The reasoning, to others, would be false reasoning, because it so necessarily seems to them; but to the individual to whom it seems different, it must really be different, and be good and valid reasoning.
Again: as all these different reasonings and beliefs proceed necessarily from the same source, they must all be really true where they seem true, and all really false where they seem false. It would follow, from this, that no one can really be in a false position except the hypocrite and sophist, pretending to believe and to be what he does not believe and what he is not, and purposely reasoning falsely, and stating his false conclusions as if they were truths. I say this would follow, were we not compelled by this system to allow that even the hypocrite and sophist cannot hold a false position, inasmuch as his position is a necessary one, predetermined in its necessary connexion with the first necessary wisdom.
XVI. Another consequence of this system is fatalism,—or, perhaps, more properly speaking, the system is itself a system of fatalism.
This, indeed, has already been made to appear substantially. The word, however, has not yet been used. I here, then, charge directly this consequence or feature upon the system.
Fatalism is the absolute negation of liberty. This system is fatalism, because it is the absolute negation of liberty.
No liberty is contended for, in this system, in relation to man, but physical liberty: viz. that when he wills, the effect will follow,—that when he wills to walk, he walks, &c. “Liberty, as I have explained it, is the power, opportunity, or advantage, that any one has to do as he pleases, or conducting himself in any respect according to his pleasure, without considering how his pleasure comes to be as it is.” (p. 291.)
In the first place, this is no higher liberty than what brutes possess. They have power, opportunity, or advantage, to do as they please. Effects follow their volitions by as certain a law as effects follow the volitions of men.
In the second place, this is no higher liberty than slaves possess. Slaves uniformly do as they please. If the motive be the lash, or the fear of the lash, still, in their case as well as in that of brutes under similar circumstances, the volition which takes place is the most pleasing at the moment. The slave and the animal do what is most pleasing to them, or do according to their pleasure, When the one drags the plough and the other holds it. Nay, it is impossible for any animal, rational or irrational, to act without doing what is most pleasing to him or it. Volition is always as the greatest apparent good, or as the sense of the most pleasant or agreeable.
If any should reply that slaves and animals areliableto be fettered, and this distinguishes them from the free, I rejoin that every being is liable to various restraints; none of us can do many things which in themselves appear desirable, and would be objects of volition if there were known to be an established connexion between them and our wills. We are limited in our actions by the powers of nature around us; we cannot overturn mountains, or command the winds. We are limited in the nature of our physical being. We are limited by our want of wealth, knowledge, and influence. In all these respects, we may, with as much propriety as the slave, be regarded as deprived of liberty. It does not avail to say that, as we never really will what we know to be impossible or impracticable, so in relation to such objects, neither liberty or a want of liberty is to be affirmed; for the same will apply to the fettered slave; he does not will to walk or run when he knows it to be impossible. But in relation to him as well as to every other being, according to this system it holds true, that whether he act or forbear to act, his volitions are as the most agreeable.
All creatures, therefore, acting by volition, are to be accounted free, and one really as free as another.
In the third place, the liberty here affirmed belongs equally to every instance of stated antecedence and sequence.
The liberty which is taken to reside in the connexion between volition and effects, is a liberty lying in a connexion of stated antecedence and sequence, and is perfect according as this connexion is necessary and unimpeded. The highest form of liberty, therefore, is to be found in the most absolute form of necessity. Liberty thus becomes identified also with power: where there is power, there is liberty; and where power is the greatest, that is, where it overcomes the most obstacles and moves on irresistibly to its effects, there is the greatest degree of liberty. God is the most free of all beings, because nothing can impede his will. His volitions are always the antecedents of effects.
But obviously we do not alter the relation, when we change the terms. If liberty lie in the stated antecedence of volition to effects, and if liberty is measured by the necessity of the relation, then when the antecedent is changed, the relation remaining the same, liberty must still be present. For example: when a volition to move the arm is followed by a motion of the arm, there is liberty; now let galvanism be substituted for the volition, and the effect as certainly takes place; and as freedom is doing as we please, or will, “without considering how this pleasure (or will) comes to be as it is;” that is, without taking its motive into the account. So likewise, freedom may be affirmed to be doing according to the galvanic impulse, “without considering how” that impulse “comes to be as it is.”
If we take any other instance of stated antecedence and sequence, the reasoning is the same. For example, a water wheel in relation to the mill-stone: when the wheel turns, the mill-stone moves. In this case freedom may be defined: the mill-stone moving according to the turn of the wheel, “without considering how” that turn of the wheel “comes to be as it is.” In the case of human freedom, freedom is defined, doing according to our volitions, without considering how the volition comes to be as it is; doing “according to choice, without taking into the meaning of the word anything of the cause of that choice.” (p. 39.)
If it be said that in the case of volition, we have the man of whom to affirm freedom; but in the case of the wheel and mill-stone, we have nothing of which liberty can properly be affirmed. I reply, that liberty must be affirmed, and is properly affirmed, of that to which it really belongs; and hence as volition is supposed to belong to the spiritual essence, man; and this spiritual essence is pronounced free, because volition appears in it, and is attended by consequences:—so, likewise, the material essence of the wheel may be pronounced free, because motion belongs to it, and is followed by consequences. As every being that has volition is free, so likewise every thing that hath motion is free:—in every instance of cause and effect, we meet with liberty.
But volition cannot be the characteristic of liberty, if volition itself be governed by necessity: and yet this system which affirms liberty, wherever there is unimpeded volition, makes volition a necessary determination. In the fact of unimpeded volition, it gives liberty to all creatures that have volition; and then again, in the fact of the necessary determination of volition it destroys the possibility of liberty. But even where it affirms liberty to exist, there is no new feature to characterize it as liberty. The connexion between volition and its stated consequences, is a connexion as necessary and absolute as the connexion between the motive and the volition, and between any antecedent and sequent whatever. That my arm should move when I make a volition to this effect, is just as necessary and just as incomprehensible too, as that water should freeze at a given temperature: when the volition is impeded, we have only another instance of necessity,—a lesser force overcome by a greater.
