nclination
to be influenced by Vicious Motives, which, _whenever a Vice is
committed_, is at least _equally strong_ with the other, and in the first
Vice _is not affected by Habits_, but is as _natural_, and as much _out
of a man's power_ as the other. I am much obliged to your offer of
writing to Mr. Laughton, which I shall very thankfully accept of, but am
not certain when I shall go to Cambridge; however, I believe it will be
about the middle of the next month.

I am, Rev. Sir,
Your most obliged humble Servant,

J. BUTLER.

Oriel, Oct. the 6th.

THE ANSWER.

Your objection seems indeed very dexterous, and yet I really think that
there is at bottom nothing in it. But of this you are to judge, not from
my assertion, but from the reason I shall endeavour to give to it.

I think then, that a _disposition to be influenced by right motives_
being what we call _rationality_, there cannot be on the contrary
(properly speaking) any such thing naturally in rational creatures as a
_disposition to be influenced by wrong motives_. This can be nothing but
mere _perverseness of will_; and whether even that can be said to amount
to a disposition to be influenced by wrong motives, _formally_, and as
such, may (I think) well be doubted. Men have by nature strong
inclinations to certain objects. None of these inclinations are vicious,
but vice consists in pursuing the inclination towards any object in
certain circumstances, notwithstanding _reason_, or the natural
disposition to be influenced by right motives, declares to the man's
conscience at the same time (or would do, if he attended to it) that the
object ought not to be pursued in those circumstances. Nevertheless,
where the man commits the crime, the _natural disposition_ was only
towards the _object_, not formally towards the doing it upon wrong
motives; and generally the very essence of the crime consists in the
liberty of the will forcibly overruling the _actual disposition towards
being influenced by right motives_, and not at all (as you suppose) in
the man's having any _natural disposition to be influenced by wrong
motives_, as such.

III.

From the original, now in the library at the British Museum. [Add. MS.
12,101.]

REV. SIR,

I had the honour of your kind letter yesterday, and must own that I do
now see a _difference_ between the nature of _that disposition which we
have to be influenced by virtuous motives_, and _that contrary
disposi