Section III.The scheme of necessity is supported by false logic.One reason why the advocates of necessity deceive themselves, as well as others, is, that there is great want of precision and distinctness in their views and definitions. We are told by them that the will is always determined by the strongest motive; that this is invariably the cause of volition. But what is meant by the termcause? We have final causes, instrumental causes, occasional causes, predisposing causes, efficient causes, and many others. Now, in which of these senses is the word used, when we are informed that motive is the cause of volition? On this point we are not enlightened. Neither Leibnitz nor Edwards is sufficiently explicit. The proposition, as left by them, is vague and obscure.Leibnitz inclined to the use of the wordreason, because he carried on a controversy with Bayle and Hobbes, who were atheists; though he frequently speaks of a chain of causes which embrace human volitions.121While Edwards, who opposed the Arminians, generally employs the more rigid termcause; though he, too, frequently represents motive as“the ground and reason”of volition. The one softens his language, in places, as he contends[pg 150]with those who had rendered themselves obnoxious to the Christian world by an advocacy of the doctrine of necessity in connexion with atheistical sentiments. The other appears to prefer the stronger expression, as he puts forth his power against antagonists whose views of liberty were deemed subversive of the tenets of Calvinism. But the law of causality, as stated by Edwards, and the principle of the sufficient reason, as defined and employed by Leibnitz, are perfectly identical.When we are told that motive is the cause of volition, it is evident we cannot determine whether to deny or to assent to the proposition, unless we know in what sense the termcauseis used. We might discuss this perplexed question forever, by the use of such vague and indefinite propositions, without progressing a single step toward the end of the controversy. We must bring a more searching analysis to the subject, if we hope to accomplish anything. We must take the word cause orreason, in each of its significations, in order to discover in what particulars the contending parties agree, and in what particulars they disagree, in order to see how far each party is right, and how far it is wrong. This is the only course that promises the least prospect of a satisfactory result.If we mean by the cause of volition, that which wills or exerts the volition, there is no controversy; for in this sense the advocates of necessity admit that the mind is the cause of volition. Thus says Edwards:“The acts of my will are my own; i. e., they are acts of my will.”122It is universally conceded that it is the mind which wills, and nothing else in the place of it; and hence, in this sense of the word, there is no question but that the mind is the cause of volition. But the advocates of necessity cannot be understood in this sense; for they deny that the mind is the cause of volition, and insist that it is caused by motive.The termcauseis very often used to designate the condition of a thing, or that without which it could not happen or come to pass. Thus we are told by Edwards, that he sometimes uses“the word cause to signify anyantecedent”of an event,“whether it has any influence or not,”in the production of such event.123If this be the meaning, when it is said that motive is the cause of volition, the truth of the proposition is conceded by the advocates of free-agency. In speaking of arguments and[pg 151]motives, Dr. Samuel Clarke says:“Occasions indeed there may be, and are, upon which that substance in man, wherever the self-moving principle resides, freely exerts its active power.”124Herein, then, there is a perfect agreement between the contending parties. The fact that the mind requires certain conditions or occasions, on which to exercise its active power, does not at all interfere with its freedom; and hence the advocates of free-agency have readily admitted that motives are the occasional causes of volition. We must look out for some other meaning of the term, then, if we would clearly and distinctly fix our minds on the point in controversy.We say that an antecedent is the cause of its consequent, when the latter is produced by the action of the former. For example, a motion of the body is said to be caused by the mind; because it is produced by an act of the mind. This seems to be what is meant by an“efficient cause.”It is, no doubt, the most proper sense of the word; and around this it is that the controversy still rages, and has for centuries raged.The advocates of necessity contend, not only that volition is the effect of motive, but also that“to be an effect impliespassiveness, or the being subject to the power and action of its cause.”125Such precisely is the doctrine of Edwards, and Collins, and Hobbes. In this sense of the word it is denied that motive is the cause of volition, and it is affirmed that mind is the cause thereof. Thus, says Dr. Samuel Clarke, in his reply to Collins,“'Tis the self-moving principle, and not at all the reason or motive, which is thephysicalorefficientcause of action;”by which we understand him to mean volition, as that is the thing in dispute. Now, when the advocates of free-agency insist that motive is not the efficient cause of volition, and that mind is the efficient cause thereof, we suppose them to employ the expression,efficient cause, in one and the same sense in both branches of the proposition. This is the only fair way of viewing their language; and if they wished to be understood in any other manner, they should have taken the pains to explain themselves, and not permit us to be misled by an ambiguity. Here the precise point in dispute is clearly presented; and let us hear the contending parties, before we proceed to decide between them.[pg 152]You are in error, says the necessitarian to his opponents, in denying that motive, and in affirming that mind, is the efficient cause of volition. For if an act of the mind, or a volition, is caused by the mind, it must be produced by a preceding act of the mind, and this act must be produced by another preceding act of the mind, and so onad infinitum; which reduces the matter to a plain impossibility. Now, if the necessitarian has not been deceived by an unwarrantable ambiguity on the part of his adversary, he has clearly reduced his doctrine to the absurdity of an infinite series of acts: that is to say, if the advocate of free-agency does not depart from the ordinary meaning of words, when he affirms that mind is theefficient causeof volition; and if he does not use these terms“efficient cause,”in different senses in the same sentence, then we feel bound to say that he is fairly caught in the toils of his adversary. But we are not yet in condition to pass a final judgment between the parties.The necessitarian contends that“volition, or an act of the mind, is the effect of motive, and that it is subject to the power and action of its cause.”126The advocate of free-will replies, If we must suppose an action of motive on the mind to account for its act, we must likewise suppose another action to account for the action of motive; and so onad infinitum. Thus the necessitarian seems to be fairly caught in his own toils, and entrapped by his own definition and arguments.Our decision (for the correctness of which we appeal to the calm and impartial judgment of the reader) is as follows: If the termcausebe understood in the first or the second sense above mentioned, there is no disagreement between the contending parties; and if it be understood in the third sense, then both parties are in error. If, in order to account for an act of the mind, we suppose it is caused by an action of motive, we are involved in the absurdity of an infinite series of actions; and on the other hand, if we suppose it is caused by a preceding act of the mind itself, we are forced into the same absurdity. Hence, we conclude, that an act of the mind, or a volition, is not produced by the action of either mind or motive, but takes its rise in the world without any such efficient cause of its existence.[pg 153]Each party has refuted his adversary, and in the enjoyment of his triumph he seems not to have duly reflected on the destruction of his own position. Both are in the right, and both are in the wrong; but, as we shall hereafter see, not equally so. If we adopt the argument of both sides, in so far as it is true, we shall come to the conclusion that action must take its rise somewhere in the universe without being caused by preceding action. And if so, where shall we look for its origin? in that which by nature is endowed with active power, or in that which is purely and altogether passive?We lay it down, then, as an established and fundamental position, that the mind acts or puts forth its volitions without being efficiently caused to do so—without being impelled by its own prior action, or by the prior action of anything else. The conditions or occasions of volition being supplied, the mind itself acts in view thereof, without being subject to the power or action of any cause whatever. All rational beings must, as we have seen, either admit this exemption of the mind in willing from the power and action of any cause, or else lose themselves in the labyrinth of an infinite series of causes. It is this exemption which constitutes the freedom of the human soul.We are now prepared to see, in a clear light, the sophistical nature of the pretended demonstration of the scheme of necessity.“It is impossible to consider occurrences,”says Sir James Mackintosh, otherwise than as bound together in“the relation of cause and effect.”Now this relation, if we interpret it according to the nature of things, and not according to the sound of words, is not one, but two.The motions of the body are caused by the mind, that is, they are produced by the action of the mind; this constitutes one relation: but acts of the mind are caused, that is, they are produced by the action of nothing; and this is a quite different relation. In other words, the motions of body are produced by preceding action, and the acts of the mind are not produced by preceding action. Hence, the first are necessitated, and the last are free: the first come under“the relation of cause and effect,”and the last come under a very different relation. The relation of cause and effect connects the most remote consequences of volition with volition itself; but when we reach volition[pg 154]there a new relation arises: it is the relation which subsists between an agent and its act. We may trace changes in the external world up to the volitions or acts of mind, and perceive no diversity in the chain of dependencies; but precisely at this point the chain of cause and effect ceases, and agency begins. The surrounding circumstances may be conditions, may be occasional causes, may be predisposing causes, but they are not, and cannot be, producing or efficient causes. Here, then, the iron chain terminates, and freedom commences. In the ambiguity which fails to distinguish between“the relation of cause and effect,”and the relation which volition bears to its antecedents,“consists the strength of the necessitarian system.”Let this distinction be clearly made and firmly borne in mind, and the great boasted adamantine scheme of necessity will resolve itself into an empty, ineffectual sound.Hence, if we would place the doctrine of liberty upon solid grounds, it becomes necessary to modify the categories of M. Cousin. All things, says he, fall under the one or the other of the two following relations: the relation between subject and attribute, or the relation between cause and effect. This last category, we think, should be subdivided, so as to give two relations; one between cause and effect, properly so called, and the other between agent and action. Until this be done, it will be impossible to extricate the phenomena of the will from the mechanism of cause and effect.We think we might here leave the stupendous sophism of the necessitarian; but as it has exerted so wonderful an influence over the human mind, and obscured, for ages, the glory of the moral government of God, we may well be permitted to pursue it further, and to continue the pursuit so long as a fragment or a shadow of it remains to be demolished.Section IV.The scheme of necessity is fortified by false conceptions.One of the notions to which the cause of necessity owes much of its strength, is a false conception of liberty, as consisting in“a power over the determinations of the will.”Hence it is said that this power over the will can do nothing, can cause no determination except by acting to produce it. But according[pg 155]to this notion of liberty, this causative act cannot be free unless it be also caused by a preceding act; and so onad infinitum. Such is one of the favourite arguments of the necessitarian. But in truth the freedom of the mind does not consist in its possessing a power over the determinations of its own will, for the true notion of freedom is a negative idea, and consists in the absence of every power over the determinations of the will. The mind is free because it possesses a power of acting, over which there is no controlling power, either within or without itself.It must be admitted, it seems to us, that the advocates of free-agency have too often sanctioned this false conception of liberty, and thereby strengthened the cause of their opponents. Cudworth, Clark, Stuart, Coleridge, and Reid, all speak of this supposed power of the mind over the determinations of the will, as that which constitutes its freedom. Thus says Reid, for example:“By the liberty of a moral agent, I understand a power over the determinations of his own will.”Now, it is not at all strange that this language should be conceived by necessitarians in such a manner as to involve the doctrine of liberty in the absurd consequence of an infinite series of acts, since it is so understood by some of the most enlightened advocates of free-agency themselves.“A power over the determinations of our will,”says Sir William Hamilton,“supposes an act of the will that our will should determine so and so; for we can only exert power through a rational determination or volition.This definition of liberty is right.But the question upon question remains, (and thisad infinitum)—have we a power (a will) over such anterior will? and until this question be definitively answered, which it never can, we must beunable to conceive the possibility of the fact of liberty. But, though inconceivable, this fact is not therefore false.”True, we are unable to conceive the possibility of the fact of liberty, if this must be conceived as consisting in a power over the determinations of the will; but, in our humble opinion, this definition of liberty is not right. It seems more correct to say, that the freedom of the will consists in the absence of a power over its determinations, than in the presence of such a power.There is another false conception which has given great apparent force to the cause of necessity. It is supposed that[pg 156]the states of the will, the volitions, are often necessitated by the necessitated states of the sensibility. In other words, it is supposed that the appetites, passions, and desires, often act upon the will, and produce its volitions. But this seems to be a very great mistake, which has arisen from viewing the subtle operations of the mind through the medium of those mechanical forms of thought that have been derived from the contemplation of the phenomena of the material world. In truth, the feelings do not act at all, and consequently they cannot act upon the will. It is absurd, as Locke and Edwards well say, to ascribe power, which belongs to the agent himself, to the properties of an agent. Hence, it is absurd to suppose that our feelings, appetites, desires, and passions, are endowed with power, and can act. They are not agents—they are merely the properties of an agent. It is the mind itself which acts, and not its passions. These are but passive impressions made upon the sensibility; and hence,“it is to philosophize very crudely concerning mind, and to image everything in a corporeal manner,”to conceive that they act upon the will and control its determinations, just as the motions of body are caused and controlled by the action of mind.127This conception, however, is not peculiar to the necessitarian. It has been most unfortunately sanctioned by the greatest advocates of free-agency. Thus says Dr. Reid, in relation to the appetites and passions:“Such motives are not addressed to the rational powers. Their influence isimmediatelyupon the will.”