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The Philosophical Inquiry concerning Human Liberty of Anthony Collins' was considered by Joseph Priestley and Voltaire to be the best book written on freewill up to their own time. Priestley admitted that it convert ed him to determinism and it had a powerful effect on Voltaire in the same direction. It seems important to place in its wider historical context a book which so influenced such men and which greatly impressed the philosophes in general. Therefore - and because such an account has value in itself - the Introduction contains a survey of the freewill controversy from the time of Hobbes to that of Leibniz, giving in some detail the opinions of Hobbes, Locke, Pierre Bayle, William King, Archbishop of Dublin, and Leibniz and an account of the Scholastic doctrine of liberty of indifference - opinions which either influenced Collins or against which he reacted. The value and originality of Collins' works need assessing. He was also at times liable to misinterpret or misunderstand the authorities he quoted. I have, therefore, subjected the Inquiry to a detailed critique. This also gives cross-references to parallel passages in Collins' works and those of the authors who influenced him, and, by discussing the philosophical and theological questions to which his writings give rise, obviates the need for a good many footnotes in the notes that follow the text.
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 edition. Excerpt: ... action? Such explanations are at best incomplete; and when they profess completeness, they become positively erroneous. VI "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 ot 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." With the exception of some volitions of men and angels, all things that happen in nature, all bodily and mental actions of creatures, are necessary actions, actions that cannot but follow upon their antecedents, that is to say, upon the sum of relevant conditions, positive and negative, going before. This attribute of the actions, that they cannot but ensue under the circumstances, is their necessity. Surely it is an attribute of the actions themselves, wholly independent of any human inference. Whether men infer it or not, the action ensues and cannot but ensue. The sequence and its inevitability together...
