' Miss Seward,
looking to him with mild but steady astonishment, said, 'Sir, this is an
instance that we are always most violent against those whom we have
injured.'--He was irritated still more by this delicate and keen
reproach; and roared out another tremendous volley, which one might
fancy could be heard across the Atlantick. During this tempest I sat in
great uneasiness, lamenting his heat of temper; till, by degrees, I
diverted his attention to other topicks.
DR. MAYO (to Dr. Johnson). 'Pray, Sir, have you read _Edwards, of New
England, on Grace_?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'It puzzled me so much
as to the freedom of the human will, by stating, with wonderful acute
ingenuity, our being actuated by a series of motives which we cannot
resist, that the only relief I had was to forget it.' MAYO. 'But he
makes the proper distinction between moral and physical necessity.'
BOSWELL. 'Alas, Sir, they come both to the same thing. You may be bound
as hard by chains when covered by leather, as when the iron appears. The
argument for the moral necessity of human actions is always, I observe,
fortified by supposing universal prescience to be one of the attributes
of the Deity.
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