the effect then is a sufficient cause a necessary cause for that is said to produce an effect necessarily that cannot but produce it Hence it is manifest that whatsoever is produced is produced necessarily for whatsoever is produced hath had a sufficient cause to produce it or else it had not been and therefore also voluntarie actions are necessitated Lastly should that Ordinary Definition of a free Agent namely That a free Agent is that which when all things are present which are needfull to produce the effect can nevertheless not produce it implies a contradiction and is non-sence being as much as to say The cause may be sufficient that is to say necessarie and yet the effect shall not follow My Reasons FOr the first five points wherein it is explicated 1. what Spontanity is 2. what Deliberation is 3. what Will propension and appetite is 4. what a free Agent is 5. what Liberty is there can no other proof be offered but every mans own experience by reflection on himself and remembring what he useth in his minde that is what he himself meaneth when he saith an action is Spontaneous a man deliberates such is his will that Agent or that action is free Now he that reflecteth so on himself cannot but be satisfied that Deliberation is the consideration of the good and evil sequels of an action to come that by Spontanity is meant inconsiderate action or else nothing is meant by it that will is the last act of our Deliberation that a free Agent is he that can do if he will and forbear if he will and that Liberty is the absence of external impediments But to those that out of custom speak not what they conceive but what they hear and are not able or will not take the pains to consider what they think when they hear such words no Argument can be sufficient because experience and matter of fact is not verified by other mens Arguments but by every mans own sence and memory For example how can it be proved that to love a thing and to think it good is all one to a man that doth not mark his own meaning by those word Or how can it be proved that Eternity is not nunc stans to a man that saies those words by custom and never consider how he can conceive the thing in his minde Also the sixth point that a man cannot imagine any thing to begin without a cause can no other way be made known but by trying how he can imagine it but if he try he shall finde as much reason if there be no cause of the thing to conceive it should begin at one time as another that he hath equal reason to think it should begin at all times which is impossible and therefore he must think there was some special cause why it began then rather than sooner or later or else that it began never but was eternal For the seventh point which is that all events have necessary causes it is there proved in that they have sufficient causes Further let us in this place also suppose any event never so casual as the throwing for example Ames Ace upon a pair of dice and see if it must not have been necessary before 't was thrown For seeing it was thrown it had a beginning and consequently a sufficient cause to produce it consisting partly in the dice partly in outward things as the posture of the parts of the hand the measure of force applied by the caster the posture of the parts of the Table and the like In sum there was nothing wanting which was necessarily requisite to the producing of that particular cast and consequently the cast was necessarily thrown for if it had not been thrown there had wanted somwhat requisite to the throwing of it and so the cause had not been sufficient In the like manner it may be proved that every other ac●ident how contingent soever it seem or how voluntary soever it be is produced necessarily which is that that my L. Bishop disputes against The same may be proved also in this manner Let the case be put for example of the weather 'T is necessary that to morrow it shall rain or not rain If therefore it be not necessary it shall rain it is necessary it shall not rain otherwise there is no necessity that the proposition It shall rain or not rain should be true I know there be some that say it may necessarily be true that one of the two shall come to pass but not singly that it shall rain or that it shall not rain which is as much as to say one of them is necessary yet neither of them is necessary and therefore to seem to avoid that absurdity they make a distinction that neither of them is true determinate but indeterminate which distinction either signifies no more but this One of them is true but we know not which and so the necessity remains though we know it not or if the meaning of the distinction be not that it hath no meaning and they might as well have said One of them is true Titirice but neither of them Tu patulice The last thing in which also consisteth the whole controversie namely that there is no such thing as an Agent which when all things requisite to action are present can nevertheless forbear to produce it or which is all one that there is no such thing as freedom from necessity is easily inferred from that which hath been before alledged For if it be an Agent it can work and if it work there is nothing wanting of what is requisite to produce the action and consequently the cause of the action is sufficient if sufficient then also necessary as hath been proved before And thus you see how the inconveniences which his Lordship objecteth must follow upon the holding of necessity are avoided and