If he knows that he a died under this necefCty, has he not jufl ground to exculpate himfelf? The blame, if there be any, is not in him, but in his conftitution. If he be charged by his Maker with doing wrong, may he not expoflulate with him, and fay, Why haft thou made me thus? I may be facrificed at thy plea- fure, for the common good, like a man that has the plague, but not for ill defert; for thou knoweft that what I am charged with is thy work, and not mine.
~ Such are my notions of moral liberty and neceflity, and of the con- fequences infeparably connedled with both the one and the other.
This moral liberty a man may have, though it do not extend to all his adlions, or even to all his voluntary adions. He does many things by inftincSl, many things by the force of habit without any thought at all, and confequently without will. In the firft part of life, he has not the power of felf-government any more than the brutes. That power over the determinations of his own will, which belongs to him In ripe years, is limited, as all his powers are; and it is perhaps beyond the reach of his underftanding to define its limits with precifion. We can only fay, in general, that it extends to every adion for which he is ac- countable.
This power is given by his Maker, and at his pleafure whofe gift it is, it may be enlarged or diminlfhed, continued or with- drawn. No power In the creature can be independent of the Creator. His hook is In its nofe; he can give it line as far as he fees fit, and, when he pleafes, can reftrain it, or turn it whitherfoever he will. Let this be always underftood, when we afcribe liberty to man, or to any created being.
Suppofing it therefore to be true, That man Is a free agent, it may be true, at the fime time, that his liberty may be impaired or loft, by dllbrder of body or mind, as in melancholy, or THE NOTIONS OF MORAL LIBERTY, 'dfc. 271 or in madnefs; it may be impaired or loft by vicious habits: it t:i^A.r. i. may, in particular cafes, be reftrained by divine interpofition.
We call mail a free a^jent in the fame way as we call him a reafonable agent. In many things he is not guided by rcafon, but by principles fimilar to thofe of the brutes. His rcafon is weak at bcft. It is liable to be impaired or lofl, by his own fault, or by other means. In like manner, he may be a free aj^ent, though his freedom of aclion may have many fmiilar limi- tations.
The liberty I have defcribed has been reprefcnted bv fome Philofophers as inconceivable, and as involving an abfurdity.
" Liberty, they fay, confifts only in a power to ac\ as we will; and it is impollible to conceive in any being a greater liberty than this. Hence it follows, that liberty does not ex- tend to tlie determinations of the will, but only to the adions confequent toits determination, and depending upon the will. To fay that we have power to will fuch an adion, is to fay, that we may will it, if we will. This fuppofes the will to be determined by a prior will; and, for the fame reafon, that will muli be de- tennined by a will prior to it, and fo on in an infinite feries of wills, which is abfurd. To a6l freely, therefore, can mean no- thing more than to adt voluntarily; and this is all the liberty that can be conceived in man, or in any being."
This reafoning, firft, I think, advanced by Hobbes, has been very generally adopted by the defenders of ncceflity. It is gronndcd upon a definition of liberty totally different from that which I have given, and therefore docs not apply to moral liberty, as above defined.
But it is faid that this is the only liberty that is polTIbIc, that is conceivable, that docs not involve an abfurdity.
It CHAP. L Xt is ilratige, indeed! if the word liberty has no meaning but *" this one. I fliall mention three all very common. The objecction applies to one of them, but to neither of the other two.
Liberty is fometimes oppofed to external force or confinement :of the body. Sometimes it is oppofed to obligation by law, or by lawful authority. Sometimes it is oppofed to neceflity.
I. It is oppofed to confinement of the body by fuperior force. So we fay a prifoner is fet at liberty when his fetters are knock- ed off, and he is difcharged from confinement. This is the li- berty defined in the objedion; and I grant that this liberty ex- tends not to the will, neither does the confinement, becaufe the will cannot be confined by external force.
1. Liberty is oppofed to obligation by law, or lawful autho- rity. This liberty is a right to ad one way or another, in things which the law has neither commanded nor forbidden ^ and this liberty is meant when we fpeak of a man's natural liberty, his civil liberty, his Chriftian liberty. It is evident that this li- berty, as well as the obligation oppofed to it, extends to the will: For It is the will to obey that makes obedience; the will to tranfgrefs that makes a tranfgreffion of the law. Without will there can be neither obedience nor tranfgreffion. Law fup- pofes a power to obey or to tranfgrefs; it does not take away this power, but propofes the motives of duty and of intereft, leaving the power to yield to them, or to take the confequence of tranfgreffion.