The liberty therefore which this system affirms in the fact of volition and its unimpeded connexion with its consequents, is an assumption—a mere name. It is a part of the universal necessity arbitrarily distinguished and named, its liberty does not reside in human volition, so neither can it reside in the divine volition. The necessary dependence of volition upon motive, and the necessary sequence of effects upon volition, can no more be separated from the divine mind than from ours. It is a doctrine which, if true, is implied in the universal conception of mind. It belongs to mind generically considered. The creation of volition by volition is absurd in itself—it cannot but be an absurdity. The determination of will by the strongest motive, if a truth is a truth universally; on this system, it contains the whole cause and possibility of volition. The whole liberty of God, it is affirmed, is contained in this, to do as pleases him, or, in other words, that what he wills is accomplished, and necessarily accomplished: what pleases him is also fixed in the necessity of his own nature. His liberty, therefore, by its own definition, differs nothing from necessity.
If the movements of mind are necessary, no argument is required to prove that all being and events are necessary. We are thus bound up in a universal necessity. Whatever is, is, and cannot be otherwise, and could not have been otherwise. As therefore there is no liberty, we are reduced to the only remaining alternative of fatalism.
Edwards does not indeed attempt to rebut wholly the charge of fatalism. (part iv. § vi.) In relation to the Stoics, he remarks:—“It seems they differed among themselves; and probably the doctrine offateas maintained by most of them, was, in some respects, erroneous. But whatever their doctrines was, if any of them held such a fate, as is repugnant to anyliberty, consisting in our doing as we please,I utterly deny such a fate.” He objects to fatalism only when it should deny our actions to be connected with our pleasure, or our sense of the most agreeable, that is our volition. But this connexion we have fully proved to be as necessary as the connexion between the volition and its motive. This reservation therefore does not save him from fatalism.
In the following section, (sec. vii.) he represents the liberty and sovereignty of God as consisting in an ability “to do whatever pleases him.” His idea of the divine liberty, therefore, is the same as that attributed to man. That the divine volitions are necessarily determined, he repeatedly affirms, and indeed represents as the great excellence of the divine nature, because this necessity of determination is laid in the infinite wisdom and perfection of his nature.
If necessity govern all being and events, it is cheering to know that it is necessity under the forms of infinite wisdom and benevolence. But still it remains true that necessity governs. If “it is no disadvantage or dishonour to a being,necessarilyto act in the most excellent and happy manner from the necessary perfection of his own nature,” still let us remember that under this representationhe does act necessarily. Fate must have some quality or form; it must be what we call good or evil: but in determining its quality, we do not destroy its nature. Now if we call this fate a nature of goodness and wisdom, eternal and infinite, we present it under forms beautiful, benign, and glorious, but it is nevertheless fate,—and as such it governs the divine volitions; and through the divine volitions, all the consequents and effects of these volitions;—the universe of being and things is determined by fate;—and all volitions of angels or men are determined by fate—by this fate so beautiful, benign, and glorious. Now if all things thusproceedingfrom fate were beautiful, benign, and glorious, the theory might not alarm us. But that deformity, crime, and calamity should have place as developements of this fate, excites uneasiness. The abettors of this system, however, may perhaps comfort themselves with the persuasion that deformity, crime, and calamity, are names not of realities, but of the limited conceptions of mankind. We have indeed an instance in point in Charles Bonnet, whom Dugald Stewart mentions as “a very learned and pious disciple of Leibnitz.” Says Bonnet—“Thus the same chain embraces the physical and moral world, binds the past to the present, the present to the future, the future to eternity. That wisdom which has ordained the existence of this chain, has doubtless willed that of every link of which it is composed. A Caligula is one of these links; and this link is of iron. A Marcus Aurelius is another link; and this link is of gold.Bothare necessary parts of one whole, which could not but exist. Shall God then be angry at the sight of the iron link? What absurdity! God esteems this link at its proper value. He sees it in its cause, and he approves this cause, for it is good. God beholds moral monsters as he beholds physical monsters. Happy is the link of gold! Still more happy if he know that he isonly fortunate. He has attained the highest degree of moral perfection, and is nevertheless without pride, knowing that what he is, is the necessary result, of the place which he must occupy in the chain. The gospel is the allegorical exposition of this system; the simile of the potter is its summary.” He might have added, “Happy is the link of iron, if he know that he is not guilty, but at worstonly unfortunate;and really not unfortunate, because holding a necessary place in the chain which both as a whole and in its parts, is the result of infinite wisdom.”
If anything more is required in order to establish this consequence of the system we are examining, I would call attention to the inquiry, whether after a contingent self-determining will there remains any theory of action except fatalism? A contingent self-determining will is a will which is the cause of its own volitions or choices—a self-conscious power, self-moved and directed, and at the moment of its choice, or movement towards a particular object, conscious of ability of choosing, or moving towards, an opposite object. Now what conception have we to oppose to this but that of a will not determining itself,—not the cause of its own volitions,—a power not self-moved and directed,—and not conscious of ability at the moment of a particular choice, to make a contrary choice? And this last conception is a will whose volitions are determined by some power antecedent to itself, not contingently, but necessarily. As the will is the only power for which contingent self-determination is claimed, if it be proved to be no such power, then no such power exists. The whole theory of action and causality will then be expressed as follows:
1. Absolute and necessary connexion of motives and volitions. 2. Absolute and necessary connexion of volitions and effects. 3. Absolute and necessary connexion of all sequents and antecedents in nature. 4. Absolute and necessary connexion of all things existent with a first and necessary principle or cause. 5. The necessary determination of this principle or cause.
Denying a contingent self-determining will, this theory is all that remains. If liberty be affirmed to reside in the 2d particular of this theory, it becomes a mere arbitrary designation, because thenatureof the relation is granted to be the same; it is notcontingent, but necessary. Nor can liberty be affirmed to reside in the 5th; because in the first place, the supposed demonstration of the absurdity of a contingent self-determining will, by infinite series of volitions, must apply to this great first principle considered as God. And in the second place, the doctrine of the necessary determination of motive must apply here likewise, since God as will and intelligence requires motives no less than we do. Such determination is represented as arising from the very nature of mind or spirit. Now this theory advanced in opposition to a self-determining will, is plainly the negation of liberty as opposed to necessity. And this is all that can be meant by fatalism. Liberty thus becomes a self-contradictory conception, and fatalism alone is truth and reality.