“When a man is acted upon by contrary motives of this kind, he finds it easy to yield to the strongest.They are like two forces pushing him in contrary directions. To yield to the strongest he needs only be passive.”If this be so, how can Dr. Reid maintain, as he does, that“the determination was made by theman, and not by the motive?”To this assertion Sir William Hamilton replies:“But was themandetermined by no motive to that determination? Was his specific volition to this or to that without a cause? On the supposition that the sum of the influences (motives, dispositions, tendencies) to volition A is equal to 12, and the sum of counter volition B, equal to 8—can we conceive that the determination of volition A should not be necessary? We can only conceive the volition[pg 157]B to be determined by supposing that the mancreates(calls from nonexistence into existence) a certain supplement of influences. But this creation as actual, or in itself, is inconceivable; and even to conceive the possibility of this inconceivable act, we must suppose some cause by which the man is determined to exert it. We thusin thought, never escape determination and necessity. It will be observed that I do not consider this inability to notion any disproof of the fact of free-will.”It is true, that if we suppose, according to the doctrine of Sir William and Dr. Reid, that two counter influences act upon the will, the one being as 12 and the other as 8, then the first must necessarily prevail. But if this supposition be correct, we are not only unable to conceive the fact of liberty, we are also able to conceive that it cannot be a fact at all. There is a great difference, we have been accustomed to believe, between being unable to conceive how a thing is, and being able to conceive that it cannot be anyhow at all: the first would leave it a mere mystery,—the last would show it to be an absurdity. In the one case, the thing would be above reason, and in the other, contrary to reason. Now, to which of these categories does the fact of liberty, as left by Sir William Hamilton, belong? Is it a mystery, or is it an absurdity? Is it an inconceivable fact, or is it a conceived impossibility? It seems to us that it is the latter; and that if we will only take the pains to view the phenomena of mind as they exist in consciousness, and not through the medium of material analogies, we shall be able to untie the knot which Sir William Hamilton has found it necessary to cut.The doctrine of liberty, if properly viewed, is perfectly conceivable. We can certainly conceive that the omnipotence of God can put forth an act without being impelled thereto by a power back of his own; and to suppose otherwise, is to suppose a power greater than God's, and upon which the exercise of his omnipotence depends. By parity of reason, we should be compelled to suppose another power still back of that, and so onad infinitum. This is not only absurd, but, as Calvin truly says, it is impious. Here, then, we have upon the throne of the universe a clear and unequivocal instance of a self-active power,—a power whose goings forth are not impelled by any[pg 158]power without itself. It goes forth, it is true, in the light of the Eternal Reason, and in pursuit of the ends of the Eternal Goodness; but yet in itself it possesses an infinite fulness, being self-sustained, self-active, and wholly independent of all other powers and influences whatsoever.Now, if such a Being should create at all, it is not difficult to conceive that he would create subordinate agents, bearing his own image in this, namely, the possession of a self-active power. It is not difficult to conceive that he should produce spiritual beings like himself, who can act without being necessitated to act, like the inanimate portions of creation, as well as those of an inferior nature. Nor is it more difficult to conceive that man, in point of fact, possesses such a limited self-active power, than it is to conceive that God possesses an infinite self-active power. Indeed we must and do conceive this, or else we should have no type or representative in this lower part of the world, by and through which to rise to a contemplation of its universal Lord and Sovereign. We should have a temple without a symbol, and a universe without a God. But God has not thus left himself without witness; for he has raised man above the dust of the earth in this, that he is endowed with a self-active power, from whence, as from an humble platform, he may rise to the sublime contemplation of the Universal Mover of the heavens and the earth. But for this ray of light, shed abroad in our hearts by the creative energy of God, the nature of the divine power itself would be unknown to us, and its eternal, immutable glories shrouded in impenetrable darkness. The idea of an omnipotent power, moving in and of itself in obedience to the dictates of infinite wisdom and goodness, would be forever merged and lost in the dark scheme of an implexed series and concatenation of causes, binding all things fast, God himself not excepted, in the iron bonds of fate.If liberty be afact, as Sir William Hamilton contends it is, then no such objections can be urged against it as those in which he supposes it to be involved. We are aware of what may be said in favour of such a mode of viewing subjects of this kind, as well as of the nature of the principles from which it takes its rise. But we cannot consider those principles altogether sound. They appear to be too sceptical, with respect[pg 159]to the powers of the human mind, and the destiny of human knowledge. The sentiment of Leibnitz seems to rest upon a more solid foundation.“It is necessary to come,”says he,“to the grand question which M. Bayle has recently brought upon the carpet, to wit, whether a truth, and especially a truth of faith, can be subject to unanswerable objections. That excellent author seems boldly to maintain the affirmative of this question: he cites grave theologians on his side, and even those of Rome, who appear to say what he pretends; and he adduces philosophers who have believedthat there are even philosophical truths, the defenders of which cannot reply to objections made against them.”“For my part,”says Leibnitz,“I avow that I cannot be of the sentiment of those who maintain that a truth can be liable to invincible objections; for what is anobjectionbut an argument of which the conclusion contradicts our thesis? and is not an invincible argument a demonstration?”“It is always necessary to yield to demonstrations, whether they are proposed for our adoption, or advanced in the form of objections. And it is unjust and useless to wish to weaken the proofs of adversaries, under the pretext that they are only objections; since the adversary has the same right, and can reverse the denominations, by honouring his arguments with the name ofproofs, and lowering yours by the disparaging name of objections.”128There is another false conception, by which the necessitarian fortifies himself in his opposition to the freedom of the will. As he identifies the sensibility and the will, so when the indifference of the latter is spoken of, the language is understood to mean that the mind is indifferent, and destitute of all feeling or emotion. But this is to view the doctrine of liberty, not as it is held by its advocates, but as it is seen through the medium of a false psychology. We might adduce a hundred examples of the truth of this remark, but one or two must suffice. Thus, Collins supposes that the doctrine of liberty implies, that the mind is“indifferent to good and evil;”“indifferent to what causespleasureorpain;”“indifferent to all objects, and swayed by no motives.”Gross as this misrepresentation of the doctrine of free-agency is, it is frequently made by its opponents. It occurs repeatedly in the writings of President Edwards and President[pg 160]Day.129The freedom of thewill, indeed, no more implies an indifference of thesensibilitythan the power of a bird to fly implies the existence of a vacuum.Section V.The scheme of necessity is recommended by false analogies.It is insisted that there is no difficulty in conceiving of a caused action or volition; but this position is illustrated by false and deceptive analogies. Thus says an advocate of necessity:“The term passive is sometimes employed to express the relation of an effect to its cause. In this sense, it is so far from being inconsistent with activity, that activity may be the very effect which is produced. A cannonshot is said to be passive, with respect to the charge of powder which impels it. But is there no activity given to the ball? Is not the whirlwind active when it tears up the forest?”130Not at all, in any sense pertaining to the present controversy. The tremendous power, whatever it may be, which sets the whirlwind in motion, is active; the wind itself is perfectly passive. The air is acted on, and it merelysuffersa change of place. If it tears up the forest, this is not because it exercises an active power, but because it is body coming into contact with body, and both cannot occupy the same space at one and the same time. It tears up the forest, not as an agent, but as an instrument.The same is true of the cannonball. This does notact; it merelymoves. It does not put forth a volition, or an exercise of power; it merely suffers a change of place. In one word, there is no sort of resemblance between an act of mind and the motion of body. This has no active power, and cannot be made to act: it is passive, however, and may be made to move. If the question were, Can a body be made to move? these illustrations would be in point; but as it relates to the possibility of causing the mind to put forth a volition, they are clearly irrelevant. And if they were really apposite, they would only show that the mind may be caused to act like a cannonball, a whirlwind, a clock, or any other piece of machinery. This is the only kind ofactionthey serve to prove may be caused; and[pg 161]such action, as it is called, has far more to do with machinery than with human agency.President Edwards also has recourse to false analogies. To select only one instance:“It is no more a contradiction,”says he,“to suppose that action may be the effect of some other cause besides the agent, or being that acts, than to suppose that life may be the effect of some other cause besides the being that lives.”131Now, as we are wholly passive in the reception of life, so it may be wholly conferred upon us by the power and agency of God. The very reason why we suppose an act cannot be caused is, that it is a voluntary exercise of our own minds; whereas, if it were caused, it would be a necessitated passive impression. How can it show the fallacy of this position, to refer to the case of a caused life, in regard to which, by universal consent, we do not and cannot act at all?The younger Edwards asserts, that“to say that an agent that is acted upon cannot act, is as groundless as to say that a body acted upon cannot move.”Again:“My actions aremine; but in what sense can they be properly called mine, if I be not the efficient cause of them?—Answer: my thoughts and all my perceptions and feelings aremine; yet it will not be pretended that I am the efficient cause of them.”132But in regard to all our thoughts and feelings, we are, as we have seen, altogether passive; and these are ours, because they are necessarily producedin us. Is it only in this sense that our acts are ours? Are they ours only because they are necessarily caused to exist in our minds? If so, then indeed we understand these writers; but if they are not merely passive impressions, why resort to states of the intelligence and the sensibility, which are conceded to be passive, in order to illustrate the reasonableness of their scheme, and to expose the unreasonableness of the opposite doctrine? We admit that every passive impression is caused; but the question is, Can the mind be caused to act? As we lay all the stress on thenature of an act, as seen in the light of consciousness, what does it signify to tell us that another thing, which possesses no such nature, may be efficiently caused? All such illustrations overlook the essential difference between action and passion, betweendoingandsuffering.[pg 162]Section VI.The scheme of necessity is rendered plausible by a false phraseology.The false psychology, of which we have spoken, has been greatly strengthened and confirmed in its influences by the phraseology connected with it. As Mr. Locke distinguished between will and desire, partially at least, so he likewise distinguished a preference of the mind from a volition. But President Edwards is not satisfied with this distinction.“The instance he mentions,”says Edwards,“does not prove there is anything else inwillingbut merely preferring.”133This may be very true; but is there nothing in willing, inacting, but merelypreferring? This last term, however it may be applied, seems better adapted to express a state of the intelligence, than an act of the will. Two objects are placed before the mind: one affects the sensibility in a more agreeable manner than the other, and therefore the intelligence pronounces that one is more to be desired than the other. This seems to be precisely what is meant by the use of the term preference. One prefers an orange to an apple, for instance, because the orange affects his sensibility more agreeably than the apple; and the intelligence perceiving this state of the sensibility, declares in favour of the orange. This decision of the judgment is what is usually meant by the use of the term preference, or choice. To prefer, is merely to judge, in view of desire, which of two objects is more agreeable. But judging and desiring are, as we have seen, both necessitated states of the mind. Why, then, apply the term preference, or choice, to acts of the will? Why apply a term, which seems to express merely a state of the intelligence, which all concede is necessitated, to an act of the will? Is it not evident, that by such a use of language the cause of necessity gains great apparent strength?There is another way in which the language of the necessitarian deceives. The language he employs often represents the facts of nature, but not facts as they would be, if his system were true. Hence, when this system is attacked, its advocates repel the attack by the use of words which truly represent nature, but not their errors. This gives great plausibility[pg 163]to their apologies. Thus, when it is objected that the scheme of necessity“makes men no more than mere machines,”they are always ready to reply,“that notwithstanding this doctrine, man is entirely, perfectly, and unspeakably different from a machine.”But how? Is it because his volitions, as they are called, are not necessarily determined by causes? No. Is it because his will may be loose from the influence of motives? No. Is it because he may follow the strongest motive, or may not follow it? No. Nothing of the kind is hinted. How does the man, then, differ so entirely from a machine? Why,“in that he has reason and understanding, with a faculty of will, and so is capable of volition and choice.”True, a machine has no reason or understanding; but suppose it had, would it be a person? By no means. We have seen that the understanding, or the intelligence, is necessarily determined; all its states are necessitated as completely as the movements of a machine. This constitutes an essential likeness, and it is what is always meant, when it is said that necessity makes men mere machines. But it seems that man also has“a faculty of will, and so is capable of volition or choice.”134Yes, he canact. Now this language means something according to the system of nature; but what does it mean according to the system of necessity? It merely means that the human mind is susceptible of being necessitated to undergo a change by the“power and action of a cause,”which the advocates of that system are pleased to call an act. They never hint that we are not machines, because we have any power by which we are exempt from the most absolute dominion of causes. They never hint that we are not machines, because our volitions, or acts, are not as necessarily produced in us, as the motions of a clock are produced in it. Now, if this scheme were true, there would be no such things as acts or volitions in us: all the phenomena of our minds would be passive impressions, like our judgments and feelings. When they speak of the will, then, which is capable of volitions, or acts, they deceive by using the language of nature, and not of their false scheme.[pg 164]Section VII.The scheme of necessity originates in a false method, and terminates in a false religion.This system, as we have seen, has been built up, not by an analysis of the phenomena of the human mind, but by means of universal abstractions and truisms. It takes its rise, not from the facts of nature, but from the conceptions of the intellect. In other words, instead of anatomizing the world which God has made so as to exhibit the actual plan according to which it has been constituted, it sets out from certain identical propositions, such as that every effect must have a cause, and proceeds to inform us how the worldmusthave been constituted. This“usual method of discovery and proof,”as Bacon says,“by first establishing the most general propositions, then applying and proving the intermediate axioms according to these, is the parent of error and the calamity of every science.”Nowhere, it is believed, can a more striking illustration of the truth of these pregnant words be found, than in the method adopted by necessitarians. They begin with the universal proposition, that every effect must have a cause, as a self-evident truth, and then proceed, not to examine and discover how the world is made, but to demonstrate how itmusthave been constructed. This is not to“interpret,”it is to“anticipate”nature.By this higha priorimethod the freedom of the human mind is demonstrated, as we have seen, to be an impossibility, and the accountability of man a dream. Man is not responsible for sin, or rather, there is no such thing as moral good and evil in the lower world; since God, the only efficient fountain of all things and events, is the sole responsible author of all evil as well as of all good. Such, as we have seen, are the inevitable logical consequences of this boasted scheme of necessity.But we have clearly shown, we trust, that the grand demonstration of the necessitarian is a sophism, whose apparent force is owing to a variety of causes:—First, it seeks out, and lays its foundation in, a false psychology; identifying the feelings, or affections, and the will. Secondly, by viewing the opposite scheme through the medium of this false psychology, it reduces[pg 165]its main position to the pitiful absurdity that a thing may produce itself, or arise out of nothing, and bring itself into existence; and then demolishes this absurdity by logic! Thirdly, it reduces itself to the truism, that a thing is always as it is; and being entrenched in this stronghold, it gathers around itself all the common sense and all the reason of mankind, as well it may, and looks down with sovereign contempt on the feeble attacks of its adversaries. Fourthly, it fortifies itself by a multitude of false conceptions, arising from a hasty application of its universal truism, and not from a severe inspection and analysis of things. Fifthly, it decorates itself in false analogies, and thereby assumes the imposing appearance of truth. Sixthly, it clothes itself in deceptive and ambiguous phraseology, by which it speaks the language of truth to the ear, but not to the sense. And, seventhly, it takes its rise in a false method, and terminates in a false religion.These are some of the hidden mysteries of the scheme of necessity; which having been detected and exposed, we do not hesitate to pronounce it a grand imposition on the reason of mankind. As such, we set aside this stupendous sophism, whose dark shadow has so long rested on the beauty of the world, obscuring the intrinsic majesty and glory of the infinite goodness therein displayed. We put away and repudiate this vast assemblage of errors, which has so sadly perplexed our mental vision, and so frightfully distorted the real proportions of the world, as to lead philosophers, such as Kant and others, to pronounce a Theodicy impossible. We put them aside utterly, in order that we may proceed to vindicate the glory of God, as manifested in the constitution and government of the moral world.
