Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - pg. 158

But to proceed in this reconciling project with regard to the question of liberty and necessity; the most contentious question, of metaphysics, the most contentious science; it will not require many words to prove, that all mankind have ever agreed in the doctrine of liberty as welll as in that of necessity, and that the whole dispute, in this respect also, has been hitherto merely verbal. For what is meant byliberty, when applied to voluntary actions? We cannot surely mean, that actions have solittle connexion with motives, inclinations, and circumstances, that one does not follow with a certain degree of uniformity from the other, and that one affords no inference by which we can conclude the existence of the other. For these are plain and acknowledged matters of fact. By liberty, then, we can only mean a power of acting or not acting, according to the determination of the will; that is, if we choose to remain at rest, we may; if we choose to mvoe, we also may. Now this hypothetical liberty is universally allowed to belong to every one, who is not a prisoner and in chains. Here then is no subject of dispute.