XVII. It appears to me also, that pantheism is a fair deduction from this system.
According to this system, God is the sole and universal doer—the only efficient cause. 1. His volition is the creative act, by which all beings and things exist. Thus far it is generally conceded that God is all in all. “By him we live, and move, and have our being.” 2. The active powers of the whole system of nature he has constituted and regulated. The winds are his messengers. The flaming fire his servant. However we may conceive of these powers, whether as really powers acting under necessary laws, or as immediate manifestations of divine energy, in either case it is proper to attribute all their movements to God. These movements were ordained by his wisdom, and are executed directly or indirectly by his will. Every effect which we produce in the material world, we produce by instrumentality. Our arms, hands, &c. are our first instruments. All that we do by the voluntary use of these, we attribute to ourselves. Now if we increase the instrumentality by the addition of an axe, spade, or hammer, still the effect is justly attributed in the same way. It is perfectly clear that to whatever extent we multiply the instruments, the principle is the same. Whether I do the deed directly with my hand, or do it by an instrument held in my hand, or by a concatenation of machinery, reaching from “the centre to the utmost pole,”—if I contemplate the deed, and designedly accomplish it in this way, the deed is mine. And not only is the last deed contemplated as the end of all this arrangement mine, all the intermediary movements produced as the necessary chain of antecedents and sequents by which the last is to be attained, are mine likewise.
I use powers and instruments whose energy and capacity I have learned by experience, but in whose constitution I have had no hand. They are provided for me, and I merely use them. But God in working by these, works by what his own wisdom and power have created; and thereforea fortiorimust every effect produced by these, according to his design, and by his volition as at least the first power of the series, be attributed to him,—be called his doing. He causeth the sun to rise and set. “He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man.” “He watereth the hills from his chambers.” This is not merely poetry. It is truth.
Now the system we are considering goes one step further; it makes human volitions as much the objects of the eternal design, and as really the effects of the divine volition, as the rising of the stars, the flight of the lightning, the tumult of the waters, or the light which spreadeth itself like a garment over creation. Every volition of created mind is God’s act, as really as any effect in nature. We have seen how every volition is connected with its motive; how the motive lies in a pre-constitution; how the series of antecedents and sequents necessarily runs back and connects itself with the infinite wisdom. God’s volition is his own act; the effect immediately produced by that volition is his own deed. Let that effect be the creation of man: the man in all his powers and susceptibilities is God’s work; the objects around him are God’s work; the correlation of the objects with the sensitivity of man is God’s work; the volition which necessarily takes place as the result of this correlation is God’s work. The volition of the man is as strictly attributable to God, as, according to our common apprehensions, the blow which I give with an axe is attributable to me. What is true of the first man, must be equally true of the man removed by a thousand generations, for the intermediary links are all ordained by God under an inevitable necessity. God is really, therefore, the sole doer—the only efficient, the only cause. All beings and things, all motion and all volition, are absolutely resolved into divine volition. God is the author of all beings, things, motions, and volitions, and as much the author of any one of these as of any other, and the author of all in the same way and in the same sense. Set aside self-determining will, and there is no stopping-place between a human volition and the divine volition. The human volition is but the divine, manifested through a lengthened it may be, but a connected and necessary chain of antecedents and sequents. I see no way of escaping from this, as a necessary and legitimate consequence of the necessary determination of will. And what is this consequence but pantheism? God is the universal and all-pervading intelligence—the universal and only power. Every movement of nature is necessary; every movement of mind is necessary; because necessarily caused and determined by the divine volition. There is no life but his, no thought but his, no efficiency but his. He is the soul of the world.
Spinosa never represented himself as an atheist, and according to the following representation appears rather as a pantheist. “He held that God is thecauseof all things; but that he acts, not from choice, but from necessity; and, of consequence, that he is the involuntary author of all the good and evil, virtue and vice, which are exhibited in human life.” (Dugald Stewart, vol. 6. p. 276, note.)
Cousin remarks, too, that Spinosa deserves rather the reproach of pantheism than of atheism. His pantheism was fairly deduced from the doctrine of necessary determination, which he advocated.
XVIII. Spinosa, however, is generally considered an atheist. “It will not be disputed,” says Stewart, “by those who comprehend the drift of his reasonings, that in point of practical tendency atheism and Spinosism are one and the same.”
The following is Cousin’s view of his system. It apparently differs from the preceding in some respects, but really tends to the same conclusions.
“Instead of accusing Spinosa of atheism, he ought to be reproached for an error in the other direction. Spinosa starts from the perfect and infinite being of Descartes’s system, and easily demonstrates that such a being is alone a being in itself; but that a being, finite, imperfect, and relative, only participates of being, without possessing it, in itself: that a being in itself is one necessarily: that there is but one substance; and that all that remains has only a phenomenal existence: that to call phenomena, finite substances, is affirming and denying, at the same time; whereas, there being, but one substance which possesses being in itself, and the finite being that which participates of existence without possessing it in itself, a substance finite implies two contradictory notions. Thus, in the philosophy of Spinosa, man and nature are pure phenomena; simple attributes of that one and absolute substance, but attributes which are co-eternal with their substance: for as phenomena cannot exist without a subject, the imperfect without the perfect, the finite without the infinite, and man and nature suppose God; so likewise, the substance cannot exist without phenomena, the perfect without the imperfect, the infinite without the finite, and God on his part supposes man and nature. The error of his system lies in the predominance of the relation of phenomenon to being, of attribute to substance, over the relation of effect to cause. When man has been represented, not as a cause, voluntary and free, but as necessary and uncontrollable desire, and as an imperfect and finite thought; God, or the supreme pattern of humanity, can be only a substance, and not a cause—a being, perfect, infinite, necessary—the immutable substance of the universe, and not its producing and creating cause. In Cartesianism, the notion of substance figures more conspicuously than that of cause; and this notion of substance, altogether predominating, constitutes Spinosism.” (Hist. de la Phil tom. 1. p. 466.)