Section III.The scheme of necessity is supported by false logic.One reason why the advocates of necessity deceive themselves, as well as others, is, that there is great want of precision and distinctness in their views and definitions. We are told by them that the will is always determined by the strongest motive; that this is invariably the cause of volition. But what is meant by the termcause? We have final causes, instrumental causes, occasional causes, predisposing causes, efficient causes, and many others. Now, in which of these senses is the word used, when we are informed that motive is the cause of volition? On this point we are not enlightened. Neither Leibnitz nor Edwards is sufficiently explicit. The proposition, as left by them, is vague and obscure.Leibnitz inclined to the use of the wordreason, because he carried on a controversy with Bayle and Hobbes, who were atheists; though he frequently speaks of a chain of causes which embrace human volitions.121While Edwards, who opposed the Arminians, generally employs the more rigid termcause; though he, too, frequently represents motive as“the ground and reason”of volition. The one softens his language, in places, as he contends[pg 150]with those who had rendered themselves obnoxious to the Christian world by an advocacy of the doctrine of necessity in connexion with atheistical sentiments. The other appears to prefer the stronger expression, as he puts forth his power against antagonists whose views of liberty were deemed subversive of the tenets of Calvinism. But the law of causality, as stated by Edwards, and the principle of the sufficient reason, as defined and employed by Leibnitz, are perfectly identical.When we are told that motive is the cause of volition, it is evident we cannot determine whether to deny or to assent to the proposition, unless we know in what sense the termcauseis used. We might discuss this perplexed question forever, by the use of such vague and indefinite propositions, without progressing a single step toward the end of the controversy. We must bring a more searching analysis to the subject, if we hope to accomplish anything. We must take the word cause orreason, in each of its significations, in order to discover in what particulars the contending parties agree, and in what particulars they disagree, in order to see how far each party is right, and how far it is wrong. This is the only course that promises the least prospect of a satisfactory result.If we mean by the cause of volition, that which wills or exerts the volition, there is no controversy; for in this sense the advocates of necessity admit that the mind is the cause of volition. Thus says Edwards:“The acts of my will are my own; i. e., they are acts of my will.”122It is universally conceded that it is the mind which wills, and nothing else in the place of it; and hence, in this sense of the word, there is no question but that the mind is the cause of volition. But the advocates of necessity cannot be understood in this sense; for they deny that the mind is the cause of volition, and insist that it is caused by motive.The termcauseis very often used to designate the condition of a thing, or that without which it could not happen or come to pass. Thus we are told by Edwards, that he sometimes uses“the word cause to signify anyantecedent”of an event,“whether it has any influence or not,”in the production of such event.123If this be the meaning, when it is said that motive is the cause of volition, the truth of the proposition is conceded by the advocates of free-agency. In speaking of arguments and[pg 151]motives, Dr. Samuel Clarke says:“Occasions indeed there may be, and are, upon which that substance in man, wherever the self-moving principle resides, freely exerts its active power.”124Herein, then, there is a perfect agreement between the contending parties. The fact that the mind requires certain conditions or occasions, on which to exercise its active power, does not at all interfere with its freedom; and hence the advocates of free-agency have readily admitted that motives are the occasional causes of volition. We must look out for some other meaning of the term, then, if we would clearly and distinctly fix our minds on the point in controversy.We say that an antecedent is the cause of its consequent, when the latter is produced by the action of the former. For example, a motion of the body is said to be caused by the mind; because it is produced by an act of the mind. This seems to be what is meant by an“efficient cause.”It is, no doubt, the most proper sense of the word; and around this it is that the controversy still rages, and has for centuries raged.The advocates of necessity contend, not only that volition is the effect of motive, but also that“to be an effect impliespassiveness, or the being subject to the power and action of its cause.”125Such precisely is the doctrine of Edwards, and Collins, and Hobbes. In this sense of the word it is denied that motive is the cause of volition, and it is affirmed that mind is the cause thereof. Thus, says Dr. Samuel Clarke, in his reply to Collins,“'Tis the self-moving principle, and not at all the reason or motive, which is thephysicalorefficientcause of action;”by which we understand him to mean volition, as that is the thing in dispute. Now, when the advocates of free-agency insist that motive is not the efficient cause of volition, and that mind is the efficient cause thereof, we suppose them to employ the expression,efficient cause, in one and the same sense in both branches of the proposition. This is the only fair way of viewing their language; and if they wished to be understood in any other manner, they should have taken the pains to explain themselves, and not permit us to be misled by an ambiguity. Here the precise point in dispute is clearly presented; and let us hear the contending parties, before we proceed to decide between them.[pg 152]You are in error, says the necessitarian to his opponents, in denying that motive, and in affirming that mind, is the efficient cause of volition. For if an act of the mind, or a volition, is caused by the mind, it must be produced by a preceding act of the mind, and this act must be produced by another preceding act of the mind, and so onad infinitum; which reduces the matter to a plain impossibility. Now, if the necessitarian has not been deceived by an unwarrantable ambiguity on the part of his adversary, he has clearly reduced his doctrine to the absurdity of an infinite series of acts: that is to say, if the advocate of free-agency does not depart from the ordinary meaning of words, when he affirms that mind is theefficient causeof volition; and if he does not use these terms“efficient cause,”in different senses in the same sentence, then we feel bound to say that he is fairly caught in the toils of his adversary. But we are not yet in condition to pass a final judgment between the parties.The necessitarian contends that“volition, or an act of the mind, is the effect of motive, and that it is subject to the power and action of its cause.”126The advocate of free-will replies, If we must suppose an action of motive on the mind to account for its act, we must likewise suppose another action to account for the action of motive; and so onad infinitum. Thus the necessitarian seems to be fairly caught in his own toils, and entrapped by his own definition and arguments.Our decision (for the correctness of which we appeal to the calm and impartial judgment of the reader) is as follows: If the termcausebe understood in the first or the second sense above mentioned, there is no disagreement between the contending parties; and if it be understood in the third sense, then both parties are in error. If, in order to account for an act of the mind, we suppose it is caused by an action of motive, we are involved in the absurdity of an infinite series of actions; and on the other hand, if we suppose it is caused by a preceding act of the mind itself, we are forced into the same absurdity. Hence, we conclude, that an act of the mind, or a volition, is not produced by the action of either mind or motive, but takes its rise in the world without any such efficient cause of its existence.[pg 153]Each party has refuted his adversary, and in the enjoyment of his triumph he seems not to have duly reflected on the destruction of his own position. Both are in the right, and both are in the wrong; but, as we shall hereafter see, not equally so. If we adopt the argument of both sides, in so far as it is true, we shall come to the conclusion that action must take its rise somewhere in the universe without being caused by preceding action. And if so, where shall we look for its origin? in that which by nature is endowed with active power, or in that which is purely and altogether passive?We lay it down, then, as an established and fundamental position, that the mind acts or puts forth its volitions without being efficiently caused to do so—without being impelled by its own prior action, or by the prior action of anything else. The conditions or occasions of volition being supplied, the mind itself acts in view thereof, without being subject to the power or action of any cause whatever. All rational beings must, as we have seen, either admit this exemption of the mind in willing from the power and action of any cause, or else lose themselves in the labyrinth of an infinite series of causes. It is this exemption which constitutes the freedom of the human soul.We are now prepared to see, in a clear light, the sophistical nature of the pretended demonstration of the scheme of necessity.“It is impossible to consider occurrences,”says Sir James Mackintosh, otherwise than as bound together in“the relation of cause and effect.”Now this relation, if we interpret it according to the nature of things, and not according to the sound of words, is not one, but two.The motions of the body are caused by the mind, that is, they are produced by the action of the mind; this constitutes one relation: but acts of the mind are caused, that is, they are produced by the action of nothing; and this is a quite different relation. In other words, the motions of body are produced by preceding action, and the acts of the mind are not produced by preceding action. Hence, the first are necessitated, and the last are free: the first come under“the relation of cause and effect,”and the last come under a very different relation. The relation of cause and effect connects the most remote consequences of volition with volition itself; but when we reach volition[pg 154]there a new relation arises: it is the relation which subsists between an agent and its act. We may trace changes in the external world up to the volitions or acts of mind, and perceive no diversity in the chain of dependencies; but precisely at this point the chain of cause and effect ceases, and agency begins. The surrounding circumstances may be conditions, may be occasional causes, may be predisposing causes, but they are not, and cannot be, producing or efficient causes. Here, then, the iron chain terminates, and freedom commences. In the ambiguity which fails to distinguish between“the relation of cause and effect,”and the relation which volition bears to its antecedents,“consists the strength of the necessitarian system.”Let this distinction be clearly made and firmly borne in mind, and the great boasted adamantine scheme of necessity will resolve itself into an empty, ineffectual sound.Hence, if we would place the doctrine of liberty upon solid grounds, it becomes necessary to modify the categories of M. Cousin. All things, says he, fall under the one or the other of the two following relations: the relation between subject and attribute, or the relation between cause and effect. This last category, we think, should be subdivided, so as to give two relations; one between cause and effect, properly so called, and the other between agent and action. Until this be done, it will be impossible to extricate the phenomena of the will from the mechanism of cause and effect.We think we might here leave the stupendous sophism of the necessitarian; but as it has exerted so wonderful an influence over the human mind, and obscured, for ages, the glory of the moral government of God, we may well be permitted to pursue it further, and to continue the pursuit so long as a fragment or a shadow of it remains to be demolished.Section IV.The scheme of necessity is fortified by false conceptions.One of the notions to which the cause of necessity owes much of its strength, is a false conception of liberty, as consisting in“a power over the determinations of the will.”Hence it is said that this power over the will can do nothing, can cause no determination except by acting to produce it. But according[pg 155]to this notion of liberty, this causative act cannot be free unless it be also caused by a preceding act; and so onad infinitum. Such is one of the favourite arguments of the necessitarian. But in truth the freedom of the mind does not consist in its possessing a power over the determinations of its own will, for the true notion of freedom is a negative idea, and consists in the absence of every power over the determinations of the will. The mind is free because it possesses a power of acting, over which there is no controlling power, either within or without itself.It must be admitted, it seems to us, that the advocates of free-agency have too often sanctioned this false conception of liberty, and thereby strengthened the cause of their opponents. Cudworth, Clark, Stuart, Coleridge, and Reid, all speak of this supposed power of the mind over the determinations of the will, as that which constitutes its freedom. Thus says Reid, for example:“By the liberty of a moral agent, I understand a power over the determinations of his own will.”Now, it is not at all strange that this language should be conceived by necessitarians in such a manner as to involve the doctrine of liberty in the absurd consequence of an infinite series of acts, since it is so understood by some of the most enlightened advocates of free-agency themselves.“A power over the determinations of our will,”says Sir William Hamilton,“supposes an act of the will that our will should determine so and so; for we can only exert power through a rational determination or volition.This definition of liberty is right.But the question upon question remains, (and thisad infinitum)—have we a power (a will) over such anterior will? and until this question be definitively answered, which it never can, we must beunable to conceive the possibility of the fact of liberty. But, though inconceivable, this fact is not therefore false.”True, we are unable to conceive the possibility of the fact of liberty, if this must be conceived as consisting in a power over the determinations of the will; but, in our humble opinion, this definition of liberty is not right. It seems more correct to say, that the freedom of the will consists in the absence of a power over its determinations, than in the presence of such a power.There is another false conception which has given great apparent force to the cause of necessity. It is supposed that[pg 156]the states of the will, the volitions, are often necessitated by the necessitated states of the sensibility. In other words, it is supposed that the appetites, passions, and desires, often act upon the will, and produce its volitions. But this seems to be a very great mistake, which has arisen from viewing the subtle operations of the mind through the medium of those mechanical forms of thought that have been derived from the contemplation of the phenomena of the material world. In truth, the feelings do not act at all, and consequently they cannot act upon the will. It is absurd, as Locke and Edwards well say, to ascribe power, which belongs to the agent himself, to the properties of an agent. Hence, it is absurd to suppose that our feelings, appetites, desires, and passions, are endowed with power, and can act. They are not agents—they are merely the properties of an agent. It is the mind itself which acts, and not its passions. These are but passive impressions made upon the sensibility; and hence,“it is to philosophize very crudely concerning mind, and to image everything in a corporeal manner,”to conceive that they act upon the will and control its determinations, just as the motions of body are caused and controlled by the action of mind.127This conception, however, is not peculiar to the necessitarian. It has been most unfortunately sanctioned by the greatest advocates of free-agency. Thus says Dr. Reid, in relation to the appetites and passions:“Such motives are not addressed to the rational powers. Their influence isimmediatelyupon the will.”