the necessity it self demonstratively proved To which I could add if I thought it good Logick the inconvenience of denying necessity as that it destroyeth both the decrees and the prescience of God Almighty for whatsoever God hath purposed to bring to pass by man as an instrument or foreseeth shall come to pass a man if he have Liberty such as his Lordship affirmeth from necessitation might frustrate and make not to come to pass and God should either not foreknow it and not decree it or he should foreknow such things shall be as shall never be and decree that which shall never come to pass This is all hath come into my minde touching this question since I last considered it And I humbly beseech your Lordship to communicate it onely to my Lord Bishop And so praying God to prosper your Lordship in all your designes I take leave and am My most Noble and most obliged Lord Your most humble servant Thomas Hobbs Roven Aug. 20. 〈◊〉 FINIS

say what necessary cause soever precede an action yet if the action be forbidden he that doth it willingly may justly be punished For instance suppose the Law on pain of death prohibit stealing and that there be a man who by the strength of temptation is necessitated to steal and is thereupon put to death does not this punishment deter others from Theft is it not a cause that others steal not Doth it not frame and make their wills to justice To make the Law is therefore to make a Cause of Justice and to necessitate Justice and consequently 't is no injustice to make such a Law The intention of the Law is not to grieve the Delinquent for that which is past and not to be undone but to make him and others just that else would not be so and respecteth not the evil act past but the good to come in so much as without the good intention for the future no past act of a Delinquent could justifie his killing in the sight of God But you will say how is it just to kill one man to amend another if what were done were necessary To this I answer that men are justly killed not for that their actions are not necessitated but because they are noxious and they are spared and preserved whose actions are not noxious For where there is no Law there no killing nor any thing else can be unjust and by the right of nature we destroy without being unjust all that is noxious both Beasts and Men and for Beasts we kill them justly when we do it in order to our own preservation and yet my Lord himself confesseth that their actions as being onely spontaneous and not free are all necessitated and determined to that one thing they shall do For men when we make Societies or Common-Wealths we lay not down our right to kill excepting in certain cases as murther theft or other offensive action so that the right which the Common-Wealth hath to put a man to death for crimes is not created by the Law but remains from the first right of nature which every man hath to preserve himself for that the Law doth not take the right away in the case of Criminals who were by the Law excepted Men are not therefore put to death or punished for that their theft proceedeth from election but because it was noxious and contrary to mens preservation and the punishment conducing to the preservation of the rest in as much as to punish those that do voluntary hurt and none else frameth and maketh mens wills such as men would have them And thus it is plain that from the necessity of a voluntary action cannot be inferred the injustice of the Law that forbiddeth it or the Magistrate that punisheth it Secondly I deny that it maketh consultations to be in vain 't is the consultation that causeth a man necessitateth him to choose to do one thing rather than another so that unless a man say that that cause is in vain which necessitateth the effect he cannot infer the superfluousness of consultation out of the necessity of the election proceeding from it But it seemeth his Lordships reasons thus If I must do this rather than that I shall do this rather than that though I consult not at all which is a false proposition and a false consequence and no better than this if I shall live till to morrow I shall live till to morrow though I run my self through with a sword to day If there be a necessity that an action shall be done or that any effect shall be brought to pass it does not therefore follow that there is nothing necessarily requisite as a means to bring it to pass and therefore when it is determined that one thing shall be chosen before another 't is determined also for what cause it shall so be chosen which cause for the most part is deliberatiō or consultation and therefore consultation is not in vain and indeed the less in vain by how much the election is more necessitated if more and less had any place in necessity The same answer is to be given to the third supposed inconvenience namely that admonitions are in vain for the Admonitions are parts of consultation the admonitor being a Councellour for the time to him that is admonished The fourth pretended inconveence is that praise dispraise reward and punishment will be in vain To which I answer that for praise and dispraise they depend not at all on the necessity of the action praised or dispraised For what is it else to praise but to say a thing is good good I say for me or for some body else or for the State and Common-Wealth And what is it to say an action is good but to say it is as I would wish Or as another would have it or according to the will of the State