The predominance of the notion of substance and attribute, over that of cause and effect, which Cousin here pronounces the vice of Spinosa’s system, is indeed the vice of every system which contains the dogma of the necessary determination of will. The first consequence is pantheism; the second, atheism. I will endeavour to explain. When self-determination is denied to will, and it is resolved into mere desire, necessitated in all its acts from its pre-constituted correlation with objects, then will really ceases to be a cause. It becomes an instrument of antecedent power, but is no power in itself, creative or productive. The reasoning employed in reference to the human will, applies in all its force to the divine will, as has been already abundantly shown. The divine will therefore ceases to be a cause, and becomes a mere instrument of antecedent power. This antecedent power is the infinite and necessary wisdom; but infinite and necessary wisdom is eternal and unchangeable; what it is now, it always was; what tendencies or energies it has now, it always had; and therefore, whatever volitions it now necessarily produces, it always necessarily produced. If we conceive a volition to have been, in one direction, the immediate and necessary antecedent of creation; and, in another, the immediate and necessary sequent of infinite, and eternal, and necessary wisdom; then this volition must have always existed, and consequently, creation, as the necessary effect of this volition, must have always existed. The eternal and infinite wisdom thus becomes the substance, because this is existence in itself, no antecedent being conceivable; and creation, consisting of man and nature, imperfect and finite, participating only of existence, and not being existence in themselves, are not substances, but phenomena. But what is the relation of the phenomena to the substance? Not that of effect to cause;—this relation slides entirely out of view, the moment will ceases to be a cause. It is the relation simply of phenomena to being, considered as the necessary and inseparable manifestations of being; the relation of attributes to substance, considered as the necessary and inseparable properties of substance. We cannot conceive of substance without attributes or phenomena, nor of attributes or phenomena without substance; they are, therefore, co-eternal in this relation. Who then is God? Substance and its attributes; being and its phenomena. In other words, the universe, as made up of substance and attributes, is God. This is Spinosism; this is pantheism; and it is the first and legitimate consequence of a necessitated will.
The second consequence is atheism. In the denial of will as a causeper se,—in resolving all its volitions into the necessary phenomena of the eternal substance,—we destroy personality: we have nothing remaining but the universe. Now we may call the universe God; but with equal propriety we call God the universe. This destruction of personality,—this merging of God into necessary substance and attributes,—is all that we mean by Atheism. The conception is really the same, whether we name it fate, pantheism, or atheism.
The following remark of Dugald Stewart, shows that he arrived at the same result: “Whatever may have been the doctrines of some of the ancient atheists about man’s free agency, it will not be denied that, in the history of modern philosophy, the schemes of atheism and of necessity have been hitherto always connected together. Not that I would by any means be understood to say, that every necessitarian mustipso factobe an atheist, or even that any presumption is afforded, by a man’s attachment to the former sect, of his having the slightest bias in favour of the latter; but only that every modern atheist I have heard of has been a necessitarian. I cannot help adding, that the most consistent necessitarian who have yet appeared, have been those who followed out their principles till they ended inSpinosism,—a doctrine which differs from atheism more in words than in reality.” (Vol. 6, p. 470.)
Cudworth, in his great work entitled “The true Intellectual System of the Universe,” shows clearly the connexion between fatalism and atheism. This work seems to have grown out of another undertaking, which contemplated specifically the question of liberty and necessity, and its bearing upon morality and religion. The passage in the preface, in which he informs us of his original plan, is a very full expression of his opinion. “First, therefore, I acknowledge,” says he, “that when I engaged the press, I intended only a discourse concerning liberty and necessity, or, to speak out more plainly, against the fatal necessity of all actions and events; which, upon whatsoever grounds or principles maintained, will, as we conceive, serve the design of atheism, and undermine Christianity, and all religion, as taking away all guilt and blame, punishments and rewards, and plainly rendering a day of judgement ridiculous.” This opinion of the tendency of the doctrine of a necessitated will, is the germ of his work. The connexion established in his mind between this doctrine and atheism, naturally led him to his masterly and elaborate exposition and refutation of the latter.
The arguments of many atheists might be referred to, to illustrate the connexion between necessity and atheism. I shall here refer, however, to only one individual, remarkable both for his poetic genius and metaphysical acumen. I mean the late Piercy Bysshe Shelley. He openly and unblushingly professed atheism. In his Queen Mab we find this line: “There is no God.” In a note upon this line, he remarks: “This negation must be understood solely to affect a creative Deity. The hypothesis of a pervading spirit, co-eternal with the universe, remains unshaken.” This last hypothesis is Pantheism. Pantheism is really the negation of a creative Deity,—the identity or at least necessary and eternal co-existence of God and the universe. Shelley has expressed this clearly in another passage:
“Spirit of nature! all-sufficing power,
Necessity! thou mother of the world!”
In a note upon this passage, Shelley has argued the doctrine of the necessary determination of will by motive, with an acuteness and power scarcely inferior to Collins or Edwards. He makes, indeed, a different application of the doctrine, but a perfectly legitimate one. Collins and Edwards, and the whole race of necessitarian theologians, evidently toil under insurmountable difficulties, while attempting to base religion upon this doctrine, and effect their escape only under a fog of subtleties. But Shelley, in daring to be perfectly consistent, is perfectly clear. He fearlessly proceeds from necessity to pantheism, and thence to atheism and the destruction of all moral distinctions. “We are taught,” he remarks, “by the doctrine of necessity, that there is neither good nor evil in the universe, otherwise than as the events to which we apply these epithets have relation to our own peculiar mode of being. Still less than with the hypothesis of a God, will the doctrine of necessity accord with the belief of a future state of punishment.”
I here close my deductions from this system. If these deductions be legitimate, as I myself cannot doubt they are, then, to the largest class of readers, the doctrine of necessity is overthrown: it is overthrown by its consequences, and my argument has the force of areductio ad absurdum. If a self-determined will appear an absurdity, still it cannot be as absurd as the contrary doctrine, if this doctrine involve the consequences above given. At least, practical wisdom will claim that doctrine which leaves to the world a God, and to man a moral and responsible nature.
A question will here very naturally arise: How can we account for the fact that so many wise and good men have contended for a necessitated will, as if they were contending for the great basis of all morality and religion? For example, take Edwards himself as a man of great thought and of most fervent piety. In the whole of his treatise, he argues with the air and manner of one who is opposing great errors as really connected with a self-determined will. What can be stronger than the following language: “I think that the notion of liberty, consisting in acontingent self-determination of the will, as necessary to the morality of men’s dispositions and actions, is almost inconceivably pernicious; and that the contrary truth is one of the most important truths of moral philosophy that ever was discussed, and most necessary to be known.” The question is a fair one, and I will endeavour to answer it.
1. The impossibility of a self-determining will as being in itself a contradictory idea, and as leading to the consequence of affirming the existence of effects without causes, takes strong hold of the mind in these individuals. This I believe, and hope to prove in the course of this treatise, to be a philosophical error;—but it is no new thing for great and good men to fall into philosophical errors.