'i. Liberty is oppofed to neceffity, and in this fenfe it extends to the determinations of the will only, and not to what is confe- quent to the will.
In every voluntary adion, the determination of the will is ithe firfl part of the adion, upon which alone the moral eftimation THE NOTIONS OF MORAL LIBERTY, ^c. 273 tion of it depends. It has been made a cjueftlon among Pliilo- P^"^^- '■, fophers, Wliether, in every inflance, this determination be the neceflury confequence of the conftitution of the perfon, and the circumflances in which he is phiced; or whether he had not power, in many cafes, to determine this way or that?
This has, by fome, been called the philofoph'ical notion of liber- ty and necefllty i but it Is by no means peculiar to Phiiofophers. The loweft of the vidgar have, in all ages, been prone to have recourfe to this necelHty, to exculpate themfelves or their friends in what they do wrong, though, in the general tenor of their condudl, they a(5t upon the contrary principle.
Whether this notion of moral liberty be conceivable or not, every man mufl judge for himfelf. To me there appears no difhculty in conceiving it. I confider the determination of the will as an efFed:. This effect mufl: have a caufe which had power to produce it; and the caufe mufl; be either the perfon him- felf, whofe will it is, or fome other being. The firfl: is as eafily conceived as the lafl. If the perfon was the caufe of that deter- mination of his own will, he was free in that adllon, and it is juftly imputed to him, whether it be good or bad. But, if ano- ther being was the caufe of this determination, either by produ- cing it immediately, or by means and inftruments under his di- redion, then the determination is the ad and deed of that be- ing, and is folely imputable to him.
But it Is faid, " That nothing is In our power but what de- pends upon the will, and therefore the will Itfelf cannot be in our power."
I anfwer, That this is a fallacy arifing from taking a common faying in a fenfe which it never was intended 10 convey, and in a fenfe contrary to what it neccflarily implies.
I\I m In ESSAY IV.
In common life, when men fpeak of Avliat is, or is not, in a man's power, they attend only to the external and vifible effeds, which only can be perceived, and which only can affecft them. Of thefe, it is true, that nothing is in a man's power, but what depends upon his will, and this is all that is meant by this com- mon faying.
But this is fo far from excluding his will from being in his power, that it neceflarily implies it. For to fay that what de- pends upon the will Is in a man's power, but the will is not in his power, is to fay that the end is in his power, but the means nccelTary to that end are not in his power, which is a contra- didion.
In many propofitions which we exprefs univerfaliy, there is an exception neceflarily implied, and therefore always under- liood. Thus when we fay that all things depend upon God, God himfelf is neceflarily excepted. In like manner, when we fay, that all that is in our power depends upon the will, the will itfelf is neceflarily excepted: For if the will be not, no- thing elfe can be in our power. Every effed mull be in the power of its caufe. The determination of the will is an effed, and therefore muft be in the power of its caufe, whether that caufe be the agent himfelf, or fome other being.
From what has been faid In this chapter, I hope the notion of moral liberty will be diftindly underftood, and that It appears that this notion is neither inconceivable, nor involves any ab- furdity or contradidion.
CHAP.
OF THE WORDS CAUSE AND EFFECT, ^c. 275 CMAP. 11 Of the Words Caufe and EJft^l, A5i'ton, and Aclivc Poiver.
THE writings upon liberty and necenity have been much darkened, by the ambiguity of the words ufed in reafon- ing upon that fubjecl. The words caufe and tffccJ, aEl'iou and ac- tive poxvcr^ liberty and ticcejfity, are related to each other: The meaning of one determines the meaning of the reft. When we attempt to define them, we can only do it by fynonymous words which need definition as much. There is a ftricl: fenfe in which thofe words muft be ufed, if we fpeak and reafon clearly about moral liberty; but to keep to this ftricl fenfe is difficult, becaufe, in all languages, they have, by cuftom, got a great latitude of fignification.
As we cannot reafon about moral liberty, without ufng thofe ambiguous words, it is proper to point out, as diftindly as pof- fible, their proper and original meaning, in which they ought to be underftood in treating of this fubjecl:, and to fhew from what caufes they have become fo ambiguous in all languages, as to darken and embarrafs our reafonings upon it.
