Page:A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty (3rd ed., 1735).djvu/64

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An Inquiry concerning

have liberty (this is cease to have liberty to chuse evil) being inviolably attach'd to their duty by the actual enjoyment of their felicity.

4. Were liberty defin'd, as it is by some, a power to will or chllse at the same time any one out of two or more indifferent things; that would be no perfection. For those things call'd here indifferent or alike, may be consider'd, either as really different from each other, and that only seem indifferent or alike to us thro' our want of discernment; or as exactly like each other. Now the more liberty we have in the first kind, that is, the more instances there are of things which seem alike to us, and are not alike; the more mistakes and wrong choices we must run into. For if we had just notions, we should know those things were not indifferent or alike. This liberty therefore would be found'd on a direct imperfection of our faculties. And as to a power of chllsing differently at the same time among things, really indifferent; what benefit, what perfection would such a power of chusing be, when the things that are the sole objects of our free choice are all alike?

5. Lastly