, p.
88). So far from calling this a strict consideration of the subject, I
own I should call it the loosest, and most erroneous, way possible, of
considering it. It is the calculating the velocity of a falling body in
vacuo, and persisting in it, that it would be the same through whatever
resisting mediums it might fall. This was not Newton's mode of
philosophizing. Very few general propositions are just in application
to a particular subject. The moon is not kept in her orbit round the
earth, nor the earth in her orbit round the sun, by a force that varies
merely in the inverse ratio of the squares of the distances. To make
the general theory just in application to the revolutions of these
bodies, it was necessary to calculate accurately the disturbing force
of the sun upon the moon, and of the moon upon the earth; and till
these disturbing forces were properly estimated, actual observations on
the motions of these bodies would have proved that the theory was not
accurately true.

I am willing to allow that every voluntary act is preceded by a
decision of the mind, but it is strangely opposite to what I should
conceive to be the just theory upon the subject, and a palpable
contradiction to all experience, to say that the corporal propensities
of man do not act very powerfully, as disturbing forces, in these
decisions. The question, therefore, does not merely depend upon whether
a man may be made to understand a distinct proposition or be convinced
by an unanswerable argument. A truth may be brought home to his
conviction as a rational being, though he may determine to act contrary
to it, as a compound being. The cravings of hunger, the love of liquor,
the desire of possessing a beautiful woman, will urge men to actions,
of the fatal consequences of which, to the general interests of
society, they are perfectly well convinced, even at the very time they
commit them. Remove their bodily cravings, and they would not hesitate
a moment in determining against such actions. Ask them their opinion of
the same conduct in another person, and they would immediately
reprobate it. But in their own case, and under all the circumstances of
their situation with these bodily cravings, the decision of the
compound being is different from the conviction of the rational being.

If this be the just view of the subject, and both theory and experience
unite to prove that it is, almost all Mr Godwin's reasonings on the
subject of coercion