“When a man is acted upon by contrary motives of this kind, he finds it easy to yield to the strongest.They are like two forces pushing him in contrary directions. To yield to the strongest he needs only be passive.”If this be so, how can Dr. Reid maintain, as he does, that“the determination was made by theman, and not by the motive?”To this assertion Sir William Hamilton replies:“But was themandetermined by no motive to that determination? Was his specific volition to this or to that without a cause? On the supposition that the sum of the influences (motives, dispositions, tendencies) to volition A is equal to 12, and the sum of counter volition B, equal to 8—can we conceive that the determination of volition A should not be necessary? We can only conceive the volition[pg 157]B to be determined by supposing that the mancreates(calls from nonexistence into existence) a certain supplement of influences. But this creation as actual, or in itself, is inconceivable; and even to conceive the possibility of this inconceivable act, we must suppose some cause by which the man is determined to exert it. We thusin thought, never escape determination and necessity. It will be observed that I do not consider this inability to notion any disproof of the fact of free-will.”It is true, that if we suppose, according to the doctrine of Sir William and Dr. Reid, that two counter influences act upon the will, the one being as 12 and the other as 8, then the first must necessarily prevail. But if this supposition be correct, we are not only unable to conceive the fact of liberty, we are also able to conceive that it cannot be a fact at all. There is a great difference, we have been accustomed to believe, between being unable to conceive how a thing is, and being able to conceive that it cannot be anyhow at all: the first would leave it a mere mystery,—the last would show it to be an absurdity. In the one case, the thing would be above reason, and in the other, contrary to reason. Now, to which of these categories does the fact of liberty, as left by Sir William Hamilton, belong? Is it a mystery, or is it an absurdity? Is it an inconceivable fact, or is it a conceived impossibility? It seems to us that it is the latter; and that if we will only take the pains to view the phenomena of mind as they exist in consciousness, and not through the medium of material analogies, we shall be able to untie the knot which Sir William Hamilton has found it necessary to cut.The doctrine of liberty, if properly viewed, is perfectly conceivable. We can certainly conceive that the omnipotence of God can put forth an act without being impelled thereto by a power back of his own; and to suppose otherwise, is to suppose a power greater than God's, and upon which the exercise of his omnipotence depends. By parity of reason, we should be compelled to suppose another power still back of that, and so onad infinitum. This is not only absurd, but, as Calvin truly says, it is impious. Here, then, we have upon the throne of the universe a clear and unequivocal instance of a self-active power,—a power whose goings forth are not impelled by any[pg 158]power without itself. It goes forth, it is true, in the light of the Eternal Reason, and in pursuit of the ends of the Eternal Goodness; but yet in itself it possesses an infinite fulness, being self-sustained, self-active, and wholly independent of all other powers and influences whatsoever.Now, if such a Being should create at all, it is not difficult to conceive that he would create subordinate agents, bearing his own image in this, namely, the possession of a self-active power. It is not difficult to conceive that he should produce spiritual beings like himself, who can act without being necessitated to act, like the inanimate portions of creation, as well as those of an inferior nature. Nor is it more difficult to conceive that man, in point of fact, possesses such a limited self-active power, than it is to conceive that God possesses an infinite self-active power. Indeed we must and do conceive this, or else we should have no type or representative in this lower part of the world, by and through which to rise to a contemplation of its universal Lord and Sovereign. We should have a temple without a symbol, and a universe without a God. But God has not thus left himself without witness; for he has raised man above the dust of the earth in this, that he is endowed with a self-active power, from whence, as from an humble platform, he may rise to the sublime contemplation of the Universal Mover of the heavens and the earth. But for this ray of light, shed abroad in our hearts by the creative energy of God, the nature of the divine power itself would be unknown to us, and its eternal, immutable glories shrouded in impenetrable darkness. The idea of an omnipotent power, moving in and of itself in obedience to the dictates of infinite wisdom and goodness, would be forever merged and lost in the dark scheme of an implexed series and concatenation of causes, binding all things fast, God himself not excepted, in the iron bonds of fate.If liberty be afact, as Sir William Hamilton contends it is, then no such objections can be urged against it as those in which he supposes it to be involved. We are aware of what may be said in favour of such a mode of viewing subjects of this kind, as well as of the nature of the principles from which it takes its rise. But we cannot consider those principles altogether sound. They appear to be too sceptical, with respect[pg 159]to the powers of the human mind, and the destiny of human knowledge. The sentiment of Leibnitz seems to rest upon a more solid foundation.“It is necessary to come,”says he,“to the grand question which M. Bayle has recently brought upon the carpet, to wit, whether a truth, and especially a truth of faith, can be subject to unanswerable objections. That excellent author seems boldly to maintain the affirmative of this question: he cites grave theologians on his side, and even those of Rome, who appear to say what he pretends; and he adduces philosophers who have believedthat there are even philosophical truths, the defenders of which cannot reply to objections made against them.”“For my part,”says Leibnitz,“I avow that I cannot be of the sentiment of those who maintain that a truth can be liable to invincible objections; for what is anobjectionbut an argument of which the conclusion contradicts our thesis? and is not an invincible argument a demonstration?”“It is always necessary to yield to demonstrations, whether they are proposed for our adoption, or advanced in the form of objections. And it is unjust and useless to wish to weaken the proofs of adversaries, under the pretext that they are only objections; since the adversary has the same right, and can reverse the denominations, by honouring his arguments with the name ofproofs, and lowering yours by the disparaging name of objections.”128There is another false conception, by which the necessitarian fortifies himself in his opposition to the freedom of the will. As he identifies the sensibility and the will, so when the indifference of the latter is spoken of, the language is understood to mean that the mind is indifferent, and destitute of all feeling or emotion. But this is to view the doctrine of liberty, not as it is held by its advocates, but as it is seen through the medium of a false psychology. We might adduce a hundred examples of the truth of this remark, but one or two must suffice. Thus, Collins supposes that the doctrine of liberty implies, that the mind is“indifferent to good and evil;”“indifferent to what causespleasureorpain;”“indifferent to all objects, and swayed by no motives.”Gross as this misrepresentation of the doctrine of free-agency is, it is frequently made by its opponents. It occurs repeatedly in the writings of President Edwards and President[pg 160]Day.129The freedom of thewill, indeed, no more implies an indifference of thesensibilitythan the power of a bird to fly implies the existence of a vacuum.Section V.The scheme of necessity is recommended by false analogies.It is insisted that there is no difficulty in conceiving of a caused action or volition; but this position is illustrated by false and deceptive analogies. Thus says an advocate of necessity:“The term passive is sometimes employed to express the relation of an effect to its cause. In this sense, it is so far from being inconsistent with activity, that activity may be the very effect which is produced. A cannonshot is said to be passive, with respect to the charge of powder which impels it. But is there no activity given to the ball? Is not the whirlwind active when it tears up the forest?”130Not at all, in any sense pertaining to the present controversy. The tremendous power, whatever it may be, which sets the whirlwind in motion, is active; the wind itself is perfectly passive. The air is acted on, and it merelysuffersa change of place. If it tears up the forest, this is not because it exercises an active power, but because it is body coming into contact with body, and both cannot occupy the same space at one and the same time. It tears up the forest, not as an agent, but as an instrument.The same is true of the cannonball. This does notact; it merelymoves. It does not put forth a volition, or an exercise of power; it merely suffers a change of place. In one word, there is no sort of resemblance between an act of mind and the motion of body. This has no active power, and cannot be made to act: it is passive, however, and may be made to move. If the question were, Can a body be made to move? these illustrations would be in point; but as it relates to the possibility of causing the mind to put forth a volition, they are clearly irrelevant. And if they were really apposite, they would only show that the mind may be caused to act like a cannonball, a whirlwind, a clock, or any other piece of machinery. This is the only kind ofactionthey serve to prove may be caused; and[pg 161]such action, as it is called, has far more to do with machinery than with human agency.President Edwards also has recourse to false analogies. To select only one instance:“It is no more a contradiction,”says he,“to suppose that action may be the effect of some other cause besides the agent, or being that acts, than to suppose that life may be the effect of some other cause besides the being that lives.”131Now, as we are wholly passive in the reception of life, so it may be wholly conferred upon us by the power and agency of God. The very reason why we suppose an act cannot be caused is, that it is a voluntary exercise of our own minds; whereas, if it were caused, it would be a necessitated passive impression. How can it show the fallacy of this position, to refer to the case of a caused life, in regard to which, by universal consent, we do not and cannot act at all?The younger Edwards asserts, that“to say that an agent that is acted upon cannot act, is as groundless as to say that a body acted upon cannot move.”Again:“My actions aremine; but in what sense can they be properly called mine, if I be not the efficient cause of them?—Answer: my thoughts and all my perceptions and feelings aremine; yet it will not be pretended that I am the efficient cause of them.”132But in regard to all our thoughts and feelings, we are, as we have seen, altogether passive; and these are ours, because they are necessarily producedin us. Is it only in this sense that our acts are ours? Are they ours only because they are necessarily caused to exist in our minds? If so, then indeed we understand these writers; but if they are not merely passive impressions, why resort to states of the intelligence and the sensibility, which are conceded to be passive, in order to illustrate the reasonableness of their scheme, and to expose the unreasonableness of the opposite doctrine? We admit that every passive impression is caused; but the question is, Can the mind be caused to act? As we lay all the stress on thenature of an act, as seen in the light of consciousness, what does it signify to tell us that another thing, which possesses no such nature, may be efficiently caused? All such illustrations overlook the essential difference between action and passion, betweendoingandsuffering.[pg 162]Section VI.The scheme of necessity is rendered plausible by a false phraseology.The false psychology, of which we have spoken, has been greatly strengthened and confirmed in its influences by the phraseology connected with it. As Mr. Locke distinguished between will and desire, partially at least, so he likewise distinguished a preference of the mind from a volition. But President Edwards is not satisfied with this distinction.“The instance he mentions,”says Edwards,“does not prove there is anything else inwillingbut merely preferring.”133This may be very true; but is there nothing in willing, inacting, but merelypreferring? This last term, however it may be applied, seems better adapted to express a state of the intelligence, than an act of the will. Two objects are placed before the mind: one affects the sensibility in a more agreeable manner than the other, and therefore the intelligence pronounces that one is more to be desired than the other. This seems to be precisely what is meant by the use of the term preference. One prefers an orange to an apple, for instance, because the orange affects his sensibility more agreeably than the apple; and the intelligence perceiving this state of the sensibility, declares in favour of the orange. This decision of the judgment is what is usually meant by the use of the term preference, or choice. To prefer, is merely to judge, in view of desire, which of two objects is more agreeable. But judging and desiring are, as we have seen, both necessitated states of the mind. Why, then, apply the term preference, or choice, to acts of the will? Why apply a term, which seems to express merely a state of the intelligence, which all concede is necessitated, to an act of the will? Is it not evident, that by such a use of language the cause of necessity gains great apparent strength?There is another way in which the language of the necessitarian deceives. The language he employs often represents the facts of nature, but not facts as they would be, if his system were true. Hence, when this system is attacked, its advocates repel the attack by the use of words which truly represent nature, but not their errors. This gives great plausibility[pg 163]to their apologies. Thus, when it is objected that the scheme of necessity“makes men no more than mere machines,”they are always ready to reply,“that notwithstanding this doctrine, man is entirely, perfectly, and unspeakably different from a machine.”But how? Is it because his volitions, as they are called, are not necessarily determined by causes? No. Is it because his will may be loose from the influence of motives? No. Is it because he may follow the strongest motive, or may not follow it? No. Nothing of the kind is hinted. How does the man, then, differ so entirely from a machine? Why,“in that he has reason and understanding, with a faculty of will, and so is capable of volition and choice.”True, a machine has no reason or understanding; but suppose it had, would it be a person? By no means. We have seen that the understanding, or the intelligence, is necessarily determined; all its states are necessitated as completely as the movements of a machine. This constitutes an essential likeness, and it is what is always meant, when it is said that necessity makes men mere machines. But it seems that man also has“a faculty of will, and so is capable of volition or choice.”134Yes, he canact. Now this language means something according to the system of nature; but what does it mean according to the system of necessity? It merely means that the human mind is susceptible of being necessitated to undergo a change by the“power and action of a cause,”which the advocates of that system are pleased to call an act. They never hint that we are not machines, because we have any power by which we are exempt from the most absolute dominion of causes. They never hint that we are not machines, because our volitions, or acts, are not as necessarily produced in us, as the motions of a clock are produced in it. Now, if this scheme were true, there would be no such things as acts or volitions in us: all the phenomena of our minds would be passive impressions, like our judgments and feelings. When they speak of the will, then, which is capable of volitions, or acts, they deceive by using the language of nature, and not of their false scheme.[pg 164]Section VII.The scheme of necessity originates in a false method, and terminates in a false religion.This system, as we have seen, has been built up, not by an analysis of the phenomena of the human mind, but by means of universal abstractions and truisms. It takes its rise, not from the facts of nature, but from the conceptions of the intellect. In other words, instead of anatomizing the world which God has made so as to exhibit the actual plan according to which it has been constituted, it sets out from certain identical propositions, such as that every effect must have a cause, and proceeds to inform us how the worldmusthave been constituted. This“usual method of discovery and proof,”as Bacon says,“by first establishing the most general propositions, then applying and proving the intermediate axioms according to these, is the parent of error and the calamity of every science.”Nowhere, it is believed, can a more striking illustration of the truth of these pregnant words be found, than in the method adopted by necessitarians. They begin with the universal proposition, that every effect must have a cause, as a self-evident truth, and then proceed, not to examine and discover how the world is made, but to demonstrate how itmusthave been constructed. This is not to“interpret,”it is to“anticipate”nature.By this higha priorimethod the freedom of the human mind is demonstrated, as we have seen, to be an impossibility, and the accountability of man a dream. Man is not responsible for sin, or rather, there is no such thing as moral good and evil in the lower world; since God, the only efficient fountain of all things and events, is the sole responsible author of all evil as well as of all good. Such, as we have seen, are the inevitable logical consequences of this boasted scheme of necessity.But we have clearly shown, we trust, that the grand demonstration of the necessitarian is a sophism, whose apparent force is owing to a variety of causes:—First, it seeks out, and lays its foundation in, a false psychology; identifying the feelings, or affections, and the will. Secondly, by viewing the opposite scheme through the medium of this false psychology, it reduces[pg 165]its main position to the pitiful absurdity that a thing may produce itself, or arise out of nothing, and bring itself into existence; and then demolishes this absurdity by logic! Thirdly, it reduces itself to the truism, that a thing is always as it is; and being entrenched in this stronghold, it gathers around itself all the common sense and all the reason of mankind, as well it may, and looks down with sovereign contempt on the feeble attacks of its adversaries. Fourthly, it fortifies itself by a multitude of false conceptions, arising from a hasty application of its universal truism, and not from a severe inspection and analysis of things. Fifthly, it decorates itself in false analogies, and thereby assumes the imposing appearance of truth. Sixthly, it clothes itself in deceptive and ambiguous phraseology, by which it speaks the language of truth to the ear, but not to the sense. And, seventhly, it takes its rise in a false method, and terminates in a false religion.These are some of the hidden mysteries of the scheme of necessity; which having been detected and exposed, we do not hesitate to pronounce it a grand imposition on the reason of mankind. As such, we set aside this stupendous sophism, whose dark shadow has so long rested on the beauty of the world, obscuring the intrinsic majesty and glory of the infinite goodness therein displayed. We put away and repudiate this vast assemblage of errors, which has so sadly perplexed our mental vision, and so frightfully distorted the real proportions of the world, as to lead philosophers, such as Kant and others, to pronounce a Theodicy impossible. We put them aside utterly, in order that we may proceed to vindicate the glory of God, as manifested in the constitution and government of the moral world.
