Against Amyraut: if objects necessitate rational powers as brute ones, freedom differs not from brute spontaneity
In Moses Amyraut's opinion, too, I am not satisfied with his assumption that in all their acts the mind and will are so determined by objects that, if these or those are set before them in a certain way and manner, they necessarily do this or that and cannot act otherwise or stop acting.
If rational powers, no less than brute ones, are determined to a given action by their objects, what difference will there be between the spontaneous motions of animals and the free actions of rational creatures?
And how can free agents be called masters of their acts and be said to have their own acts in their power, if objects impose a necessity of acting on them no less than on other agents?
Latin
XXXIX. Istud quoque non placet in sententia Mosis Amyraldi, quod supponit mentem atque voluntatem in omnibus suis actibus ab objectis sic determinari, ut si haec vel illa eis objiciantur, tali modo ac ratione, necessario hoc aut illud agant, neque possint aliter agere, aut ab actione cessare. Si enim potentiae rationales non minus quam brutae ad certam actionem determinentur a suis objectis, quodnam erit discrimen inter brutorum spontaneos motus, & liberas actiones creaturarum rationalium? Et quomodo dici poterunt agentia libera actuum suorum domini, & in sua potestate proprios actus habere, si objecta ipsis, non minus quam agentibus caeteris, necessitatem agendi imponant?