As, therefore, the liberty consisting in a self-determining will, or theliberty of indifference, as it has been technically called, is conceived to be exploded, they endeavour to supply aliberty of spontaneity, or a liberty lying in the unimpeded connexion between volition and sequents.
Hobbes has defined and illustrated this liberty in a clearer manner than any of its advocates: “I conceive,” says he, “liberty to be rightly defined,—the absence of all impediments to action, that are not contained in the nature and intrinsical quality of the agent. As for example, the water is said to descendfreely, or is said to have liberty to descend by the channel of the river, because there is no impediment that way; but not across, because the banks are impediments: and though water cannot ascend, yet men never say, it wants thelibertyto ascend, but thefacultyorpower, because the impediment is in the nature of the water, and intrinsical. So also we say, he that is tied, wants thelibertyto go, because the impediment is not in him, but in his hands; whereas, we say not so of him who is sick or lame, because the impediment is in himself,”—that is, he wants the faculty or power of going:—this constitutes naturalinability. Liberty is volition acting upon physical instrumentalities, or upon mental faculties, according to a fixed and constituted law of antecedents, and meeting with no impediment or overcoming antagonistic power. Natural ability is the fixed and constituted antecedence itself. Hence there may be natural ability without liberty; but liberty cannot be affirmed without natural ability. Both are necessary to constitute responsibility. Natural ability is volition known as a stated antecedent of certain effects. Liberty is this antecedent existing without impediment or frustration. Since this is the only possible liberty remaining, and as they have no wish to be considered fatalists, they enlarge much upon this; not only as the whole of liberty actually existing, but as the full and satisfactory notion of liberty.
In basing responsibility and praise and blameworthiness upon this liberty, an appeal is made to the common ideas, feelings, and practices of men. Every man regards himself as free when he does as he pleases,—when, if he pleases to walk, he walks,—when, if he pleases to sit down, he sits down, &c. if a man, in a court of justice, were to plead in excuse that he committed the crime because he pleased or willed to do it, the judge would reply—“this is your guilt, that you pleased or willed to commit it: nay, your being pleased or willing to commit it was the very doing of it.” Now all this is just. I readily admit that we are free when we do as we please, and that we are guilty when, in doing as we please, we commit a crime.
Well, then, it is asked, is not this liberty sufficient to constitute responsibility? And thus the whole difficulty seems to be got over. The reasoning would be very fair, as far as it goes, if employed against fatalists, but amounts to nothing when employed against those who hold to the self-determining power of the will. The latter receive these common ideas, feelings, and practices of men, as facts indicative of freedom, because they raise no question against human freedom. The real question at issue is, how are we to account for these facts? The advocates of self-determining power account for them by referring them to a self-determined will. We say a man is free when he does as he pleases or according to his volitions, and has the sense of freedom in his volitions, because he determines his own volitions; and that a man is guilty for crime, if committed by his volition, because he determined this volition, and at the very moment of determining it, was conscious of ability to determine an opposite volition. And we affirm, also, that a man is free, not only when he does as he pleases, or, in other words, makes a volition without any impediment between it and its object,—he is free, if he make the volition without producing effects by it: volition itself is the act of freedom. But how do those who deny a self-determining power account for these facts? They say that the volition is caused by a motive antecedent to it, but that nevertheless, inasmuch as the man feels that he is free and is generally accounted so, he must be free; for liberty means nothing more than “power and opportunity to do and conduct as he will, or according to his choice, without taking into the meaning of the word any thing of thecauseof that choice, or at all considering how the person came to have such a volition,”—that is, the man is free, and feels himself to be so, when he does as he pleases, because this is all that is meant by freedom.
But suppose the objection be brought up, that the definition of liberty here given is assumed, arbitrary, and unsatisfactory; and that the sense or consciousness of freedom in the act of volition, and the common sentiments and practices of men in reference to voluntary action, are not adequately accounted for,—then the advocates of necessitated volition return to the first argument, of the impossibility of any other definition,—and affirm that, inasmuch as this sense of freedom does exist, and the sentiments and practices of men generally correspond to it, we must believe that we are free when volition is unimpeded in its connexion with sequents, and that we are blame or praiseworthy, according to the perceived character of our volitions,—although it cannot but be true that the volitions themselves are necessary. On the one hand, they are compelled by their philosophy to deny a self-determining will. On the other hand, they are compelled, by their moral sense and religious convictions, to uphold moral distinctions and responsibility. In order to do this, however, aquasiliberty must be preserved: hence the attempt to reconcile liberty and necessity, by referring the first exclusively to the connexion between volition and its sequents, and the second exclusively to the connexion between the volition and its antecedents or motives. Liberty is physical; necessity is metaphysical. The first belongs to man; the second transcends the sphere of his activity, and, is not his concern. In this very difficult position, no better or more ingenious solution could be devised; but that it is wholly illogical and ineffectual, and forms no escape from absolute and universal necessity, has already been abundantly proved.
2. The philosophers and divines of whom we are speaking, conceive that when volitions are supposed to exist out of the necessary determination of motives, they exist fortuitously and without a cause. But to give up the necessary and universal dependence of phenomena upon causes, would be to place events beyond the divine control: nay, more,—it would destroy the greata posterioriargument for the existence of a God. Of course it would be the destruction of all morality and religion.
3. The doctrine of the divine foreknowledge, in particular, is much insisted upon as incompatible with contingent volitions. Divine foreknowledge, it is alleged, makes all events certain and necessary. Hence volitions are necessary; and, to carry out the reasoning, it must be added likewise that the connexion between volitions and their sequents is equally necessary. God foresees the sequent of the volition as well as the volition. The theory, however, is careful to preserve thenameof liberty, because it fears the designation which properly belongs to it.
4. By necessary determination, the sovereignty of God and the harmony of his government are preserved. His volitions are determined by his infinite wisdom. The world, therefore, must be ruled in truth and righteousness.
These philosophers and divines thus represent to themselves the theory of a self-determining will as an absurdity in itself, and, if granted to be true, as involving the most monstrous and disastrous consequences, while the theory which they advocate is viewed only in its favourable points, and without reaching forth to its legitimate consequences. If these consequences are urged by another hand, they are sought to be evaded by concentrating attention upon the fact of volition and the sense of freedom attending it: for example, if fatalism be urged as a consequence, of this theory, the ready reply is invariably—“No such necessity is maintained as goes to destroy the liberty which consists in doing as one pleases;” or if the destruction of responsibility be urged as a consequence, the reply is—“A man is always held a just subject of praise or blame when he acts voluntarily.” The argumentation undoubtedly is as sincere as it is earnest. The interests at stake are momentous. They are supposed to perish, if this philosophy be untrue. No wonder, then, that, reverencing and loving morality and religion, they should by every possible argument aim to sustain the philosophy which is supposed to lie at their basis, and look away from consequences so destructive, persuading themselves that these consequences are but the rampant sophistries of infidelity.