Section III.The scheme of necessity is supported by false logic.One reason why the advocates of necessity deceive themselves, as well as others, is, that there is great want of precision and distinctness in their views and definitions. We are told by them that the will is always determined by the strongest motive; that this is invariably the cause of volition. But what is meant by the termcause? We have final causes, instrumental causes, occasional causes, predisposing causes, efficient causes, and many others. Now, in which of these senses is the word used, when we are informed that motive is the cause of volition? On this point we are not enlightened. Neither Leibnitz nor Edwards is sufficiently explicit. The proposition, as left by them, is vague and obscure.Leibnitz inclined to the use of the wordreason, because he carried on a controversy with Bayle and Hobbes, who were atheists; though he frequently speaks of a chain of causes which embrace human volitions.121While Edwards, who opposed the Arminians, generally employs the more rigid termcause; though he, too, frequently represents motive as“the ground and reason”of volition. The one softens his language, in places, as he contends[pg 150]with those who had rendered themselves obnoxious to the Christian world by an advocacy of the doctrine of necessity in connexion with atheistical sentiments. The other appears to prefer the stronger expression, as he puts forth his power against antagonists whose views of liberty were deemed subversive of the tenets of Calvinism. But the law of causality, as stated by Edwards, and the principle of the sufficient reason, as defined and employed by Leibnitz, are perfectly identical.When we are told that motive is the cause of volition, it is evident we cannot determine whether to deny or to assent to the proposition, unless we know in what sense the termcauseis used. We might discuss this perplexed question forever, by the use of such vague and indefinite propositions, without progressing a single step toward the end of the controversy. We must bring a more searching analysis to the subject, if we hope to accomplish anything. We must take the word cause orreason, in each of its significations, in order to discover in what particulars the contending parties agree, and in what particulars they disagree, in order to see how far each party is right, and how far it is wrong. This is the only course that promises the least prospect of a satisfactory result.If we mean by the cause of volition, that which wills or exerts the volition, there is no controversy; for in this sense the advocates of necessity admit that the mind is the cause of volition. Thus says Edwards:“The acts of my will are my own; i. e., they are acts of my will.”122It is universally conceded that it is the mind which wills, and nothing else in the place of it; and hence, in this sense of the word, there is no question but that the mind is the cause of volition. But the advocates of necessity cannot be understood in this sense; for they deny that the mind is the cause of volition, and insist that it is caused by motive.The termcauseis very often used to designate the condition of a thing, or that without which it could not happen or come to pass. Thus we are told by Edwards, that he sometimes uses“the word cause to signify anyantecedent”of an event,“whether it has any influence or not,”in the production of such event.123If this be the meaning, when it is said that motive is the cause of volition, the truth of the proposition is conceded by the advocates of free-agency. In speaking of arguments and[pg 151]motives, Dr. Samuel Clarke says:“Occasions indeed there may be, and are, upon which that substance in man, wherever the self-moving principle resides, freely exerts its active power.”124Herein, then, there is a perfect agreement between the contending parties. The fact that the mind requires certain conditions or occasions, on which to exercise its active power, does not at all interfere with its freedom; and hence the advocates of free-agency have readily admitted that motives are the occasional causes of volition. We must look out for some other meaning of the term, then, if we would clearly and distinctly fix our minds on the point in controversy.We say that an antecedent is the cause of its consequent, when the latter is produced by the action of the former. For example, a motion of the body is said to be caused by the mind; because it is produced by an act of the mind. This seems to be what is meant by an“efficient cause.”It is, no doubt, the most proper sense of the word; and around this it is that the controversy still rages, and has for centuries raged.The advocates of necessity contend, not only that volition is the effect of motive, but also that“to be an effect impliespassiveness, or the being subject to the power and action of its cause.”125Such precisely is the doctrine of Edwards, and Collins, and Hobbes. In this sense of the word it is denied that motive is the cause of volition, and it is affirmed that mind is the cause thereof. Thus, says Dr. Samuel Clarke, in his reply to Collins,“'Tis the self-moving principle, and not at all the reason or motive, which is thephysicalorefficientcause of action;”by which we understand him to mean volition, as that is the thing in dispute. Now, when the advocates of free-agency insist that motive is not the efficient cause of volition, and that mind is the efficient cause thereof, we suppose them to employ the expression,efficient cause, in one and the same sense in both branches of the proposition. This is the only fair way of viewing their language; and if they wished to be understood in any other manner, they should have taken the pains to explain themselves, and not permit us to be misled by an ambiguity. Here the precise point in dispute is clearly presented; and let us hear the contending parties, before we proceed to decide between them.[pg 152]You are in error, says the necessitarian to his opponents, in denying that motive, and in affirming that mind, is the efficient cause of volition. For if an act of the mind, or a volition, is caused by the mind, it must be produced by a preceding act of the mind, and this act must be produced by another preceding act of the mind, and so onad infinitum; which reduces the matter to a plain impossibility. Now, if the necessitarian has not been deceived by an unwarrantable ambiguity on the part of his adversary, he has clearly reduced his doctrine to the absurdity of an infinite series of acts: that is to say, if the advocate of free-agency does not depart from the ordinary meaning of words, when he affirms that mind is theefficient causeof volition; and if he does not use these terms“efficient cause,”in different senses in the same sentence, then we feel bound to say that he is fairly caught in the toils of his adversary. But we are not yet in condition to pass a final judgment between the parties.The necessitarian contends that“volition, or an act of the mind, is the effect of motive, and that it is subject to the power and action of its cause.”126The advocate of free-will replies, If we must suppose an action of motive on the mind to account for its act, we must likewise suppose another action to account for the action of motive; and so onad infinitum. Thus the necessitarian seems to be fairly caught in his own toils, and entrapped by his own definition and arguments.Our decision (for the correctness of which we appeal to the calm and impartial judgment of the reader) is as follows: If the termcausebe understood in the first or the second sense above mentioned, there is no disagreement between the contending parties; and if it be understood in the third sense, then both parties are in error. If, in order to account for an act of the mind, we suppose it is caused by an action of motive, we are involved in the absurdity of an infinite series of actions; and on the other hand, if we suppose it is caused by a preceding act of the mind itself, we are forced into the same absurdity. Hence, we conclude, that an act of the mind, or a volition, is not produced by the action of either mind or motive, but takes its rise in the world without any such efficient cause of its existence.[pg 153]Each party has refuted his adversary, and in the enjoyment of his triumph he seems not to have duly reflected on the destruction of his own position. Both are in the right, and both are in the wrong; but, as we shall hereafter see, not equally so. If we adopt the argument of both sides, in so far as it is true, we shall come to the conclusion that action must take its rise somewhere in the universe without being caused by preceding action. And if so, where shall we look for its origin? in that which by nature is endowed with active power, or in that which is purely and altogether passive?We lay it down, then, as an established and fundamental position, that the mind acts or puts forth its volitions without being efficiently caused to do so—without being impelled by its own prior action, or by the prior action of anything else. The conditions or occasions of volition being supplied, the mind itself acts in view thereof, without being subject to the power or action of any cause whatever. All rational beings must, as we have seen, either admit this exemption of the mind in willing from the power and action of any cause, or else lose themselves in the labyrinth of an infinite series of causes. It is this exemption which constitutes the freedom of the human soul.We are now prepared to see, in a clear light, the sophistical nature of the pretended demonstration of the scheme of necessity.“It is impossible to consider occurrences,”says Sir James Mackintosh, otherwise than as bound together in“the relation of cause and effect.”Now this relation, if we interpret it according to the nature of things, and not according to the sound of words, is not one, but two.The motions of the body are caused by the mind, that is, they are produced by the action of the mind; this constitutes one relation: but acts of the mind are caused, that is, they are produced by the action of nothing; and this is a quite different relation. In other words, the motions of body are produced by preceding action, and the acts of the mind are not produced by preceding action. Hence, the first are necessitated, and the last are free: the first come under“the relation of cause and effect,”and the last come under a very different relation. The relation of cause and effect connects the most remote consequences of volition with volition itself; but when we reach volition[pg 154]there a new relation arises: it is the relation which subsists between an agent and its act. We may trace changes in the external world up to the volitions or acts of mind, and perceive no diversity in the chain of dependencies; but precisely at this point the chain of cause and effect ceases, and agency begins. The surrounding circumstances may be conditions, may be occasional causes, may be predisposing causes, but they are not, and cannot be, producing or efficient causes. Here, then, the iron chain terminates, and freedom commences. In the ambiguity which fails to distinguish between“the relation of cause and effect,”and the relation which volition bears to its antecedents,“consists the strength of the necessitarian system.”Let this distinction be clearly made and firmly borne in mind, and the great boasted adamantine scheme of necessity will resolve itself into an empty, ineffectual sound.Hence, if we would place the doctrine of liberty upon solid grounds, it becomes necessary to modify the categories of M. Cousin. All things, says he, fall under the one or the other of the two following relations: the relation between subject and attribute, or the relation between cause and effect. This last category, we think, should be subdivided, so as to give two relations; one between cause and effect, properly so called, and the other between agent and action. Until this be done, it will be impossible to extricate the phenomena of the will from the mechanism of cause and effect.We think we might here leave the stupendous sophism of the necessitarian; but as it has exerted so wonderful an influence over the human mind, and obscured, for ages, the glory of the moral government of God, we may well be permitted to pursue it further, and to continue the pursuit so long as a fragment or a shadow of it remains to be demolished.Section IV.The scheme of necessity is fortified by false conceptions.One of the notions to which the cause of necessity owes much of its strength, is a false conception of liberty, as consisting in“a power over the determinations of the will.”Hence it is said that this power over the will can do nothing, can cause no determination except by acting to produce it. But according[pg 155]to this notion of liberty, this causative act cannot be free unless it be also caused by a preceding act; and so onad infinitum. Such is one of the favourite arguments of the necessitarian. But in truth the freedom of the mind does not consist in its possessing a power over the determinations of its own will, for the true notion of freedom is a negative idea, and consists in the absence of every power over the determinations of the will. The mind is free because it possesses a power of acting, over which there is no controlling power, either within or without itself.It must be admitted, it seems to us, that the advocates of free-agency have too often sanctioned this false conception of liberty, and thereby strengthened the cause of their opponents. Cudworth, Clark, Stuart, Coleridge, and Reid, all speak of this supposed power of the mind over the determinations of the will, as that which constitutes its freedom. Thus says Reid, for example:“By the liberty of a moral agent, I understand a power over the determinations of his own will.”Now, it is not at all strange that this language should be conceived by necessitarians in such a manner as to involve the doctrine of liberty in the absurd consequence of an infinite series of acts, since it is so understood by some of the most enlightened advocates of free-agency themselves.“A power over the determinations of our will,”says Sir William Hamilton,“supposes an act of the will that our will should determine so and so; for we can only exert power through a rational determination or volition.This definition of liberty is right.But the question upon question remains, (and thisad infinitum)—have we a power (a will) over such anterior will? and until this question be definitively answered, which it never can, we must beunable to conceive the possibility of the fact of liberty. But, though inconceivable, this fact is not therefore false.”True, we are unable to conceive the possibility of the fact of liberty, if this must be conceived as consisting in a power over the determinations of the will; but, in our humble opinion, this definition of liberty is not right. It seems more correct to say, that the freedom of the will consists in the absence of a power over its determinations, than in the presence of such a power.There is another false conception which has given great apparent force to the cause of necessity. It is supposed that[pg 156]the states of the will, the volitions, are often necessitated by the necessitated states of the sensibility. In other words, it is supposed that the appetites, passions, and desires, often act upon the will, and produce its volitions. But this seems to be a very great mistake, which has arisen from viewing the subtle operations of the mind through the medium of those mechanical forms of thought that have been derived from the contemplation of the phenomena of the material world. In truth, the feelings do not act at all, and consequently they cannot act upon the will. It is absurd, as Locke and Edwards well say, to ascribe power, which belongs to the agent himself, to the properties of an agent. Hence, it is absurd to suppose that our feelings, appetites, desires, and passions, are endowed with power, and can act. They are not agents—they are merely the properties of an agent. It is the mind itself which acts, and not its passions. These are but passive impressions made upon the sensibility; and hence,“it is to philosophize very crudely concerning mind, and to image everything in a corporeal manner,”to conceive that they act upon the will and control its determinations, just as the motions of body are caused and controlled by the action of mind.127This conception, however, is not peculiar to the necessitarian. It has been most unfortunately sanctioned by the greatest advocates of free-agency. Thus says Dr. Reid, in relation to the appetites and passions:“Such motives are not addressed to the rational powers. Their influence isimmediatelyupon the will.”