Every thing that begins to exift, muft have a caufe of Its ex- iftence, which had power to give it exiftence. And every thing that undergoes any change, muft have fbme caule of that change.
That neither exiftence, nor any mode of exiflencc, can begin without an efficient caufe, is a principle that appears very early in the mind of man; and it is fo univerfal, and fo firmly rooted in human nature, that the moft determined fccpticifm cannot eradicate it.
ESSAY IV.
It is upon this principle that we ground the rational belief of a deity. But that is not the only ufe to which we apply it. Every man's conducl is governed by it every day, and almoft every hour of his life. And if it were pollible for any man to root out this principle from his mind, he muft give up. every thing that is called common prudence, and be fit only to be confined as infane.
From this principle it follows, That every thing which under- goes any change, muft either be the efficient caufe of that change in itfelf, or it muft be changed by fome other being.
In the firfl cafe it is faid to have aSive power, and to aEi in- producing that change. In the fecotid cafe it is merely pajfive^ or is aBed upon, and the adtive power is in that being only which produces the change.
The name of a caufe and of an agent, Is properly given to that being only, which, by its ad:Ive power, produces fome change in itfelf, or in fome other being. The change, whether it be of thought, of will, or of motion, is the effe£l. Aftlve power there- fore, is a quality in the caufe, which enables it to produce the effedl. And the exertion of that adlive power In producing the effed:, is called aEl'ion, agency, efficiency..
In order to the production of any effe6t,. there muft be In the caufe, not only power, but the exertion of that power: For pov/er that is not exerted produces no effed.
All that is necefTary to the produifllon of any effedt, is power in an efficient caufe to produce the effedl, and the exertion of that power: For It Is a contradlcflion to fay, that the caufe has powder to produce the effed, and exerts that power, and yet the effed is not produced. The effed cannot be in his power un- lefs all the means neceflary to Its produdion be in his power.
It OF THE WORDS CAUSE AND EFFECT, Uc. 277 It Is no Icfs a contradiction to fay, that a caufe has power to CHAP. ir. produce a certain efFcd, but that he cannot exert that power: For power which cannot be exerted is no power, and i^ a con- tradidlion in terms.
To prevent miflake, it is jn-oper to obferve, That a being may have a power at one time wliich it has not at another. It may commonly have a power, which, at a particular time, it has not. Thus, a man may commonly have power to walk or to run; but he lias not this power when afleep, or when he is confined by fupcrior force. In common language, he may be faid to have a power which he cannot then exert. But this popular exprelTion means only that he commonly h'ls this power, and will have it when the caufe is removed which at prefent deprives him of it: For when we fpeak ftriftly and philofophically, it is a contradidion to fay that he has this power, at that momenc when he is deprived of it.
Thcfe, I thini:, are neceflary confequences from the principle firlt mentioned, That every change which happens in nature jnuft have an efficient caufe which had power to produce it.
Another principle, which appears very early in tlie mind of man, is, That we are efficient caufes in our deliberate and vo- luntary adlions.
Wc are confcious of making an exertion, fometimes with dif- ficulty, in order to produce certain efleds. An exertion n^ade deliberately and voluntarily, in order to produce an cfTcd, im- plies a convidion that the effiid is in our power. No man can deliberately attempt what he does not believe to be iruhis power. The language of all mankind, and their ordinary condud in life, demonftrate, that they have a conviction of fome active power in thcmfelves to produce certain motions in their own and ill other bodies, and to regulate and direct their own thoughts.
Thi^ CHAP. IL xhls convldlion we have fo early in life, that we have no re- membrance when, or in what way we acquired it.
That fuch a convidion Is at firfl the neceflary refuit of our conflitution, and that it can never be entirely obliterated, is, I think, acknowledged by one of the mofl; zealous defenders of necellity. Free Difaijfiott, &c. p. 298. " Such are the influences " to which all mankind, without dillindlion, are expofed, that " they neceflarily refer adions (I mean refer them ultimately) " firfl of all to themfelves and others; and it is a long time be- " fore they begin to confider themfelves and others as inflru- *' ments in the hand of a fuperior agent. Conlcquently, the " affociations which refer adions to themfelves get fo confirm- " ed, that they are never entirely obliterated; and therefore " the common language, and the common feelings of mankind, " will be adapted to the firfl, the limited and imperfed, or ra- *' ther erroneous view of things."
