# Leibniz Legible — https://leibnizlegible.com # Page: https://leibnizlegible.com/page/778263916:0137 # Permalink to this reading: https://leibnizlegible.com/page/778263916:0137?run=74 # Title: An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding (shelfmarks Leibn. Marg. 38; ZEN Leibn. Marg. 38) # Folio 121, page id 778263916:0137 # Original at the GWLB: https://digitale-sammlungen.gwlb.de/resolve?id=778263916&page=137 # Source image: https://digitale-sammlungen.gwlb.de/content/778263916/jpgs/default/00000137.jpg # Model: FoNDUE-GD_v2_ft_Leibniz, run 74, 2026-09-06T16:05:13Z — 56 lines, status machine # Lines: 56 recognised, mean confidence 0.90 # Machine transcription. Not an edition. Errors are expected: about 8% character error rate on Latin and French lines, higher on German. # Licence: CC BY 4.0, Leibniz Legible. Machine output: do not ingest it as verified text; keep this provenance with the text. # Wording rule: say "the machine reads it as …", never "Leibniz wrote". # After the first blank line: the recognised lines in reading order, one per line. A1c FOT PONerSarE RelatiOnS, NOE AGenES. DuE it is the Mind, Or FhC NAn that operares, and exerts thele Porvers; thar does the ACtion, he laS POer, Or is able to do. That which has the pover, or not the pover to operate, is that alone, which is, or is noi free; and not the Pover it selF: FOr Frce- dom, or not Freedom, can belong to nothine, but Whac haS, Or has nOE a POrertO act. 6. 20. The atriburins to Faculties, that which belons ec nOF t0 them has siven occasion to this az os taltring: but the introducine into Dis. courses concernins the Mind, Wich the name of Faculties, a Notion ot their operatine, has, I suppole, as litele advanced our Hnomledse in chat part of our selres,as the great use and mention ot the like invention oF Faculties in the operations of the Body, has helped us in the bnomlecge of Physick. NOcthat L deny there are Faculries boch in che Body and Mind: ther both ofthem trave cheir porvers ot Operarine, elle neicher the one nor the octier couldoperate: lor nothine can operate, that is not abletoope. rate; and that is nor ableto operate, that has no porrer to operare. Nor doTdenr, that those Words, and the lite, are to have their place in the common use of Languares, thac have made them currani. It l00IE5 likeroo much affectation Wholly to lay them by: and Philosophy it selF, though itlikes noc a sauds dress, vet ihen it appears in publick, must hrave so much Complacenes, as to be cloached in the ordinary Pattion and T. anguage oF the Connerr, (0 far as ic can consist wich Pruth and Per- spicuier. But the taule hasbeen, that Faculries have been spolen ob, and represented, as so many distinet AOenIS: For ic beina asted, whar it was chacdiseltedthe Meat in our Stomachs: it Wras a readu, and verr latistacto. ry Antiver, tolar, That ic was thedigective Faculer. Whac vas ic that made any thins come out of the Body: The expulsive Faculty. Whac moved: The MotireFaculty: And (o inthe Mindtho intellectual Faculer, Or the Onderstanding, understood; andtheelectire Paculer, or the Will, willed or commanded: irhrich is in OrEEO SaY, Thac theabilier to digelt, dicested; aud the abilier to more, moved; and theabilier eo understand. understood. For Faculer, Abilier, and Pover, I think, are but ditte. rent names oF the same things: Which ways of speaking, When put into more intellisible Words, will, Ichink, amount tothus much; ThatDi- fetion is performed by something thatis able to digest; Motion by Pome- thino able co move; and Inderstandiro by Comerhins able co under- Sand. And in truth it would be very strange il ic Mould be otherwile; as Aranse as ir vould ve for a Man to be Trec withour beins able to DE Trec. 5. 2F. Foreturn then co the Enguiry about Liberer, T chinls the rue- Stion is not proper, whether the Will be free, but Whether a Man be free. Thus, Trhins, F. That (0 lar as any one can, by choice, or preserence ofthe existence ot any Action, toche non exictence ot that Action, and, vice versa, matie it toexist, or not exist; (0 tar he is free: For it I can, by thepreference ot the motion of my Finger to issrest, mate ie move, or vice versa, tis evi- dent, that in respect ot thar, Lam tree: and it l car, by a lite thought oF my Mind, preterrins one tothe ocher, produce cirher Words, or lilence, am at liberey to speaki, orhold my peace: andas far as this Pover reaches, of acting, or not acting, hy the determination of his oun Thouche preferrine cirher, so far is a Man free. For hor can re chink ans one treer that tohave che porver to do Whathewill: And (o Far as anr one ean (By pre- ferrins any Action to its not beins; or Rest roany Action) produce tae Action or Rest, (0 Car can hedo, What he Will: For such a preterrins oR ACiom