“When a man is acted upon by contrary motives of this kind, he finds it easy to yield to the strongest.They are like two forces pushing him in contrary directions. To yield to the strongest he needs only be passive.”If this be so, how can Dr. Reid maintain, as he does, that“the determination was made by theman, and not by the motive?”To this assertion Sir William Hamilton replies:“But was themandetermined by no motive to that determination? Was his specific volition to this or to that without a cause? On the supposition that the sum of the influences (motives, dispositions, tendencies) to volition A is equal to 12, and the sum of counter volition B, equal to 8—can we conceive that the determination of volition A should not be necessary? We can only conceive the volition[pg 157]B to be determined by supposing that the mancreates(calls from nonexistence into existence) a certain supplement of influences. But this creation as actual, or in itself, is inconceivable; and even to conceive the possibility of this inconceivable act, we must suppose some cause by which the man is determined to exert it. We thusin thought, never escape determination and necessity. It will be observed that I do not consider this inability to notion any disproof of the fact of free-will.”It is true, that if we suppose, according to the doctrine of Sir William and Dr. Reid, that two counter influences act upon the will, the one being as 12 and the other as 8, then the first must necessarily prevail. But if this supposition be correct, we are not only unable to conceive the fact of liberty, we are also able to conceive that it cannot be a fact at all. There is a great difference, we have been accustomed to believe, between being unable to conceive how a thing is, and being able to conceive that it cannot be anyhow at all: the first would leave it a mere mystery,—the last would show it to be an absurdity. In the one case, the thing would be above reason, and in the other, contrary to reason. Now, to which of these categories does the fact of liberty, as left by Sir William Hamilton, belong? Is it a mystery, or is it an absurdity? Is it an inconceivable fact, or is it a conceived impossibility? It seems to us that it is the latter; and that if we will only take the pains to view the phenomena of mind as they exist in consciousness, and not through the medium of material analogies, we shall be able to untie the knot which Sir William Hamilton has found it necessary to cut.The doctrine of liberty, if properly viewed, is perfectly conceivable. We can certainly conceive that the omnipotence of God can put forth an act without being impelled thereto by a power back of his own; and to suppose otherwise, is to suppose a power greater than God's, and upon which the exercise of his omnipotence depends. By parity of reason, we should be compelled to suppose another power still back of that, and so onad infinitum. This is not only absurd, but, as Calvin truly says, it is impious. Here, then, we have upon the throne of the universe a clear and unequivocal instance of a self-active power,—a power whose goings forth are not impelled by any[pg 158]power without itself. It goes forth, it is true, in the light of the Eternal Reason, and in pursuit of the ends of the Eternal Goodness; but yet in itself it possesses an infinite fulness, being self-sustained, self-active, and wholly independent of all other powers and influences whatsoever.Now, if such a Being should create at all, it is not difficult to conceive that he would create subordinate agents, bearing his own image in this, namely, the possession of a self-active power. It is not difficult to conceive that he should produce spiritual beings like himself, who can act without being necessitated to act, like the inanimate portions of creation, as well as those of an inferior nature. Nor is it more difficult to conceive that man, in point of fact, possesses such a limited self-active power, than it is to conceive that God possesses an infinite self-active power. Indeed we must and do conceive this, or else we should have no type or representative in this lower part of the world, by and through which to rise to a contemplation of its universal Lord and Sovereign. We should have a temple without a symbol, and a universe without a God. But God has not thus left himself without witness; for he has raised man above the dust of the earth in this, that he is endowed with a self-active power, from whence, as from an humble platform, he may rise to the sublime contemplation of the Universal Mover of the heavens and the earth. But for this ray of light, shed abroad in our hearts by the creative energy of God, the nature of the divine power itself would be unknown to us, and its eternal, immutable glories shrouded in impenetrable darkness. The idea of an omnipotent power, moving in and of itself in obedience to the dictates of infinite wisdom and goodness, would be forever merged and lost in the dark scheme of an implexed series and concatenation of causes, binding all things fast, God himself not excepted, in the iron bonds of fate.If liberty be afact, as Sir William Hamilton contends it is, then no such objections can be urged against it as those in which he supposes it to be involved. We are aware of what may be said in favour of such a mode of viewing subjects of this kind, as well as of the nature of the principles from which it takes its rise. But we cannot consider those principles altogether sound. They appear to be too sceptical, with respect[pg 159]to the powers of the human mind, and the destiny of human knowledge. The sentiment of Leibnitz seems to rest upon a more solid foundation.“It is necessary to come,”says he,“to the grand question which M. Bayle has recently brought upon the carpet, to wit, whether a truth, and especially a truth of faith, can be subject to unanswerable objections. That excellent author seems boldly to maintain the affirmative of this question: he cites grave theologians on his side, and even those of Rome, who appear to say what he pretends; and he adduces philosophers who have believedthat there are even philosophical truths, the defenders of which cannot reply to objections made against them.”“For my part,”says Leibnitz,“I avow that I cannot be of the sentiment of those who maintain that a truth can be liable to invincible objections; for what is anobjectionbut an argument of which the conclusion contradicts our thesis? and is not an invincible argument a demonstration?”“It is always necessary to yield to demonstrations, whether they are proposed for our adoption, or advanced in the form of objections. And it is unjust and useless to wish to weaken the proofs of adversaries, under the pretext that they are only objections; since the adversary has the same right, and can reverse the denominations, by honouring his arguments with the name ofproofs, and lowering yours by the disparaging name of objections.”128There is another false conception, by which the necessitarian fortifies himself in his opposition to the freedom of the will. As he identifies the sensibility and the will, so when the indifference of the latter is spoken of, the language is understood to mean that the mind is indifferent, and destitute of all feeling or emotion. But this is to view the doctrine of liberty, not as it is held by its advocates, but as it is seen through the medium of a false psychology. We might adduce a hundred examples of the truth of this remark, but one or two must suffice. Thus, Collins supposes that the doctrine of liberty implies, that the mind is“indifferent to good and evil;”“indifferent to what causespleasureorpain;”“indifferent to all objects, and swayed by no motives.”Gross as this misrepresentation of the doctrine of free-agency is, it is frequently made by its opponents. It occurs repeatedly in the writings of President Edwards and President[pg 160]Day.129The freedom of thewill, indeed, no more implies an indifference of thesensibilitythan the power of a bird to fly implies the existence of a vacuum.Section V.The scheme of necessity is recommended by false analogies.It is insisted that there is no difficulty in conceiving of a caused action or volition; but this position is illustrated by false and deceptive analogies. Thus says an advocate of necessity:“The term passive is sometimes employed to express the relation of an effect to its cause. In this sense, it is so far from being inconsistent with activity, that activity may be the very effect which is produced. A cannonshot is said to be passive, with respect to the charge of powder which impels it. But is there no activity given to the ball? Is not the whirlwind active when it tears up the forest?”130Not at all, in any sense pertaining to the present controversy. The tremendous power, whatever it may be, which sets the whirlwind in motion, is active; the wind itself is perfectly passive. The air is acted on, and it merelysuffersa change of place. If it tears up the forest, this is not because it exercises an active power, but because it is body coming into contact with body, and both cannot occupy the same space at one and the same time. It tears up the forest, not as an agent, but as an instrument.The same is true of the cannonball. This does notact; it merelymoves. It does not put forth a volition, or an exercise of power; it merely suffers a change of place. In one word, there is no sort of resemblance between an act of mind and the motion of body. This has no active power, and cannot be made to act: it is passive, however, and may be made to move. If the question were, Can a body be made to move? these illustrations would be in point; but as it relates to the possibility of causing the mind to put forth a volition, they are clearly irrelevant. And if they were really apposite, they would only show that the mind may be caused to act like a cannonball, a whirlwind, a clock, or any other piece of machinery. This is the only kind ofactionthey serve to prove may be caused; and[pg 161]such action, as it is called, has far more to do with machinery than with human agency.President Edwards also has recourse to false analogies. To select only one instance:“It is no more a contradiction,”says he,“to suppose that action may be the effect of some other cause besides the agent, or being that acts, than to suppose that life may be the effect of some other cause besides the being that lives.”131Now, as we are wholly passive in the reception of life, so it may be wholly conferred upon us by the power and agency of God. The very reason why we suppose an act cannot be caused is, that it is a voluntary exercise of our own minds; whereas, if it were caused, it would be a necessitated passive impression. How can it show the fallacy of this position, to refer to the case of a caused life, in regard to which, by universal consent, we do not and cannot act at all?The younger Edwards asserts, that“to say that an agent that is acted upon cannot act, is as groundless as to say that a body acted upon cannot move.”Again:“My actions aremine; but in what sense can they be properly called mine, if I be not the efficient cause of them?—Answer: my thoughts and all my perceptions and feelings aremine; yet it will not be pretended that I am the efficient cause of them.”132But in regard to all our thoughts and feelings, we are, as we have seen, altogether passive; and these are ours, because they are necessarily producedin us. Is it only in this sense that our acts are ours? Are they ours only because they are necessarily caused to exist in our minds? If so, then indeed we understand these writers; but if they are not merely passive impressions, why resort to states of the intelligence and the sensibility, which are conceded to be passive, in order to illustrate the reasonableness of their scheme, and to expose the unreasonableness of the opposite doctrine? We admit that every passive impression is caused; but the question is, Can the mind be caused to act? As we lay all the stress on thenature of an act, as seen in the light of consciousness, what does it signify to tell us that another thing, which possesses no such nature, may be efficiently caused? All such illustrations overlook the essential difference between action and passion, betweendoingandsuffering.[pg 162]Section VI.The scheme of necessity is rendered plausible by a false phraseology.The false psychology, of which we have spoken, has been greatly strengthened and confirmed in its influences by the phraseology connected with it. As Mr. Locke distinguished between will and desire, partially at least, so he likewise distinguished a preference of the mind from a volition. But President Edwards is not satisfied with this distinction.“The instance he mentions,”says Edwards,“does not prove there is anything else inwillingbut merely preferring.”133This may be very true; but is there nothing in willing, inacting, but merelypreferring? This last term, however it may be applied, seems better adapted to express a state of the intelligence, than an act of the will. Two objects are placed before the mind: one affects the sensibility in a more agreeable manner than the other, and therefore the intelligence pronounces that one is more to be desired than the other. This seems to be precisely what is meant by the use of the term preference. One prefers an orange to an apple, for instance, because the orange affects his sensibility more agreeably than the apple; and the intelligence perceiving this state of the sensibility, declares in favour of the orange. This decision of the judgment is what is usually meant by the use of the term preference, or choice. To prefer, is merely to judge, in view of desire, which of two objects is more agreeable. But judging and desiring are, as we have seen, both necessitated states of the mind. Why, then, apply the term preference, or choice, to acts of the will? Why apply a term, which seems to express merely a state of the intelligence, which all concede is necessitated, to an act of the will? Is it not evident, that by such a use of language the cause of necessity gains great apparent strength?There is another way in which the language of the necessitarian deceives. The language he employs often represents the facts of nature, but not facts as they would be, if his system were true. Hence, when this system is attacked, its advocates repel the attack by the use of words which truly represent nature, but not their errors. This gives great plausibility[pg 163]to their apologies. Thus, when it is objected that the scheme of necessity“makes men no more than mere machines,”they are always ready to reply,“that notwithstanding this doctrine, man is entirely, perfectly, and unspeakably different from a machine.”But how? Is it because his volitions, as they are called, are not necessarily determined by causes? No. Is it because his will may be loose from the influence of motives? No. Is it because he may follow the strongest motive, or may not follow it? No. Nothing of the kind is hinted. How does the man, then, differ so entirely from a machine? Why,“in that he has reason and understanding, with a faculty of will, and so is capable of volition and choice.”True, a machine has no reason or understanding; but suppose it had, would it be a person? By no means. We have seen that the understanding, or the intelligence, is necessarily determined; all its states are necessitated as completely as the movements of a machine. This constitutes an essential likeness, and it is what is always meant, when it is said that necessity makes men mere machines. But it seems that man also has“a faculty of will, and so is capable of volition or choice.”134Yes, he canact. Now this language means something according to the system of nature; but what does it mean according to the system of necessity? It merely means that the human mind is susceptible of being necessitated to undergo a change by the“power and action of a cause,”which the advocates of that system are pleased to call an act. They never hint that we are not machines, because we have any power by which we are exempt from the most absolute dominion of causes. They never hint that we are not machines, because our volitions, or acts, are not as necessarily produced in us, as the motions of a clock are produced in it. Now, if this scheme were true, there would be no such things as acts or volitions in us: all the phenomena of our minds would be passive impressions, like our judgments and feelings. When they speak of the will, then, which is capable of volitions, or acts, they deceive by using the language of nature, and not of their false scheme.[pg 164]Section VII.The scheme of necessity originates in a false method, and terminates in a false religion.This system, as we have seen, has been built up, not by an analysis of the phenomena of the human mind, but by means of universal abstractions and truisms. It takes its rise, not from the facts of nature, but from the conceptions of the intellect. In other words, instead of anatomizing the world which God has made so as to exhibit the actual plan according to which it has been constituted, it sets out from certain identical propositions, such as that every effect must have a cause, and proceeds to inform us how the worldmusthave been constituted. This“usual method of discovery and proof,”as Bacon says,“by first establishing the most general propositions, then applying and proving the intermediate axioms according to these, is the parent of error and the calamity of every science.”Nowhere, it is believed, can a more striking illustration of the truth of these pregnant words be found, than in the method adopted by necessitarians. They begin with the universal proposition, that every effect must have a cause, as a self-evident truth, and then proceed, not to examine and discover how the world is made, but to demonstrate how itmusthave been constructed. This is not to“interpret,”it is to“anticipate”nature.By this higha priorimethod the freedom of the human mind is demonstrated, as we have seen, to be an impossibility, and the accountability of man a dream. Man is not responsible for sin, or rather, there is no such thing as moral good and evil in the lower world; since God, the only efficient fountain of all things and events, is the sole responsible author of all evil as well as of all good. Such, as we have seen, are the inevitable logical consequences of this boasted scheme of necessity.But we have clearly shown, we trust, that the grand demonstration of the necessitarian is a sophism, whose apparent force is owing to a variety of causes:—First, it seeks out, and lays its foundation in, a false psychology; identifying the feelings, or affections, and the will. Secondly, by viewing the opposite scheme through the medium of this false psychology, it reduces[pg 165]its main position to the pitiful absurdity that a thing may produce itself, or arise out of nothing, and bring itself into existence; and then demolishes this absurdity by logic! Thirdly, it reduces itself to the truism, that a thing is always as it is; and being entrenched in this stronghold, it gathers around itself all the common sense and all the reason of mankind, as well it may, and looks down with sovereign contempt on the feeble attacks of its adversaries. Fourthly, it fortifies itself by a multitude of false conceptions, arising from a hasty application of its universal truism, and not from a severe inspection and analysis of things. Fifthly, it decorates itself in false analogies, and thereby assumes the imposing appearance of truth. Sixthly, it clothes itself in deceptive and ambiguous phraseology, by which it speaks the language of truth to the ear, but not to the sense. And, seventhly, it takes its rise in a false method, and terminates in a false religion.These are some of the hidden mysteries of the scheme of necessity; which having been detected and exposed, we do not hesitate to pronounce it a grand imposition on the reason of mankind. As such, we set aside this stupendous sophism, whose dark shadow has so long rested on the beauty of the world, obscuring the intrinsic majesty and glory of the infinite goodness therein displayed. We put away and repudiate this vast assemblage of errors, which has so sadly perplexed our mental vision, and so frightfully distorted the real proportions of the world, as to lead philosophers, such as Kant and others, to pronounce a Theodicy impossible. We put them aside utterly, in order that we may proceed to vindicate the glory of God, as manifested in the constitution and government of the moral world.