that is to say according to the Law Does my Lord think that no action can please me or him or the Common-Wealth that should proceed from necessity things may be therefore necessary and yet praise worthy as also necessary and yet dispraised and neither of them both in vain because praise and dispraise and likewise Reward and Punishment do by example make and conform the will to good and evil It was a very great praise in my opinion that Velleius Paterculus gives Cato where he saies that he was good by nature Et quia aliter esse non potuit To the fifth and sixth inconveniences that Counsels Arts Arms Instruments Books Study Medicines and the like would be superfluous the same answer serves as to the former that is to say that this consequence If the effect shall necessarily come to pass then it shall come to pass without its causes is a false one and those things named Counsels Arts Arms c. are the causes of these effects His Lordships third Argument consisteth in other inconveniences which he saith will follow namely Impiety and negligence of religious duties as Repentance and Zeal to Gods service c. To which I answer as to the rest that they follow not I must confess if we consider the greatest part of Mankinde not as they should be but as they are that is as men whom either the study of acquiring wealth or preferment or whom the appetite of sensual delights or the impatience of meditating or the rash embracing of wrong principles have made unapt to discuss the truth of things I must I say confess that the dispute of this question will rather hurt than help their piety and therefore if his Lordship had not desired this answer I should not have written it nor do I write it but in hopes your Lordship and his will keep it private Nevertheless in very truth the necessity of events does not of it self draw with it any impiety at all For piety consisteth onely in two things one that we honour God in our hearts which is that we think as highly of his power as we

the will to forbear the forbearing also will be necessary The Question therefore is not whether a man be a free Agent that is to say whether he can write or forbear speak or be silent according to his will but whether the will to write and the will to forbear come upon him according to his will or according to any thing else in his own power I acknowledge this Liberty that I can do if I will but to say I can will if I willt I take to be an absurd speech wherefore I cannot grant my Lord the cause upon his preface In the next place he maketh certain distinctions of Libertie and saies he meaneth not Libertie from sin nor from servitude nor from violence but from Necessitie Necessitation inevitabilitie and determination to one It had been better to define Liberty than thus to distinguish for I understand never the more what he means by Libertie and though he say he means Libertie from necessitation yet I understand not how such a Libertie can be and t is a taking of the Question without proof for what is else the Question between us but whether such a Liberty be possible or not There are in the same place other distinctions as a Liberty of Exercise onely which he calls a Libertie of contradiction namely of doing not good or evil simply but of doing this or that good or this or that evil respestively and a Libertie of specification and exercise also which he calls a Liberty of contrarietie namely a Liberty not onely to do good or evil but also to do or not do this or that good or evil And with these Distinctions his Lordship saies he clears the coast whereas in truth he darkneth his own meaning and the Question not onely with the jargon of exercise onely specification also contradiction contrarietie but also with pretending distinction where none is For how is it possible that the Libertie of doing or not doing this or that good or evil can consist as he saies it does in God and good Angels without a Liberty of doing or not doing good or evil The next thing his Lordship does after clearing of the coast is the dividing of his forces as he calls them into two squadrons one of places of Scriptures the other of Reasons which allegory he useth I suppose because he addresseth the discourse to your Lordship who is military man All that I have to say touching this is that I observe a great part of those his forces do look and march another way and some of them fight amongst themselves And the first place of Scripture taken from Numb. 30.14 Is one of those that look another way the words are If a wife make a vow it is left to her husbands choice either to establish it or make it void For it proves no more but that the husband is a free and voluntary Agent but not that his choice therein is not necessitated or not determined to what he shall choose by precedent necessary causes For if there come into the husbands minde greater good by establishing than abrogating such a vow the establishing will follow necessarily and if the evil that will follow in the husbands opinion out-weigh the good the contrary must needs follow and yet in this following of ones hopes and fears consisteth the nature of Election So that a man may both choose this and cannot but choose this and consequently choosing and necessity are joyned together The second place of Scripture is Joshua 24.15 The third is 2 Sam. 24.12 whereby 't is clearly proved that there is election in man but not proved that such election was not necessitated by the hopes and fears and considerations