It is a wonderful fact in the history of philosophy, that the philosophy of fate, pantheism, and atheism, should be taken as the philosophy of religion. Good men have misapprehended the philosophy, and have succeeded in bringing it into fellowship with truth and righteousness. Bad men and erring philosophers have embraced it in a clear understanding of its principles, and have both logically reasoned out and fearlessly owned its consequences.
XIX. Assuming, for the moment, that the definition of liberty given by the theologians above alluded to, is the only possible definition, it must follow that the most commonly received modes of preaching the truths and urging the duties of religion are inconsistent and contradictory.
A class of theologians has been found in the church, who, perhaps without intending absolutely to deny human freedom, have denied all ability on the part of man to comply with the divine precepts. A generic distinction between inability and a want of freedom is not tenable, and certainly is of no moment, where, as in this case, the inability contended for is radical and absolute.
These theologians clearly perceived, that if volition is necessarily determined by motive, and if motive lies in the correlation of desire and object, then, in a being totally depraved, or a being of radically corrupt desires, there can be no ability to good deeds: the deed is as the volition, and the volition is as the strongest desire or the sense of the most agreeable.
Hence these theologians refer the conversion of man exclusively to divine influence. The man cannot change his own heart, nor employ any means to that end; for this would imply a volition for which, according to the supposition, he has no ability.
Now, at the same time, that this class represent men as unable to love and obey the truths of religion, they engage with great zeal in expounding these truths to their minds, and in urging upon them the duty of obedience. But what is the aim of this preaching? Perhaps one will reply, I know the man cannot determine himself to obedience, but in preaching to him, I am presenting motives which may influence him. But in denying his ability to do good, you deny the possibility of moving him by motives drawn from religious truth and obligation. His heart, by supposition, is not in correlation with truth and duty; the more, therefore, you preach truth and duty, the more intense is the sense of the disagreeable which you awaken. As when you present objects to a man’s mind which are correlated to his feelings, the more clearly and frequently you present them, the more you advance towards the sense of the most agreeable or choice. So when you present objects which are not correlated to his feelings, the more clearly and frequently you present them, the more you must advance towards the sense of the most disagreeable, or positive refusal.
If it be affirmed, in reply to this, that the presentation of truth forms the occasion or condition on which the divine influence is exerted for the regeneration of the heart, then I ask, why do you urge the man to repent, and believe, and love God, and discharge religious duty generally, and rebuke him for sin, when you know that he is utterly unable to move, in the slightest degree, towards any of these affections and actions, and utterly unable to leave off sinning, until the divine influence be exerted, which brings his heart into correlation with religion, and makes it possible for him to put forth the volitions of piety and duty? It can be regarded in no other light than playing a solemn farce, thus to rebuke and urge and persuade, as if the man ought to make some exertion when you feel convinced that exertion is impossible. It certainly can form no occasion for divine interposition, unless it be in pity of human folly. If you say that such a course does succeed in the conversion of men, then we are constrained to believe that your philosophy is wrong, and that your practice succeeds, because inconsistent with it, and really belonging to some other system which you know not, or understand not and deny.
A total inability to do good makes man the passive subject of influences to be employed for his regeneration, and he can no more be considered active in effecting it than he is in the process of digesting food, or in the curative action of medicines upon any diseased part of his system. If you urge him to exert himself for his regeneration, you urge him to put forth volitions which, according to this philosophy, are in no sense possible until the regeneration has been effected, or at least commenced.
I will go one step farther in this reasoning:—on supposition of total inability, not only is the individual a passive subject of regenerating influences, but he is also incapable of regeneration, or any disposition or tendency towards regeneration, from any influences which lie merely in motives, produced by arraying objects before the mind. Motive, according to the definition, exhibited in the statement of Edwards’s system, lies in the nature and circumstances of the object standing in correlation with the state of mind. Now the state of mind, in an unregenerate state, is a state represented by this system itself, as totally adverse to the objects of religion. Hence, there is no conceivable array of religious truth, and no conceivable religious exhortation and persuasion that could possibly come into such a relation to this state of mind as to form the motive of a religious choice or volition. It is perfectly plain, that before such a result could take place, the state of mind itself would have to be changed. But as the array of religious truth and the energy of religious exhortation must fail to produce the required volitions, on account of the state of mind, so neither can the state of mind be changed by this array of truth or by this exhortation. There is a positive opposition of mind and object, and the collision becomes more severe upon every attempt to bring them together. It must follow, therefore, that preaching truth and duty to the unregenerate, so far from leading to their conversion, can only serve to call out more actively the necessary determination, not to obey. The very enlightening of the intelligence, as it gives a clearer perception of the disagreeable objects, only increases the disinclination.
Nor can we pause in this consequence, at human instrumentality. It must be equally true, that if divine interposition lies in the presentation of truth and persuasions to duty, only that these are given with tenfold light and power, it must fail of accomplishing regeneration, or of producing any tendency towards regeneration. The heart being in no correlation with these,—its sense of the disagreeable,—and therefore the energy of its refusal will only be the more intense and decided.
If it should be remarked that hope and fear are feelings, which, even in a state of unregeneracy, can be operated upon, the state of things is equally difficult. No such hope can be operated upon as implies desire after religious principles and enjoyments; for this cannot belong to the corrupt nature; nor can any fear be aroused which implies a reverence of the divine purity, and an abhorrence of sin. The fear could only relate to danger and suffering; and the hope, to deliverance and security, independently of moral qualities. The mere excitement of these passions might awaken attention, constrain to an outward obedience, and form a very prudent conduct, but could effect no purification of the heart.
There is another class of theologians, of whom Edwards is one, who endeavour to escape the difficulties which attend a total inability, by making the distinction of moral and natural inability:—man, they say, is morally unable to do good, and naturally able to do good, and therefore he can justly be made the subject of command, appeal, rebuke, and exhortation. The futility of this distinction I cannot but think has already been made apparent. It may be well, however, inasmuch as so great stress is laid upon it, to call up a brief consideration of it in this particular connexion.
