An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Section S49

This is so far from being a restraint or diminution of freedom, that it is the very improvement and benefit of it; it is not an abridgment, it is the end and use of our liberty; and the further we are removed from such a determination, the nearer we are to misery and slavery. A perfect indifference in the mind, not determinable by its last judgment of the good or evil that is thought to attend its choice, would be so far from being an advantage and excellency of any intellectual nature, that it would be as great an imperfection, as the want of indifferency to act, or not to act, till determined by the will, would be an imperfection on the other side. A man is at liberty to lift up his hand to his head, or let it rest quiet: he is perfectly indifferent in either; and it would be an imperfection in him, if he wanted that power, if he were deprived of that indifferency. But it would be as great an imperfection, if he had the same indifferency, whether he would prefer the lifting up his hand, or its remaining in rest, when it would save his head or eyes from a blow he sees coming: it is as much a perfection, that desire, or the power of preferring, should be determined by good, as that the power of acting should be determined by the will; and the certainer such determination is, the greater is the perfection. Nay, were we determined by anything but the last result of our own minds, judging of the good or evil of any action, we were not free.

Si nous jettons les yeux ſur ces Etres ſupérieurs qui ſont au deſſus de nous & qui jouïſſent d’une parfaite félicité, nous aurons ſujet de croire qu’ils ſont plus fortement déterminez au choix du Bien, que nous ; & cependant nous n’avons pas raiſon de nous figurer qu’ils ſoient moins heureux ou moins libres que nous. Et s’il convenoit à de pauvres Créatures bornées comme nous ſommes, de juger ce que pourroit faire une Sageſſe & une Bonté infinie, je croi que nous pourrions dire, que Dieu lui-même ne ſauroit choiſir ce qui n’eſt pas bon, & que la Liberté de cet Etre tout-puiſſant ne l’empêche pas d’être déterminé par ce qui eſt le meilleur.