Page:A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty (3rd ed., 1735).djvu/40

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An Inquiry concerning

to submit to appearances. For when it is ask’d us, whether objects are such as they appear? we deny not their appearances nor doubt of them, but only question, whether the external objects are like the appearances.

Willing.3. Willing, is the third action of man which I propose to consider. It is matter of daily experience, that we begin, or forbear, continue or end several actions barely by a thought or preference of the mind, ordering the doing or not doing, the continuing or ending, such or such actions. Thus, before we think or deliberate on any subject, or before we get on horse-back, we do prefer those things to anything else in competition with them. In like manner, if we forbear these actions, when any of them are offer’d to our thoughts: or if we continue to proceed in any one of these actions once begun, or if at any time we make an end of prosecuting them; we do forbear, or continue, or end them on our preference of the forbearance to the doing of them, of the continuing of them to the ending them, and of the ending to the continuing them. This power of the man thus to order the