Moral inability, as we have seen, is the impossibility of a given volition, because there are no motives or causes to produce it. It is simply the impossibility of an effect for the want of a cause: when we speak of moral cause and effect, according to Edwards, we speak of nothing different from physical cause and effect, except in the quality of the terms—the relation of the terms is the same. The impossibility of a given volition, therefore, when the appropriate motive is wanting, is equal to the impossibility of freezing water in the sun of a summer’s noon-tide.1
When objects of volition are fairly presented, an inability to choose them must lie in the state of the mind, sensitivity, desire, will, or affections, for all these have the same meaning according to this system. There is no volition of preference where there is no motive to this effect; and there is no motive to this effect where the state of the mind is not in correlation with the objects presented: on the contrary, the volition which now takes place, is a volition of refusal.
Natural inability, as defined by this system, lies in the connexion between the volition considered as an antecedent, and the effect required. Thus I am naturally unable to walk, when, although I make the volition, my limbs, through weakness or disease, do not obey. Any defect in the powers or instrumentalities dependent for activity upon volition, or any impediment which volition cannot surmount, constitutes natural inability.2According to this system, I am not held responsible for anything which, through natural inability, cannot be accomplished, although the volition is made. But now let us suppose that there is no defect in the powers or instrumentalities dependent for activity upon volition, and no impediment which volition cannot surmount, so that there need be only a volition in order to have the effect, and then the natural ability is complete:—I will to walk, and I walk.
Now it is affirmed that a man is fairly responsible for the doing of anything, and can be fairly urged to do it when all that is necessary for the doing of it is a volition although there may be a moral inability to the volition itself.
Nothing it seems to me can be more absurd than this distinction. If liberty be essential to responsibility, liberty, as we have clearly shown, can no more lie in the connexion between volition and its effects, than in the connexion between volition and its motives. One is just as necessary as the other. If it be granted to be absurd with the first class of theologians to urge men to do right when they are conceived to be totally unable to do right, it is equally so when they are conceived to have only a natural ability to do right, because this natural ability is of no avail without a corresponding moral ability. If the volition take place, there is indeed nothing to prevent the action; nay, “the very willing is the doing of it;” but then the volition as an effect cannot take place without a cause; and to acknowledge a moral inability, is nothing less than to acknowledge that there is no cause to produce the required volition.
The condition of men as represented by the second class of theologians, is not really different from their condition as represented by the first class. The inability under both representations is a total inability. In the utter impossibility of a right volition on these, is the utter impossibility of any good deed.
When we have denied liberty, in denying a self-determining power, these definitions in order to make out aquasiliberty and ability, are nothing but ingenious folly and plausible deception.
You tell the man, indeed, that he can if he will; and when he replies to you, that on your own principles the required volition is impossible, you refer him to the common notions of mankind. According to these, you say a man is guilty when he forbears to do right, since nothing is wanting to right-doing but a volition,—and guilty when he does wrong, because he wills to do wrong. According to these common notions, too, a man may fairly be persuaded to do right, when nothing is wanting but a will to do right. But do we find this distinction of natural and moral ability in the common notions of men? When nothing is required to the performance of a deed but a volition, do men conceive of any inability whatever? Do they not feel that the volition has a metaphysical possibility as well as that the sequent of the volition has a physical possibility? Have we not at least some reason to suspect that the philosophy of responsibility, and the basis of rebuke and persuasion lying in the common notions of men, are something widely different from the scheme of a necessitated volition?
This last class of theologians, equally with the first, derive all the force of their preaching from a philosophy, upon which they are compelled to act, but which they stoutly deny. Let them carry out their philosophy, and for preaching no place remains.
Preaching can produce good effects only by producing good volitions; and good volitions can be produced only by good motives: but good motives can exist under preaching only when the subjects of the preaching are correlated with the state of mind. But by supposition this is not the case, for the heart is totally depraved.
To urge the unregenerate man to put forth volitions in reference to his regeneration, may consist with a self-determining power of will, but is altogether irrelevant on this system. It is urginghimto do whathecannot do; and indeed what all persuasion must fail to doin himas a mere passive subject. To assure him that the affair is quite easy, because nothing is required of him but to will, is equivalent to assuring him that the affair is quite easy, because it will be done when he has done it. The man may reply, the affair would indeed be quite easy if there existed in me a motive to produce the volition; but as there does not, the volition is impossible. And as I cannot put forth the volition without the motive, so neither can I make the motive which is to produce the volition—for then an effect would make its cause. What I cannot do for myself, I fear neither you, nor indeed an angel from heaven will succeed in doing for me. You array the truths, and duties, and prospects of religion before my mind, but they cannot take the character of motives to influence my will, because they are not agreeable to my heart.
You indeed mean well; but do you not perceive that on your own principles all your zeal and eloquence must necessarily have an opposite effect from what you intend? My affections not being in correlation with these subjects, the more you urge them, the more intense becomes my sense of the most disagreeable, or my positive refusal; and this, my good friends, by a necessity which holds us all alike in an inevitable and ever-during chain.
It is plainly impossible to escape from this conclusion, and yet maintain the philosophy. All efforts of this kind, made by appealing to the common sentiments of mankind, we have seen are self-contradictory. It will not do to press forward the philosophy until involved in difficulty and perplexity, and then to step aside and borrow arguments from another system which is assumed to be overthrown. There is no necessity more absolute and sovereign, than a logical necessity.3
XVIII. The cardinal principles of Edwards’s system in the sections we have been examining, from which the above consequences are deduced, are the three following:
1. The will is always determined by the strongest motive.
2. The strongest motive is always “the most agreeable.”
3. The will is necessarily determined.
I shall close this part of the present treatise with a brief examination of the reasoning by which he endeavours to establish these points.
