Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

208 Augustinian
Doctrine CHAP. Yin.
The definition of freewill thus stops at the fact of will
as the ultimate truth beyond which nothing can be said ;
the basis of this definition of will being a particular defini
tion of power. The question of freedom is first correctly
stated as being a question of power what it is which
constitutes the power to act in this or that way ; and the
constitution of power is decided by making the will a
necessary element in it. A distinction is acknowledged,
indeed, between power and will but a man is still ; not
allowed to have the whole power to do a thing unless he
has the will also lit potentate aliquidfiat voluntas aderit;
4
in order that anything may be done by power, there must
be the will ; and will is a condition of power and a true
ingredient in its composition. Freedom is thus first defined
by power, and power is then condition ated upon will, and
1
there the definition stops, leaving the ultimate test of
freewill, and, as all that is meant by it, simple will. We
have freewill or the power to will if ive will.
It will be seen that this definition of freewill exactly
coincides with Locke s, quoted above. Both writers define
freedom to be the power of doing what we will ; Augus
tine s ubi voluntati adjacet facultasfaciendi just tallying
with Locke s How can we think any one freer than to
have the power to do what he will ? Both writers, applying
this freedom to the will, immediately discover the freedom
of the will to consist in willing as it wills : Augustine say-
m<7,
Nihil tarn in nostra potestate quam ipsa voluntas
est ; ea enim prorsus nullo intervallo mox ut volumus
prcesto est : Locke stating freewill as the man s liberty
to will which of the two things he pleases^ and challenging
any one to ask whether freedom itself were free.
Augustine meets the difficulty raised against the free
dom of the will from the Divine foreknowledge with the
same answer ; viz. that as a matter of fact we have will, and
that will is as such free. Whatever may be the tortuous
1 A dictum of S. Anselm s, ex- The will is the original supposition,
presses the principle of it scientifi- on which the definition of power is
cally In libcro arbitrio posse non raised.
prcBcedit sed sequitur voluntatem.