e; and consequently that it is never determined without some real or
apparent cause foreign to itself, i. e., without some motive of choice; or
that motives influence us in some definite and invariable manner, so that
every volition, or choice, is constantly regulated and determined by what
precedes it; and this constant determination of mind, according to the
motives presented to it, is what is meant by its _necessary
determination_. This being admitted to be fact, there will be a necessary
connection between all things past, present, and to come, in the way of
proper cause and effect, as much in the intellectual as in the natural
world; so that, according to the established laws of nature, no event
could have been otherwise than it _has been_, or _is to be_, and therefore
all things past, present, and to come, are precisely what the Author of
Nature really intended them to be, and has made provision for.

To establish this conclusion, nothing is necessary but that throughout all
nature the same consequences should invariably result from the same
circumstances. For if this be admitted, it will necessarily follow that,
at the commencement of any system, since the several parts of it, and
their respective situations, were appointed by the Deity, the first change
would take place according to a certain rule established by himself, the
result of which would be a new situation; after which the same laws
containing another change would succeed, according to the same rules, and
so on forever; every new situation invariably leading to another, and
every event, from the commencement to the termination of the system, being
strictly connected, so that, unless the fundamental laws of the system
were changed, it would be impossible that any event should have been
otherwise than it was. In all these cases, the circumstances preceding any
change are called the causes of that change; and, since a determinate
event, or effect, constantly follows certain circumstances, or causes, the
connection between cause and effect is concluded to be invariable, and
therefore necessary.

It is universally acknowledged that there can be no effect without an
adequate cause. This is even the foundation on which the only proper
argument for the being of a God rests. And the Necessarian asserts that
if, in any given state of mind, with respect both to dispositions and
motives, two different determinations, or volitions, be possible, it can
be on no other