must be obliged to acknowledge in words that necessity, which we have
already avowed, in every deliberation of our lives, and in every step of
our conduct and behaviour.[17]

[17] The prevalence of the doctrine of liberty may be accounted
for, from another cause, viz. a false sensation or seeming
experience which we have, or may have, of liberty or
indifference, in many of our actions. The necessity of any
action, whether of matter or of mind, is not, properly
speaking, a quality in the agent, but in any thinking or
intelligent being, who may consider the action; and it consists
chiefly in the determination of his thoughts to infer the
existence of that action from some preceding objects; as
liberty, when opposed to necessity, is nothing but the want of
that determination, and a certain looseness or indifference,
which we feel, in passing, or not passing, from the idea of one
object to that of any succeeding one. Now we may observe,
that, though, in _reflecting_ on human actions, we seldom feel
such a looseness, or indifference, but are commonly able to
infer them with considerable certainty from their motives, and
from the dispositions of the agent; yet it frequently happens,
that, in _performing_ the actions themselves, we are sensible
of something like it: And as all resembling objects are readily
taken for each other, this has been employed as a demonstrative
and even intuitive proof of human liberty. We feel, that our
actions are subject to our will, on most occasions; and imagine
we feel, that the will itself is subject to nothing, because,
when by a denial of it we are provoked to try, we feel, that it
moves easily every way, and produces an image of itself (or a
_Velleity,_ as it is called in the schools) even on that side,