It is very probable, that the very conception or idea of aftlve power, and of efficient caufes, is derived from our voluntary ex- ertions in producing efFeds; and that, if we were not confcious of fuch exertions, we fhould have no conception at all of a caufe, or of adtive power, and confequently no convidion of the neceflity of a caufe of every change which we obferve in nature.
It is certain that we can conceive no kind of adive power but what is fimilar or analogous to that which we attribute to ourfelves; that is, a power which is exerted by will and with underftanding. Our notion, even of Almighty power, is derived from the notion of human power, by removing from the for- mer thofe imperfedions and limitations to which the latter is fubjeded.
It may be difficult to explain the origin of our conceptions and OF THE WORDS CAUSE AND EFFECT, l^c. 279 and belief concerning clliciciit caufcs and aclivc power. The CHAP. IT. common theory, that all our ideas are ideas of fenl'ition or rc- fledlon, and that all our belief is a perception ol* the agree- ment or the difagreemcnt of thofe ideas, appears to be repug- nant, both to the idea of an etlicient caufc, and to the belief of its neceflity.
An attachment to that theory has led fome Philofophers 10 deny that we have any conception of an eflicient caufe, or of ac- tive power, bccaufe efficiency and aclive power are not ideas, either of fenfation or relledion. They maintain, therefore, that a caufe is only fomething prior to the efiecl, and conflantly conjoined with it. This is Mr Hume's notion of a caufe, and feenns to be adopted by Dr Priestley, who fays, " That a caiife " cannot be defined to be any thing, but fuch previous circum- " Jlaiices as are cotijlnnlly fulloivcd by a certain effe£l, tlie conllancy " of the refult making us conclude, that there mufl be ^ftifficierit " rea/on, in the nature of the things-, why it lliould be produced " in thofe circumftances."
But theory ought to floop to fact, and not fn£t to theory. Every man who underftands the language knows, that neither priority, nor conftant conjun£tion, nor both taken together, im- ply efliciency. Every man, free from prejudice, muil allent to what Cicero has faid: Idiquc non ftc caufa intclligl debet, ut quod cin- que antecedal, id et caufa fit, fed quod cu'iquc ejfficientcr antcccdit.
The very difpute, whether we have the conception of an efPi- cicnt caufe, (hows thai we have. For though men may difpute about things which have no exiAence, they cannot difpute about things of which they have no conception.
What has been faid in this chapter is intended to flicw, That the conception of caufes, of adion and of adive power, in the ftrid and proper fcnfe of tbefe words, is found in the minds of al!
j>8o ESSAY IV.
CHAP, ir.^.ill ji-iei^ very early, even in the dawn of their rational life. It is therefore probable, that, in all languages, the words by which thefe conceptions were exprefled were at firft diftinct and unam- biguous, yet it is certain, that, among the moft enlightened na- tions, thefe words are applied to fo many things of different na- tures, and ufed in fo vague a mannei', that it is very difficult to reafon about them diftindly.
This phsenomenon, at firft view, feems very unaccountable. But a little refledion may fatisfy us, that it is a natural confe- quence of the flow and gradual progrefs of human knowledge.
And fince the ambiguity of thefe words has fo great influence upon our reafoning about moral liberty, and furnifhes the ftrongeft objedions againft it, it is not foreign to our fubjedl to fhew whence it arifes. When we know the caufes that have produced this ambiguity, we fhall be lefs in danger of being mifled by it, and the proper and RriO: meaning of the words will more evidently appear.
CHAP.
OF THE AMBIGUITY OF THOSE WORDS. 28r CHAT III Caufcs of the Ambiguity of tbofe Words.
WH E N we turn our attention to external objcds, and be- gin to exercife our rational faculties about them, we find, that there are fome motions and changes in them, which we have power to produce, and that they have many which muft have fome other caufe. Either the objeiTts muft have life and adive power, as we have, or they mull be moved or changed by fomething that has life and adlive power, as external objeds are moved by us.
Our firft thoughts feem to be, That the objedls in which we perceive fuch motion have underflanding and adlive power as we have.
. " Savages, fays the Abbe Raynal, wherever they fee motion " which they cannot account for, there they fuppofe a foul."
