this actual attraction of objects, cogency of reasons, and even
inspiration of a Superior Being, I still remain master of my will,
and am free either to will or not to will.

It is this exemption not only from all manner of constraint or
compulsion but also from all necessity and this command over my own
actions that render me inexcusable when I will evil, and
praiseworthy when I will good; in this lies merit and demerit,
praise and blame; it is this that makes either punishment or reward
just; it is upon this consideration that men exhort, rebuke,
threaten, and promise. This is the foundation of all policy,
instruction, and rules of morality. The upshot of the merit and
demerit of human actions rests upon this basis, that nothing is so
much in the power of our will as our will itself, and that we have
this free-will--this, as it were, two-edged faculty--and this
elative power between two counsels which are immediately, as it
were, within our reach. It is what shepherds and husbandmen sing in
the fields, what merchants and artificers suppose in their traffic,
what actors represent in public shows, what magistrates believe in
their councils, what doctors teach in their schools; it is that, in
short, which no man of sense can seriously call in question. That
truth imprinted in the bottom of our hearts, is supposed in the
practice, even by those philosophers who would endeavour to shake it
by their empty speculations. The intimate evidence of that truth is
like that of the first principles, which want no proof, and which
serve themselves as proofs to other truths that are not so clear and
self-evident. But how could the First Being make a creature who is
himself the umpire of his own actions?