Section III.The scheme of necessity is supported by false logic.One reason why the advocates of necessity deceive themselves, as well as others, is, that there is great want of precision and distinctness in their views and definitions. We are told by them that the will is always determined by the strongest motive; that this is invariably the cause of volition. But what is meant by the termcause? We have final causes, instrumental causes, occasional causes, predisposing causes, efficient causes, and many others. Now, in which of these senses is the word used, when we are informed that motive is the cause of volition? On this point we are not enlightened. Neither Leibnitz nor Edwards is sufficiently explicit. The proposition, as left by them, is vague and obscure.Leibnitz inclined to the use of the wordreason, because he carried on a controversy with Bayle and Hobbes, who were atheists; though he frequently speaks of a chain of causes which embrace human volitions.121While Edwards, who opposed the Arminians, generally employs the more rigid termcause; though he, too, frequently represents motive as“the ground and reason”of volition. The one softens his language, in places, as he contends[pg 150]with those who had rendered themselves obnoxious to the Christian world by an advocacy of the doctrine of necessity in connexion with atheistical sentiments. The other appears to prefer the stronger expression, as he puts forth his power against antagonists whose views of liberty were deemed subversive of the tenets of Calvinism. But the law of causality, as stated by Edwards, and the principle of the sufficient reason, as defined and employed by Leibnitz, are perfectly identical.When we are told that motive is the cause of volition, it is evident we cannot determine whether to deny or to assent to the proposition, unless we know in what sense the termcauseis used. We might discuss this perplexed question forever, by the use of such vague and indefinite propositions, without progressing a single step toward the end of the controversy. We must bring a more searching analysis to the subject, if we hope to accomplish anything. We must take the word cause orreason, in each of its significations, in order to discover in what particulars the contending parties agree, and in what particulars they disagree, in order to see how far each party is right, and how far it is wrong. This is the only course that promises the least prospect of a satisfactory result.If we mean by the cause of volition, that which wills or exerts the volition, there is no controversy; for in this sense the advocates of necessity admit that the mind is the cause of volition. Thus says Edwards:“The acts of my will are my own; i. e., they are acts of my will.”122It is universally conceded that it is the mind which wills, and nothing else in the place of it; and hence, in this sense of the word, there is no question but that the mind is the cause of volition. But the advocates of necessity cannot be understood in this sense; for they deny that the mind is the cause of volition, and insist that it is caused by motive.The termcauseis very often used to designate the condition of a thing, or that without which it could not happen or come to pass. Thus we are told by Edwards, that he sometimes uses“the word cause to signify anyantecedent”of an event,“whether it has any influence or not,”in the production of such event.123If this be the meaning, when it is said that motive is the cause of volition, the truth of the proposition is conceded by the advocates of free-agency. In speaking of arguments and[pg 151]motives, Dr. Samuel Clarke says:“Occasions indeed there may be, and are, upon which that substance in man, wherever the self-moving principle resides, freely exerts its active power.”124Herein, then, there is a perfect agreement between the contending parties. The fact that the mind requires certain conditions or occasions, on which to exercise its active power, does not at all interfere with its freedom; and hence the advocates of free-agency have readily admitted that motives are the occasional causes of volition. We must look out for some other meaning of the term, then, if we would clearly and distinctly fix our minds on the point in controversy.We say that an antecedent is the cause of its consequent, when the latter is produced by the action of the former. For example, a motion of the body is said to be caused by the mind; because it is produced by an act of the mind. This seems to be what is meant by an“efficient cause.”It is, no doubt, the most proper sense of the word; and around this it is that the controversy still rages, and has for centuries raged.The advocates of necessity contend, not only that volition is the effect of motive, but also that“to be an effect impliespassiveness, or the being subject to the power and action of its cause.”125Such precisely is the doctrine of Edwards, and Collins, and Hobbes. In this sense of the word it is denied that motive is the cause of volition, and it is affirmed that mind is the cause thereof. Thus, says Dr. Samuel Clarke, in his reply to Collins,“'Tis the self-moving principle, and not at all the reason or motive, which is thephysicalorefficientcause of action;”by which we understand him to mean volition, as that is the thing in dispute. Now, when the advocates of free-agency insist that motive is not the efficient cause of volition, and that mind is the efficient cause thereof, we suppose them to employ the expression,efficient cause, in one and the same sense in both branches of the proposition. This is the only fair way of viewing their language; and if they wished to be understood in any other manner, they should have taken the pains to explain themselves, and not permit us to be misled by an ambiguity. Here the precise point in dispute is clearly presented; and let us hear the contending parties, before we proceed to decide between them.[pg 152]You are in error, says the necessitarian to his opponents, in denying that motive, and in affirming that mind, is the efficient cause of volition. For if an act of the mind, or a volition, is caused by the mind, it must be produced by a preceding act of the mind, and this act must be produced by another preceding act of the mind, and so onad infinitum; which reduces the matter to a plain impossibility. Now, if the necessitarian has not been deceived by an unwarrantable ambiguity on the part of his adversary, he has clearly reduced his doctrine to the absurdity of an infinite series of acts: that is to say, if the advocate of free-agency does not depart from the ordinary meaning of words, when he affirms that mind is theefficient causeof volition; and if he does not use these terms“efficient cause,”in different senses in the same sentence, then we feel bound to say that he is fairly caught in the toils of his adversary. But we are not yet in condition to pass a final judgment between the parties.The necessitarian contends that“volition, or an act of the mind, is the effect of motive, and that it is subject to the power and action of its cause.”126The advocate of free-will replies, If we must suppose an action of motive on the mind to account for its act, we must likewise suppose another action to account for the action of motive; and so onad infinitum. Thus the necessitarian seems to be fairly caught in his own toils, and entrapped by his own definition and arguments.Our decision (for the correctness of which we appeal to the calm and impartial judgment of the reader) is as follows: If the termcausebe understood in the first or the second sense above mentioned, there is no disagreement between the contending parties; and if it be understood in the third sense, then both parties are in error. If, in order to account for an act of the mind, we suppose it is caused by an action of motive, we are involved in the absurdity of an infinite series of actions; and on the other hand, if we suppose it is caused by a preceding act of the mind itself, we are forced into the same absurdity. Hence, we conclude, that an act of the mind, or a volition, is not produced by the action of either mind or motive, but takes its rise in the world without any such efficient cause of its existence.[pg 153]Each party has refuted his adversary, and in the enjoyment of his triumph he seems not to have duly reflected on the destruction of his own position. Both are in the right, and both are in the wrong; but, as we shall hereafter see, not equally so. If we adopt the argument of both sides, in so far as it is true, we shall come to the conclusion that action must take its rise somewhere in the universe without being caused by preceding action. And if so, where shall we look for its origin? in that which by nature is endowed with active power, or in that which is purely and altogether passive?We lay it down, then, as an established and fundamental position, that the mind acts or puts forth its volitions without being efficiently caused to do so—without being impelled by its own prior action, or by the prior action of anything else. The conditions or occasions of volition being supplied, the mind itself acts in view thereof, without being subject to the power or action of any cause whatever. All rational beings must, as we have seen, either admit this exemption of the mind in willing from the power and action of any cause, or else lose themselves in the labyrinth of an infinite series of causes. It is this exemption which constitutes the freedom of the human soul.We are now prepared to see, in a clear light, the sophistical nature of the pretended demonstration of the scheme of necessity.“It is impossible to consider occurrences,”says Sir James Mackintosh, otherwise than as bound together in“the relation of cause and effect.”Now this relation, if we interpret it according to the nature of things, and not according to the sound of words, is not one, but two.The motions of the body are caused by the mind, that is, they are produced by the action of the mind; this constitutes one relation: but acts of the mind are caused, that is, they are produced by the action of nothing; and this is a quite different relation. In other words, the motions of body are produced by preceding action, and the acts of the mind are not produced by preceding action. Hence, the first are necessitated, and the last are free: the first come under“the relation of cause and effect,”and the last come under a very different relation. The relation of cause and effect connects the most remote consequences of volition with volition itself; but when we reach volition[pg 154]there a new relation arises: it is the relation which subsists between an agent and its act. We may trace changes in the external world up to the volitions or acts of mind, and perceive no diversity in the chain of dependencies; but precisely at this point the chain of cause and effect ceases, and agency begins. The surrounding circumstances may be conditions, may be occasional causes, may be predisposing causes, but they are not, and cannot be, producing or efficient causes. Here, then, the iron chain terminates, and freedom commences. In the ambiguity which fails to distinguish between“the relation of cause and effect,”and the relation which volition bears to its antecedents,“consists the strength of the necessitarian system.”Let this distinction be clearly made and firmly borne in mind, and the great boasted adamantine scheme of necessity will resolve itself into an empty, ineffectual sound.Hence, if we would place the doctrine of liberty upon solid grounds, it becomes necessary to modify the categories of M. Cousin. All things, says he, fall under the one or the other of the two following relations: the relation between subject and attribute, or the relation between cause and effect. This last category, we think, should be subdivided, so as to give two relations; one between cause and effect, properly so called, and the other between agent and action. Until this be done, it will be impossible to extricate the phenomena of the will from the mechanism of cause and effect.We think we might here leave the stupendous sophism of the necessitarian; but as it has exerted so wonderful an influence over the human mind, and obscured, for ages, the glory of the moral government of God, we may well be permitted to pursue it further, and to continue the pursuit so long as a fragment or a shadow of it remains to be demolished.Section IV.The scheme of necessity is fortified by false conceptions.One of the notions to which the cause of necessity owes much of its strength, is a false conception of liberty, as consisting in“a power over the determinations of the will.”Hence it is said that this power over the will can do nothing, can cause no determination except by acting to produce it. But according[pg 155]to this notion of liberty, this causative act cannot be free unless it be also caused by a preceding act; and so onad infinitum. Such is one of the favourite arguments of the necessitarian. But in truth the freedom of the mind does not consist in its possessing a power over the determinations of its own will, for the true notion of freedom is a negative idea, and consists in the absence of every power over the determinations of the will. The mind is free because it possesses a power of acting, over which there is no controlling power, either within or without itself.It must be admitted, it seems to us, that the advocates of free-agency have too often sanctioned this false conception of liberty, and thereby strengthened the cause of their opponents. Cudworth, Clark, Stuart, Coleridge, and Reid, all speak of this supposed power of the mind over the determinations of the will, as that which constitutes its freedom. Thus says Reid, for example:“By the liberty of a moral agent, I understand a power over the determinations of his own will.”Now, it is not at all strange that this language should be conceived by necessitarians in such a manner as to involve the doctrine of liberty in the absurd consequence of an infinite series of acts, since it is so understood by some of the most enlightened advocates of free-agency themselves.“A power over the determinations of our will,”says Sir William Hamilton,“supposes an act of the will that our will should determine so and so; for we can only exert power through a rational determination or volition.This definition of liberty is right.But the question upon question remains, (and thisad infinitum)—have we a power (a will) over such anterior will? and until this question be definitively answered, which it never can, we must beunable to conceive the possibility of the fact of liberty. But, though inconceivable, this fact is not therefore false.”True, we are unable to conceive the possibility of the fact of liberty, if this must be conceived as consisting in a power over the determinations of the will; but, in our humble opinion, this definition of liberty is not right. It seems more correct to say, that the freedom of the will consists in the absence of a power over its determinations, than in the presence of such a power.There is another false conception which has given great apparent force to the cause of necessity. It is supposed that[pg 156]the states of the will, the volitions, are often necessitated by the necessitated states of the sensibility. In other words, it is supposed that the appetites, passions, and desires, often act upon the will, and produce its volitions. But this seems to be a very great mistake, which has arisen from viewing the subtle operations of the mind through the medium of those mechanical forms of thought that have been derived from the contemplation of the phenomena of the material world. In truth, the feelings do not act at all, and consequently they cannot act upon the will. It is absurd, as Locke and Edwards well say, to ascribe power, which belongs to the agent himself, to the properties of an agent. Hence, it is absurd to suppose that our feelings, appetites, desires, and passions, are endowed with power, and can act. They are not agents—they are merely the properties of an agent. It is the mind itself which acts, and not its passions. These are but passive impressions made upon the sensibility; and hence,“it is to philosophize very crudely concerning mind, and to image everything in a corporeal manner,”to conceive that they act upon the will and control its determinations, just as the motions of body are caused and controlled by the action of mind.127This conception, however, is not peculiar to the necessitarian. It has been most unfortunately sanctioned by the greatest advocates of free-agency. Thus says Dr. Reid, in relation to the appetites and passions:“Such motives are not addressed to the rational powers. Their influence isimmediatelyupon the will.”