of good and bad to follow which depend not on the will nor are subject to election And therefore one answer serves all such places if there were a thousand But his Lordship supposing it seems I might answer as I have done that necessity and election might stand together and instance in the actions of children fools or bruit beasts whose fancies I might say are necessitated and determined to one before these his proofs out of Scripture desires to prevent that instance and therefore saies that the actions of children fools mad men and beasts are indeed determined but that they proceed not from election nor from free but from Spontaneous Agents As for example that the Bee when it maketh hony does it Spontaneously and when the Spider makes his web he does it Spontaneously but not by election Though I never meant to ground my Answer upon the experience of what Children Fools Mad men and Beasts do yet that your Lordship may understand what can be meant by Spontaneous and how it differeth from voluntary I will answer that distinction and shew that it fighteth against its fellow Arguments Your Lordship therefore is to consider that all voluntary actions where the thing that induceth the will is not fear are called also spontaneous and said to be done by a mans own accord As when a man giveth money voluntarily to another for Merchandise or out of affection he is said to do it of his own accord which in latine is sponte and therefore the action is spontaneous though to give ones mony willingly to a thief to a void killing or throw it into the Sea to avoid drowning where the motive is fear be not called spontaneous But every spontaneous action is not therefore voluntary for voluntary presupposes some precedent deliberation that is to say some consideration and meditation of what is likely to follow both upon the doing and abstaining from the action deliberated of whereas many actions are done of our own accord and are therefore spontaneous for which nevertheless as my Lord thinks we never consulted nor deliberated in our selves As when making no question nor any the least doubt in the world but the thing we are about is good we eat and walk or in anger strike or revile which my Lord thinks spontaneous but not voluntary nor elective actions and with such kinde of actions he saies necessitation may stand but not with such as are voluntary and proceed upon election and deliberation Now if I make it appear to your Lordship that those actions which he saies proceed from spontanity and which he ascribes to Children Fools Madmen and Beasts proceed from election and deliberation and that actions inconsiderate rash and spontaneous are ordinarily found in those that are by themselves and many more thought as wise or wiser than ordinarily men are then my Lord Bishops Argument concludeth that necessity and election may stand together which is contrary to that which he intendeth by all the rest of his Arguments to prove And first your Lordships own experience furnishes you with proof enough that Horses Doggs and other Bruit Beasts do demur oftentimes upon the way they are to take the Horse retiring from some strange figure that he sees and coming on again to avoid the spur And what else doth

a man that deliberateth but one while proceed toward action another while retire from it as the hope of greater good draws him or the fear of greater evil drives him away A Child may be so young as to do what it does without all deliberation but that is but till it have the chance to be hurt by doing of somewhat or till it be of age to understand the rod for the actions wherein he hath once had a check shall be deliberated on the second time Fools and Madmen manifestly deliberate no less than the wisest men though they make not so good a choice the images of things being by disease altered For Bees and Spiders if my Lord Bishop had had so little to do as to be a spectatour of their actions he would have confessed not onely election but art prudence and policy in them very near equal to that of mankinde Of Bees Aristotle saies their life is Civil Again his Lordship is deceived if he think any spontaneous action after once being checked in it differs from an action voluntary and elective for even the setting of a mans foot in the posture for walking and the action of ordinary eating was once deliberated of how and when it should be done and though afterward it became easie habitual so as to be done without fore-thought yet that does not hinder but that the act is voluntary and proceedeth from election So also are the rashest actions of cholerick persons voluntary and upon deliberation for who is there but very young children that hath not considered when and how farr he ought or safely may strike or revile Seeing then his Lordship agrees with me that such actions are necessitated and the fancie of those that do them determined to the action they do it follows out of his Lordships own doctrine that the liberty of election does not take away the necessitie of electing this or that individual thing And thus one of his Arguments fights against another The 2 Argument from Scripture consisteth in histories of men that did one thing when if they would they might have done another the places are two One is 1 Kings 3.11 where the history saies God was pleased that Solomon who might if he would have asked Riches or Revenge did nevertheless aske wisdom at Gods hands the other is the words of S. Peter to Ananias Acts 