The reasoning by which the first point is aimed to be established, is the general reasoning respecting cause and effect. Volition is an effect, and must have a cause. Its cause is the motive lying in the correlation of mind and object. When several physical causes conflict with each other, we call that the strongest which prevails and produces its appropriate effects, to the exclusion of the others. So also where there are several moral causes or motives conflicting with each other, we call that the strongest which prevails. Where a physical cause is not opposed by any other force, it of course produces its effect; and in this case we do not say thestrongestcause produces the effect, because there is no comparison. So also there are cases in which there is but one moral cause or motive present, when there being no comparison, we cannot affirm that the volition is determined by thestrongestmotive: the doing of something may be entirely agreeable, and the not doing of it may be utterly disagreeable: in this case the motive is only for the doing of it. But wherever the case contains a comparison of causes or of motives, it must be true that the effect which actually takes place, is produced by the strongest cause or motive. This indeed is nothing more than a truism, or a mere postulate, as if we should say,—let a cause or motive producing effects be called the strongest. It may be represented, also, as apetitio principii, or reasoning in a circle,—since the proof that the will is determined by the strongest motive is no other than the fact that it is determined. It may be stated thus: The will is determined by the strongest motive. How do you know this? Because it is determined. How does this prove it? Because that which determines it must be the strongest.4
Edwards assumes, also, that motive is the cause of volition. This assumption he afterwards endeavours indirectly to sustain, when he argues against a self-determining will. If the will do not cause its own volitions, then it must follow that motive is the cause. The argument against a self-determining will we are about to take up.
2.The strongest motive is always the most agreeable. Edwards maintains that the motive which always prevails to cause volition, has this characteristic,—that it is the most agreeable or pleasant at the time, and that volition itself is nothing but the sense of the most agreeable. If there should be but one motive present to the mind, as in that case there would be no comparison, we presume he would only say that the will is determined bythe agreeable.
But how are we to know whether the motive of every volition has this characteristic of agreeableness, or of most agreeableness, as the case may be? We can know it only by consulting our consciousness. If, whenever we will, we find the sense of the most agreeable identified with the volition, and if we are conscious of no power of willing, save under this condition of willing what is most agreeable to us, then certainly there remains no farther question on this point. The determination of consciousness is final. Whether such be the determination of consciousness, we are hereafter to consider.
Does Edwards appeal to consciousness?
He does,—but without formally announcing it. The following passage is an appeal to consciousness, and contains Edwards’s whole thought on this subject: “There is scarcely a plainer and more universal dictate of the sense and experience of mankind, than that when men act voluntarily, and do what they please, then they do what suits them best, or what is mostagreeable to them. To say that they do whatpleasesthem, but yet what is notagreeableto them, is the same thing as to say, they do what they please, but do not act their pleasure; and that is to say, that they do what they please, and yet do not what they please.” (p. 25.) Motives differ widely, intrinsically considered. Some are in accordance with reason and conscience; some are opposed to reason and conscience. Some are wise; some are foolish. Some are good; some are bad. But whatever may be their intrinsic properties, they all have this characteristic of agreeableness when they cause volition; and it is by this characteristic that their strength is measured. The appeal, however, which is made to sustain this, is made in a way to beg the very point in question. Will not every one admit, that “when men actvoluntarily and do what they please, they do what suits them best, and what is most agreeable to them?” Yes. Is it not a palpable contradiction, to say that men “do what pleases them,” and yet do “what is not agreeable to them,” according to the ordinary use of these words? Certainly.
But the point in question is, whether men, acting voluntarily, always do what is pleasing to them: and this point Edwards assumes. He assumes it here, and he assumes it throughout his treatise. We have seen that, in his psychology, he identifies will and desire or the affections:—hence volition is the prevailing desire or affection, and the object which moves thedesiremust of course appeardesirable, or agreeable, or pleasant; for they have the same meaning. If men always will what they most desire, and desire what they will, then of course when they act voluntarily, they do what they please; and when they do what they please, they do what suits them best and is most agreeable to them.
Edwards runs the changes of these words with great plausibility, and we must say deceives himself as well as others. The great point,—whether will and desire are one,—whether the volition is as the most agreeable,—he takes up at the beginning as an unquestionable fact, and adheres to throughout as such; but he never once attempts an analysis of consciousness in relation to it, adequate and satisfactory. His psychology is an assumption.
3. The will is necessarily determined.
How does Edwards prove this? 1. On the general connexion of causes and effects. Causes necessarily produce effects, unless resisted and overcome by opposing forces; but where several causes are acting in opposition, the strongest will necessarily prevail, and produce its appropriate effects.
Now, Edwards affirms that the nature of the connexion between motives and volitions is the same with that of any other causes and effects. The difference is merely in the terms: and when he calls the necessity which characterizes the connexion of motive and volition “a moral necessity,” he refers not to the connexion itself, but only to the terms connected. In this reasoning he plainly assumes that the connexion between cause and effect in general, is a necessary connexion; that is, all causation is necessary. A contingent, self-determining cause, in his system, is characterized as an absurdity. Hence he lays himself open to all the consequences of a universal and absolute necessity.
2. He also endeavours to prove the necessity of volition by a method of approximation. (p. 33.) He here grants, for the sake of the argument, that the will may oppose the strongest motive in a given case; but then he contends that it is supposable that the strength of the motive may be increased beyond the strength of the will to resist, and that at this point, on the general law of causation, the determination of the will must be considered necessary. “Whatever power,” he remarks, “men may be supposed to have to surmount difficulties, yet that power is not infinite.” If the power of the man is finite, that of the motive may be supposed to be infinite: hence the resistance of the man must at last be necessarily overcome. This reasoning seems plausible at first; but a little examination, I think, will show it to be fallacious. Edwards does not determine the strength of motives by inspecting their intrinsic qualities, but only by observing their degrees of agreeableness. But agreeableness, by his own representation, is relative,—relative to the will or sensitivity. A motive of infinite strength would be a motive of infinite agreeableness, and could be known to be such only by an infinite sense of agreeableness in the man. The same of course must hold true of any motive less than infinite: and universally, whatever be the degree of strength of the motive, there must be in the man an affection of corresponding intensity. Now, if there be a power of resistance in the will to any motive, which is tending strongly to determine it, this power of resistance, according to Edwards, must consist of a sense of agreeableness opposing the other motive, which is likewise a sense of agreeableness: and the question is simply, which shall predominate and become a sense of the most agreeable. It is plain that if the first be increased, the second may be supposed to be increased likewise; if the first can become infinite, the second can become infinite likewise: and hence the power of resistance may be supposed always to meet the motive required to be resisted, and a point of necessary determination may never be reached.
If Edwards should choose to throw us upon the strength of motives intrinsically considered, then the answer is ready. There are motives of infinite strength, thus considered, which men are continually resisting: for example, the motive which urges them to obey and love God, and seek the salvation of their souls.