 Agent.
I acknowledge, answered Mr.
Clinton,
that Man has a Principle or Seed of Liberty within him, a Power of turning, or at least of leaving his Will to the Impulse of Good, on the one Hand, or of Evil on the Other, he could not otherwise be accountable; and this brings me directly to your Lordship's Question respecting the Distinction, in Matter of Merit, between Man and Man.
KNOW THYSELF, was the wisest of all the
Saws
in the ancient Schools; for the most useful of all Studies, to Man, is that of Man.
MAN has been represented, by the Boastings of pagan Philosophy, as equal in many Respects, and in some Articles superior to what they conceived of Godhead.
They define him a rational and lordly Intelligence, sole Dictator to his own Actions, Controller of his own Passions, and of Powers, Virtues, and Faculties, wholly free and independent. But, what says Nature on this Head?
Man goes out of this World, even as he comes into it, quite passive and without his own Consent. From the Womb to the Time of his maturing in Reason, and even till some Degree of Power is awakened in him toward governing his Appetites and resisting his Inclinations, he is as merely a sensual and servile Machine as any inferior Animal or Brute in the Creation. His Pulses beat, his Blood circulates, and all the Offices of Respiration, Secretion, and Perspiration are performed, alike awake as asleep, without any more Attention or Care, on his Part, than if he had no Interest or Concern therein.
In the mean Time, he is begirt by outward Objects, and outward Elements, that hold an intimate Correspondence and perpetual Communication with his Flesh, with all his Organs, and his animal Life; exciting in him a Variety of Appetites and Desires that he can no more resist, than a Twig can swim against a Torrent; insomuch that, were this the Whole of the Man, with Respect to his Appetites, he would of Necessity be a Brute, and with Respect to his Passions, he would of Necessity be a Devil.
Thus far, my Lord, you see that Man is wholly acted upon, and does nothing but as he is incited or impelled thereto; and were there no other Agent within him to act upon him on the opposite Part, had he no present Friend to combat with and control the evil Propensities of his Nature, he would be as totally a Slave to his carnal and diabolical Lusts, as the Galley-Rower is to the Bench whereon he
