bad in himself, a bad choice, or bad disposition. But then our natural seiue is,
that this bad choice or disposition is evil in itself, and the man blameworthy for
it, on its own account, without taking into our notion of its blameworthiness,
another bad choice, or disposition going before this, from whence this arises ;
for that is a ridiculous absurdity, running us into an immediate contradiction,
which our natural sense of blameworthiness has nothing to do with, and never
comes into the-mind, nor is supposed in the judgment we naturally make of the
affair. As was demonstrated before, natural sense does not place the moral evil
of volitions and dispositions in the cause of them, but the nature of them. An
evil thing's being from a man, or from something antecedent in him, is not
essential to the original notion we have of blameworthiness ; but it is its being
the choice of the heart ; as appears by this, that if a thing be from us, and not
from our choice, it has not the nature of blameworthiness or ill desert, accord
ing to our natural sense. When a thing is from a man, in that sense, that it ir
from his Will or choice, he is to blame for it, because his Will is in it : soxfar
as the Will is in it, blame is in it, and no further. Neither do we go any
further in our notion of blame, to inquire whether the bad Will be from a baa
Will: there is no consideration of the original of that bad Will ; because, ac-
cording to our natural apprehension, blame originally consists in it. Therefore
a thing's being from a man, is a secondary consideration, in the notion of blame
or ill desert Because those things, in our external actions, are most properly
said to be from us, which are from our choice ; and no other external actions,
but those that are from us, as because we are in them, i. e., our Wills are in
diem ; not so much because they are from some property of ours, as because
they are our properties.