5.4 After it was sold was it not in thine own power To which the answer is the same with that I answered to the former places that they prove there is elction but do not disprove the necessity which I maintain of what they so elect The fourth Argument for to the 3 and fifth I shall make but one answer is to this effect If the decree of God or his foreknowledge or the influence of the stars or the concatenation of causes or the physical or moral efficacy of causes or the last dictate of the understanding or whatsoever it be do take away true liberty then Adam before his fall had no true liberty Quicquid ostendes mihi sic incredulus odi That which I say necessitateth and determinateth every action that his Lordship may no longer doubt of my meaning is the summ of all things which being now existent conduce and concurr to the production of that action hereafter whereof if any one thing now were wanting the effect could not be produced This concourse of causes whereof every one is determined be such as it is by a like concourse of former causes may well be called in respect they were all set and ordered by the eternal cause of all things God Almighty the Decree of God But that the foreknowledge of God should be a cause of any thing cannot be truely said seeing fore-knowledge is knowledge and knowledge depends on the existence of the things known and not they on it The influence of the Starres is but a small part of the whole cause consisting of the concourse of all Agents Nor does the concourse of all causes make one simple chain or concatination but an innumerable number of chains joyned together not in all parts but in the first link God Almighty and consequently the whole cause of an event doth not always depend on one single chain but on many together Natural efficacy of objects does determine voluntary Agents and necessitates the will and consequently the action but for moral efficacy I understand not what he means The last dictate of the judgement concerning the good or bad that may follow on any action is not properly the whole cause but the last part of it and yet may be said to Produce the effect necessarily in such manner as the last feather may be said to break a horses back when there were so many laid on before as there wanted but that one to do it Now for his Argument that if the concourse of all the causes necessitate the effect that then it follows Adam had no true liberty I deny the consequence for I make not onely the effect but also the election of that particular effect necessary in as much as the will it self each propension of a man during his deliberation is as much necessitated and depends on a sufficient cause as any thing else whatsoever As for example it is no more necessary that fire should burn than that a man or other creature whose limbs be moved by fancy should have election that is liberty to do what he hath a fancy to do though it be not in his will or power to choose his fancie or choose his election and will This doctrine because my Lord Bishop saies he hates I doubt had better been suppressed as it should have been if both your Lordship and he had not pressed me to an answer The Arguments of greatest consequence are the third and the fifth and they fall both into one namely If there be a necessity of all events that it will follow That praise and reprehension and reward and punishment are all vain and unjust and that if God should openly forbid and secretly necessitate the same action punishing men for what they could not avoid there would be no belief among them of Heaven and Hell To oppose hereunto I must borrow an answer from S. Paul Rom. 9.11 From the 11 verse of the Chapter to the 18 is laid down the very same objection in these words When they meaning Esau and Jacob were yet unborn and had done neither good nor evil that the purpose of God according to election not by works but by him that calleth might remain firm it was said unto her viz Rebecca that the elder should serve the younger c. What then shall we say Is there injustice with God God forbid It is not therefore in him that willeth nor in him that runneth but in God that sheweth mercy For the Scripture saith to Pharaoh I have stirred thee up that I might shew my power in thee and that my name might be set forth in all the

things nearer the sence move more powerfully than reason what followeth thence but this the sence of the present good is commonly more immediate to the action than the foresight of the evil consequence to come Fourthly whereas his Lordship saies that do what a man can he shall sorrow more for the death of his Son than for the sin of his soul makes nothing to the last dictate of the understanding but it argues plainly that sorrow for sin is not voluntary and by consequence that Repentance proceedeth from Causes The last part of this discourse containeth his Lordships opinion about reconciling liberty with the prescience and decree of God otherwise than some Divines have done against whom he saies he had formerly written a Treatise out of which he repeateth onely two things One is that we ought not to desert a certain truth for not being able to comprehend the certain manner of it And I say the same as for example that his Lordship ought not to desert this certain truth That there are certain and necessary causes which make every man to will what he willeth though he do not yet conceive in what manner the will of man is caused And yet I think the manner of it is not