All men may be confidered as favages in this refpedl, until they are capable of inftrudion, and of ufing their faculties in a more perfedt manner than favages do.
The rational converfations of birds and beads in iEsop's Fa- bles do not fhock the belief of children. They have that pro- bability in them which we require in an epic poem. Poets give us a great deal of pleafure, by clothing every objed with intel- ledual and moral attributes, in metaphor and in other figures. May not the pleafure which we take in this poetical language, arife, in part, from its correfpondence with our earlicft fenti- ments?
N n However CHAP. III. However this may be, the Abbe Raynal's o])rervation is fuf- ficiently confirmed, both from fad:, and from the ftrudure of all languages.
Rude nations do really believe fun, moon and flars, earth, fea and air, fountains and lakes, to have underftanding and adtive power. To pay homage to them and implore their favour, is a kind of idolatry natural to favages.
All languages carry in their flrudure the marks of their be- ing formed when this belief prevailed. The diftindion of verbs and participles into a61ive and pafllve, which is found in all lan- guages, mufl have been originally intended to diftinguilh what is really adive from what is merely paflive; and, in all lan- guages, we find adive verbs applied to thofe objeds, in which, according to the Abbe Raynal's obfervation, favages fuppofe a foul.
Thus we fay the fun rifes and fets, and comes to the meridian, the moon changes, the fea ebbs and flows, the winds blow. Languages were formed by men who believed thefe objeds to have life and adive power in themfelves. It was therefore pro- per and natural to exprefs their motions and changes by adive verbs.
There is no furer way of tracing the fentiments of nations before they have records than by the ftrudure of their language, which, notwithftanding the changes produced in it by time, will always retain fonie fignatures of the thoughts of thofe by whom it was invented. When we find the fame fentiments indicated in the fl:rudure of all languages, thofe fentiments mufl have been common to the human fpecies when languages were in- vented.
When a few of fuperior intelledual abilities find leifure for Ipeculation, OF THE AMBIGUITY OF THOSE WORDS. 28J rpcculatinn.thcybegin tophiloroi)hi7,c,anclfoon difcovL-r, that many CHAiMii. of thole ohjcds uliich, at firll, they believed to he nitelliu,cMt and artive, arc really lifelefs and jKillive. This is a very impurtant difcovery. It elevates the mind, emancipates from many ^allga^ luperllitions, and invites to fanher dilcoveries of the fame kind.
As philofophy advances, life and adivity in natural objects retires, and leaves them dead and inadlive. Inftead of movini;; voluntarily, \\c find them to be moved neceflarily; inftead of adting, we find them to be acl;ed upon; and nature appears as one great machine, where one wheel is turned by another, that by a third; and how far this neceflary fucceillon may reach, the Philofopher does not know.
The weaknefs of human reafon makes men prone, when they leave one extreme, to rufli into the opjjofite; and thus philofo- phy, even in its infancy, may lead men from idolatry and poly- theifm into atheifm, and from afcribing adlive power to inani- mate beings, to conclude all things to be carried on by necellity.
Whatever origin we afcribe to the dodtrines of atheifm and of fatal necedity, it is certain, that both may be traced almoft as far back as philofophy; and both appear to be the ojij^ofitcs of the earlielt fentiments of men.
It muft have been by the obfervation and reafoning of the fpeculative yt-w, that thofe objects were difcovered to be inani- mate and inadive, to which the many afcribed life and aclivity. But while the few are convinced of this, they muft fpeak the language of the ruat/y in order to be undcrftood. So we fee, that when the Ptolemaic fyllem of ailronomy, which agrees with vulgar prejudice and with vulgar language, has been uni- verfally rejected by Philofophers, they continue to ufe the phrafe- ology that is grounded upon it, not only in fpeaking to the vul- CHAP, iih gar, but in fpeaking to one another. They fay, The fun rlfes and fets, and moves annually through all the figns of the zodiac, while they believe that he never leaves his place.
In like manner, thofe ad:ive verbs and participles, which were applied to the inanimate objeds of nature, when they were believed to be really adtive, continue to be applied to them after they are difcovered to be paflive.
