for such an act, yet we should never deny a
thing because we cannot see how it is; this would not be a satisfactory
answer. For, though it is certainly the last weakness of the human mind to
deny a thing, because we cannot see how it is; yet there is a great
difference between not being able to see _how a thing is_, and being
clearly able to see that it _cannot be anyhow at all_,--between being
unable to see how two things agree together, and being able to see that
two ideas are utterly repugnant to each other. Hence we mean to ask, that
if a man's act be necessitated in him by an infinite, omnipotent power,
over which he had, and could have, no possible control, can we not see
that he _cannot_ be accountable for it? We have no difficulty whatever in
believing a mystery; but when we are required to embrace what so plainly
seems to be an absurdity, we confess that our reason is either weak
enough, or strong enough, to pause and reluctate.

Section II.

The manner in which Hobbes, Collins, and others, endeavour to reconcile
necessity with free and accountable agency.

The celebrated philosopher of Malmsbury viewed all things as bound
together in the relation of cause and effect; and he was, beyond doubt,
one of the most acute thinkers that ever advocated the doctrine of
necessity. From some of the sentiments expressed towards the conclusion of
"The Leviathan," which have, not without reason, subjected him to the
charge of atheism, we may doubt his entire sincerity when he pretends to
advocate the doctrine of necessity out of a zeal for the Divine
Sovereignty and the dogma of Predestination. If he hoped by this avowal of
his design to propitiate any class of theologians, he must have been
greatly disappointed; for his speculations were universally condemned by
the Christian world as atheistical in their tendency. This charge has been
fixed upon him, in spite of his solemn protestations against its
injustice, and his earnest endeavours to reconcile his scheme of necessity
with the free-agency and accountability of man.

"I conceive," says Hobbes, "that nothing taketh beginning from itself, but
from the action of some other immediate agent without itself. And that
therefore, when first a man hath an appetite or will to something, to
which immediately before he had no appetite nor will, the cause of his
will is not the will itself, but something else not in his own disposing;
so that