very hard to conceive seeing we see daily that praise dispraise reward and punishment good and evil sequels of mens actions retained in memory do frame and make us to the election of whatsoever it be that we elect and that the memory of such things proceeds from the sences and sence from the operation of the objects of sence which are external to us and governed onely by God Almighty and by consequence all actions even of free and voluntary Agents are necessary The other thing that he repeateth is that the best way to reconcile contingence and liberty with Prescience and the decrees of God is to subject future contingencies to the Aspect of God The same is also my opinion but cōtrary to what his Lordship all this while laboured to prove For hitherto he held liberty and necessity that is to say liberty and the decrees of God irreconcileable unless the Aspect of God which word appeareth now the first time in this discourse signifie somewhat else besides Gods will and decree which I cannot understand But he adds that we must subject them according to that presentiality which they have in eternity which he saies cannot be done by them that conceive Eternity to be an everlasting succession but onely by them that conceive it as an Indivisible point To which I answer that assoon as I can conceive Eternity to be an Indivisible point or any thing but an everlasting succession I will renounce all that I have written on this subject I know S. Thomas Aquinas calls Eternity Nunc stans an ever-abiding now which is easie enough to say but though I fain would yet I could never conceive it they that can are more happy than I. But in the mean time his Lordship alloweth all men to be of my opinion save onely those that can conceive in their minds a nunc stans which I think are none I understand as little how it can be true his Lordship saies that God is not just but justice it self not wise but wisdom it self not Eternal but Eternity it self nor how he concludes thence that Eternity is a point indivisible and not a succession nor in what sence it can be said that an infinite point and wherein is no succession can comprehend all time though time be successive These phrases I finde not in the Scripture I wonder therefore what was the design of the School-men to bring them up unless they thought a man could not be a true Christian unless his understanding be first strangled with such hard sayings And thus much for answer to his Lordships discourse wherein I think not onely his Squadrons of Arguments but also his Reserve of Distinctions are defeated And now your Lordship shall have my doctrine concerning the same question with my Reasons for it positively and as briefly as I can without any terms of Art in plain English My Opinion about LIBERTIE and NECESSITIE FIrst I conceive that when it cometh into a mans mind to do or not to do some certain action if he have no time to deliberate the doing it or abstaining necessarily follow the present thought he hath of the good or evil consequence thereof to himself As for example In sudden anger the action shall follow the thought of revenge in sudden fear the thought of escape Also when a man hath time to deliberate but deliberates not because never any thing appeared that could make him doubt of the consequence the action follows his opinion of the goodness or harm of it These actions I call VOLUNTARY my Lord if I understand him aright that calls them SPONTANEOUS I call them voluntarie because those actions that follow immediately the last appetite are voluntarie and here where is one onely appetite that one is the last Besides I see 't is reasonable to punish a rash Action which could not be justly done by man to man unless the same were voluntarie For no action of a man can be said to be without deliberation though never so sudden because it is supposed he had time to deliberate all the precedent time of his life whether he should do that kind of action or not And hence it is that he that killeth in a sudden passion of Anger shall nevertheless be justly put to death because all the time wherein he was able to consider whether to kill were good or evil shall be held for one continual deliberation and consequently the killing shall be judged to proceed frōelection Secondly I conceive when a man deliberates whether he shall do a thing or not do it that he does nothing else but consider whether it be better for himself to do it or not to do it And to consider an action is to imagine the consequences of it both good and evil From whence is to be inferred that Deliberation is nothing else but alternate imagination of the good and evil sequels of an action or which is the same thing alternate hope and fear or alternate appetite to do or quit the action of which he deliberateth Thirdly I conceive that in all deliberations that is to say in at alternate succession of contrary appetites the last is that which we call the WILL is immediately next before the doing of the action or next before the doing of it become impossible All other Appetites to do and to quit that come upon a man during his deliberations are called Intentions Inclinations but not Wills there being but one will which also in this case may be called the last will though the Intentions change often Fourthly I conceive that those actions which a man is said to do upon deliberation are said to be voluntarie and done upon choice and election so that voluntarie action and action proceeding from election