The forms of language, once eflablifhed by cuftom, are not fo eafily changed as the notions on which they were originally founded. While the founds remain, their fignification is gra- dually enlarged or altered. This is fometimes found, even in thofe fciences in which the fignification of words is the moft accurate and precife. Thus, in arithmetic, the word number^ among the ancients, always fignified fo many units, and it would have been abfurd to apply it either to unity or to any part of an unit; but now we call unity, or any part of unity, a number. With them, multiplication always increafed a number, and di- vifion diminiftied it j but we fpeak of multiplying by a fradtion, which diminifhes, and of dividing by a fradlion, which in- creafes the number. We fpeak of dividing or multiplying by unity, which neither diminifhes nor increafes a number. Thefe forms of exprellion, in the ancient language, would have been abfurd.
By fuch changes, in the meaning of words, the language of every civilized nation refembles old furniture new modelled, in which many things are put to ufes for which they were not ori- ginally intended, and for which they are not perfedly fitted.
This is one great caufe of the imperfedlion of language, and it appears very remarkably in thofe verbs and participles which are a<3;ive in their form, but are frequently ufed fo as to have nothing adlive in their fignificatiou.
Hence OF THE AMBIGUITY OF THOSE WORDS. 1S5 Hence we are authorilcd by cuftom to afcribe atflion and ac- ^'HAP. ill. tlvc power to things which we believe to be padlvc. The pro- per and original lignihcation of every word, which at firft fig- nified acflion and caiilation, is buried and loft under that vague meaning which cuftoni has affixed to it.
That there is a real diftinclion, and perfect oppofition, be- tween ading and being aded upon, every man may be fatisfied who is capable of refledion. And that this diftindion is per- ceived by all men as foon as they begin to reafon, appears by the diltindlion between aclive and paffive verbs, which is origi- nal in all languages, though, from the caufcs that have been mentioned, they come to be confounded in tlie progrefs of hu- man improvement.
Another way in which philofophy has contributed very much to the ambiguity of the words under our confideration, deferves to be mentioned.
The firfl ftep into natural philofophy, and what hath com- monly been confidered as its ultimate end, is the invefligation of the caufes of the phenomena of nature; that is, the caufes of thofe appearances in nature which are not the effects of hu- man power. Felix qui potuit rcrum cogtiofcere caufas, is tlic fentl- ment of every mind that has a turn to fpeculation.
The knowledge of the caufes of things promifes no lefs the enlargement of human power than the gratification of human curiofity j and therefore, among the enlightened part of man- kind, this knowledge has been purfued in all ages with an avi- dity proportioned to its importance.
In nothing does the difference between the intelledual powers of man and thofe of brutes appear more confpicuous than in this. For in them we perceive no defire to invefligate the caufes of CHAP. IIL of things, nor indeed any fign that they have the proper notion of a caufe.
There is reafon, however, to apprehend, that, in this inveftl- gation, men have wandered much in the dark, and that their fuccefs has, by no means, been equal to their defire and expeda- tion.
We eafily difcover an eftabliflied order and connection in the phisnomena of nature. We learn, in many cafes, from what has happened, to know what will happen. The difcoveries of this kind, made by common obfervation, are many, and are the foundation of common prudence in the condud of life. Philo- fophers, by more accurate obfervation and experiment, have made many more ', by which arts are improved, and human power, as well as human knowledge, is enlarged.
But, as to the real caufes of the phjenomena of nature, how little do we know! All our knowledge of things external, muft be grounded upon the informations of our fenfes 5 but caufation and adive power are not objedls of fenfe; nor is that always the caufe of a phaenomenon which is prior to it, and conftantly conjoined with it; otherwife night would be the caufe of day, and day the caufe of the following night.
It is to this day problematical, whether all the ph:snomena of the material fyflem be produced by the immediate operation of the Firft Caufe, according to the laws which his wifdom deter- mined, or whether fubordinate caufes are employed by him in the operations of nature; and, if they be, what their nature, their number, and their different offices are? And whether, in all cafes, they ad by commillion, or, in fome, according to their difcretion?
When we are fo much in the dark with regard to the real caufes OF THE AMBIGUITY OF TFIOSE WORDS. 2S7 caufes of the phenomena of nature, and have a ftrung dcfirc to chap. hi. know them, it is not ftranv!,e, that inj^enious men Ihould form lurvberlefs conjetfturcs and theories, by which the fuul, liunger- Ing for knowledge, is fed with chaff inftead of wheat.