“When a man is acted upon by contrary motives of this kind, he finds it easy to yield to the strongest.They are like two forces pushing him in contrary directions. To yield to the strongest he needs only be passive.”If this be so, how can Dr. Reid maintain, as he does, that“the determination was made by theman, and not by the motive?”To this assertion Sir William Hamilton replies:“But was themandetermined by no motive to that determination? Was his specific volition to this or to that without a cause? On the supposition that the sum of the influences (motives, dispositions, tendencies) to volition A is equal to 12, and the sum of counter volition B, equal to 8—can we conceive that the determination of volition A should not be necessary? We can only conceive the volition[pg 157]B to be determined by supposing that the mancreates(calls from nonexistence into existence) a certain supplement of influences. But this creation as actual, or in itself, is inconceivable; and even to conceive the possibility of this inconceivable act, we must suppose some cause by which the man is determined to exert it. We thusin thought, never escape determination and necessity. It will be observed that I do not consider this inability to notion any disproof of the fact of free-will.”It is true, that if we suppose, according to the doctrine of Sir William and Dr. Reid, that two counter influences act upon the will, the one being as 12 and the other as 8, then the first must necessarily prevail. But if this supposition be correct, we are not only unable to conceive the fact of liberty, we are also able to conceive that it cannot be a fact at all. There is a great difference, we have been accustomed to believe, between being unable to conceive how a thing is, and being able to conceive that it cannot be anyhow at all: the first would leave it a mere mystery,—the last would show it to be an absurdity. In the one case, the thing would be above reason, and in the other, contrary to reason. Now, to which of these categories does the fact of liberty, as left by Sir William Hamilton, belong? Is it a mystery, or is it an absurdity? Is it an inconceivable fact, or is it a conceived impossibility? It seems to us that it is the latter; and that if we will only take the pains to view the phenomena of mind as they exist in consciousness, and not through the medium of material analogies, we shall be able to untie the knot which Sir William Hamilton has found it necessary to cut.The doctrine of liberty, if properly viewed, is perfectly conceivable. We can certainly conceive that the omnipotence of God can put forth an act without being impelled thereto by a power back of his own; and to suppose otherwise, is to suppose a power greater than God's, and upon which the exercise of his omnipotence depends. By parity of reason, we should be compelled to suppose another power still back of that, and so onad infinitum. This is not only absurd, but, as Calvin truly says, it is impious. Here, then, we have upon the throne of the universe a clear and unequivocal instance of a self-active power,—a power whose goings forth are not impelled by any[pg 158]power without itself. It goes forth, it is true, in the light of the Eternal Reason, and in pursuit of the ends of the Eternal Goodness; but yet in itself it possesses an infinite fulness, being self-sustained, self-active, and wholly independent of all other powers and influences whatsoever.Now, if such a Being should create at all, it is not difficult to conceive that he would create subordinate agents, bearing his own image in this, namely, the possession of a self-active power. It is not difficult to conceive that he should produce spiritual beings like himself, who can act without being necessitated to act, like the inanimate portions of creation, as well as those of an inferior nature. Nor is it more difficult to conceive that man, in point of fact, possesses such a limited self-active power, than it is to conceive that God possesses an infinite self-active power. Indeed we must and do conceive this, or else we should have no type or representative in this lower part of the world, by and through which to rise to a contemplation of its universal Lord and Sovereign. We should have a temple without a symbol, and a universe without a God. But God has not thus left himself without witness; for he has raised man above the dust of the earth in this, that he is endowed with a self-active power, from whence, as from an humble platform, he may rise to the sublime contemplation of the Universal Mover of the heavens and the earth. But for this ray of light, shed abroad in our hearts by the creative energy of God, the nature of the divine power itself would be unknown to us, and its eternal, immutable glories shrouded in impenetrable darkness. The idea of an omnipotent power, moving in and of itself in obedience to the dictates of infinite wisdom and goodness, would be forever merged and lost in the dark scheme of an implexed series and concatenation of causes, binding all things fast, God himself not excepted, in the iron bonds of fate.If liberty be afact, as Sir William Hamilton contends it is, then no such objections can be urged against it as those in which he supposes it to be involved. We are aware of what may be said in favour of such a mode of viewing subjects of this kind, as well as of the nature of the principles from which it takes its rise. But we cannot consider those principles altogether sound. They appear to be too sceptical, with respect[pg 159]to the powers of the human mind, and the destiny of human knowledge. The sentiment of Leibnitz seems to rest upon a more solid foundation.“It is necessary to come,”says he,“to the grand question which M. Bayle has recently brought upon the carpet, to wit, whether a truth, and especially a truth of faith, can be subject to unanswerable objections. That excellent author seems boldly to maintain the affirmative of this question: he cites grave theologians on his side, and even those of Rome, who appear to say what he pretends; and he adduces philosophers who have believedthat there are even philosophical truths, the defenders of which cannot reply to objections made against them.”“For my part,”says Leibnitz,“I avow that I cannot be of the sentiment of those who maintain that a truth can be liable to invincible objections; for what is anobjectionbut an argument of which the conclusion contradicts our thesis? and is not an invincible argument a demonstration?”“It is always necessary to yield to demonstrations, whether they are proposed for our adoption, or advanced in the form of objections. And it is unjust and useless to wish to weaken the proofs of adversaries, under the pretext that they are only objections; since the adversary has the same right, and can reverse the denominations, by honouring his arguments with the name ofproofs, and lowering yours by the disparaging name of objections.”128There is another false conception, by which the necessitarian fortifies himself in his opposition to the freedom of the will. As he identifies the sensibility and the will, so when the indifference of the latter is spoken of, the language is understood to mean that the mind is indifferent, and destitute of all feeling or emotion. But this is to view the doctrine of liberty, not as it is held by its advocates, but as it is seen through the medium of a false psychology. We might adduce a hundred examples of the truth of this remark, but one or two must suffice. Thus, Collins supposes that the doctrine of liberty implies, that the mind is“indifferent to good and evil;”“indifferent to what causespleasureorpain;”“indifferent to all objects, and swayed by no motives.”Gross as this misrepresentation of the doctrine of free-agency is, it is frequently made by its opponents. It occurs repeatedly in the writings of President Edwards and President[pg 160]Day.129The freedom of thewill, indeed, no more implies an indifference of thesensibilitythan the power of a bird to fly implies the existence of a vacuum.Section V.The scheme of necessity is recommended by false analogies.It is insisted that there is no difficulty in conceiving of a caused action or volition; but this position is illustrated by false and deceptive analogies. Thus says an advocate of necessity:“The term passive is sometimes employed to express the relation of an effect to its cause. In this sense, it is so far from being inconsistent with activity, that activity may be the very effect which is produced. A cannonshot is said to be passive, with respect to the charge of powder which impels it. But is there no activity given to the ball? Is not the whirlwind active when it tears up the forest?”130Not at all, in any sense pertaining to the present controversy. The tremendous power, whatever it may be, which sets the whirlwind in motion, is active; the wind itself is perfectly passive. The air is acted on, and it merelysuffersa change of place. If it tears up the forest, this is not because it exercises an active power, but because it is body coming into contact with body, and both cannot occupy the same space at one and the same time. It tears up the forest, not as an agent, but as an instrument.The same is true of the cannonball. This does notact; it merelymoves. It does not put forth a volition, or an exercise of power; it merely suffers a change of place. In one word, there is no sort of resemblance between an act of mind and the motion of body. This has no active power, and cannot be made to act: it is passive, however, and may be made to move. If the question were, Can a body be made to move? these illustrations would be in point; but as it relates to the possibility of causing the mind to put forth a volition, they are clearly irrelevant. And if they were really apposite, they would only show that the mind may be caused to act like a cannonball, a whirlwind, a clock, or any other piece of machinery. This is the only kind ofactionthey serve to prove may be caused; and[pg 161]such action, as it is called, has far more to do with machinery than with human agency.President Edwards also has recourse to false analogies. To select only one instance:“It is no more a contradiction,”says he,“to suppose that action may be the effect of some other cause besides the agent, or being that acts, than to suppose that life may be the effect of some other cause besides the being that lives.”131Now, as we are wholly passive in the reception of life, so it may be wholly conferred upon us by the power and agency of God. The very reason why we suppose an act cannot be caused is, that it is a voluntary exercise of our own minds; whereas, if it were caused, it would be a necessitated passive impression. How can it show the fallacy of this position, to refer to the case of a caused life, in regard to which, by universal consent, we do not and cannot act at all?The younger Edwards asserts, that“to say that an agent that is acted upon cannot act, is as groundless as to say that a body acted upon cannot move.”Again:“My actions aremine; but in what sense can they be properly called mine, if I be not the efficient cause of them?—Answer: my thoughts and all my perceptions and feelings aremine; yet it will not be pretended that I am the efficient cause of them.”132But in regard to all our thoughts and feelings, we are, as we have seen, altogether passive; and these are ours, because they are necessarily producedin us. Is it only in this sense that our acts are ours? Are they ours only because they are necessarily caused to exist in our minds? If so, then indeed we understand these writers; but if they are not merely passive impressions, why resort to states of the intelligence and the sensibility, which are conceded to be passive, in order to illustrate the reasonableness of their scheme, and to expose the unreasonableness of the opposite doctrine? We admit that every passive impression is caused; but the question is, Can the mind be caused to act? As we lay all the stress on thenature of an act, as seen in the light of consciousness, what does it signify to tell us that another thing, which possesses no such nature, may be efficiently caused? All such illustrations overlook the essential difference between action and passion, betweendoingandsuffering.[pg 162]Section VI.The scheme of necessity is rendered plausible by a false phraseology.The false psychology, of which we have spoken, has been greatly strengthened and confirmed in its influences by the phraseology connected with it. As Mr. Locke distinguished between will and desire, partially at least, so he likewise distinguished a preference of the mind from a volition. But President Edwards is not satisfied with this distinction.“The instance he mentions,”says Edwards,“does not prove there is anything else inwillingbut merely preferring.”133This may be very true; but is there nothing in willing, inacting, but merelypreferring? This last term, however it may be applied, seems better adapted to express a state of the intelligence, than an act of the will. Two objects are placed before the mind: one affects the sensibility in a more agreeable manner than the other, and therefore the intelligence pronounces that one is more to be desired than the other. This seems to be precisely what is meant by the use of the term preference. One prefers an orange to an apple, for instance, because the orange affects his sensibility more agreeably than the apple; and the intelligence perceiving this state of the sensibility, declares in favour of the orange. This decision of the judgment is what is usually meant by the use of the term preference, or choice. To prefer, is merely to judge, in view of desire, which of two objects is more agreeable. But judging and desiring are, as we have seen, both necessitated states of the mind. Why, then, apply the term preference, or choice, to acts of the will? Why apply a term, which seems to express merely a state of the intelligence, which all concede is necessitated, to an act of the will? Is it not evident, that by such a use of language the cause of necessity gains great apparent strength?There is another way in which the language of the necessitarian deceives. The language he employs often represents the facts of nature, but not facts as they would be, if his system were true. Hence, when this system is attacked, its advocates repel the attack by the use of words which truly represent nature, but not their errors. This gives great plausibility[pg 163]to their apologies. Thus, when it is objected that the scheme of necessity“makes men no more than mere machines,”they are always ready to reply,“that notwithstanding this doctrine, man is entirely, perfectly, and unspeakably different from a machine.”But how? Is it because his volitions, as they are called, are not necessarily determined by causes? No. Is it because his will may be loose from the influence of motives? No. Is it because he may follow the strongest motive, or may not follow it? No. Nothing of the kind is hinted. How does the man, then, differ so entirely from a machine? Why,“in that he has reason and understanding, with a faculty of will, and so is capable of volition and choice.”True, a machine has no reason or understanding; but suppose it had, would it be a person? By no means. We have seen that the understanding, or the intelligence, is necessarily determined; all its states are necessitated as completely as the movements of a machine. This constitutes an essential likeness, and it is what is always meant, when it is said that necessity makes men mere machines. But it seems that man also has“a faculty of will, and so is capable of volition or choice.”134Yes, he canact. Now this language means something according to the system of nature; but what does it mean according to the system of necessity? It merely means that the human mind is susceptible of being necessitated to undergo a change by the“power and action of a cause,”which the advocates of that system are pleased to call an act. They never hint that we are not machines, because we have any power by which we are exempt from the most absolute dominion of causes. They never hint that we are not machines, because our volitions, or acts, are not as necessarily produced in us, as the motions of a clock are produced in it. Now, if this scheme were true, there would be no such things as acts or volitions in us: all the phenomena of our minds would be passive impressions, like our judgments and feelings. When they speak of the will, then, which is capable of volitions, or acts, they deceive by using the language of nature, and not of their false scheme.[pg 164]Section VII.The scheme of necessity originates in a false method, and terminates in a false religion.This system, as we have seen, has been built up, not by an analysis of the phenomena of the human mind, but by means of universal abstractions and truisms. It takes its rise, not from the facts of nature, but from the conceptions of the intellect. In other words, instead of anatomizing the world which God has made so as to exhibit the actual plan according to which it has been constituted, it sets out from certain identical propositions, such as that every effect must have a cause, and proceeds to inform us how the worldmusthave been constituted. This“usual method of discovery and proof,”as Bacon says,“by first establishing the most general propositions, then applying and proving the intermediate axioms according to these, is the parent of error and the calamity of every science.”Nowhere, it is believed, can a more striking illustration of the truth of these pregnant words be found, than in the method adopted by necessitarians. They begin with the universal proposition, that every effect must have a cause, as a self-evident truth, and then proceed, not to examine and discover how the world is made, but to demonstrate how itmusthave been constructed. This is not to“interpret,”it is to“anticipate”nature.By this higha priorimethod the freedom of the human mind is demonstrated, as we have seen, to be an impossibility, and the accountability of man a dream. Man is not responsible for sin, or rather, there is no such thing as moral good and evil in the lower world; since God, the only efficient fountain of all things and events, is the sole responsible author of all evil as well as of all good. Such, as we have seen, are the inevitable logical consequences of this boasted scheme of necessity.But we have clearly shown, we trust, that the grand demonstration of the necessitarian is a sophism, whose apparent force is owing to a variety of causes:—First, it seeks out, and lays its foundation in, a false psychology; identifying the feelings, or affections, and the will. Secondly, by viewing the opposite scheme through the medium of this false psychology, it reduces[pg 165]its main position to the pitiful absurdity that a thing may produce itself, or arise out of nothing, and bring itself into existence; and then demolishes this absurdity by logic! Thirdly, it reduces itself to the truism, that a thing is always as it is; and being entrenched in this stronghold, it gathers around itself all the common sense and all the reason of mankind, as well it may, and looks down with sovereign contempt on the feeble attacks of its adversaries. Fourthly, it fortifies itself by a multitude of false conceptions, arising from a hasty application of its universal truism, and not from a severe inspection and analysis of things. Fifthly, it decorates itself in false analogies, and thereby assumes the imposing appearance of truth. Sixthly, it clothes itself in deceptive and ambiguous phraseology, by which it speaks the language of truth to the ear, but not to the sense. And, seventhly, it takes its rise in a false method, and terminates in a false religion.These are some of the hidden mysteries of the scheme of necessity; which having been detected and exposed, we do not hesitate to pronounce it a grand imposition on the reason of mankind. As such, we set aside this stupendous sophism, whose dark shadow has so long rested on the beauty of the world, obscuring the intrinsic majesty and glory of the infinite goodness therein displayed. We put away and repudiate this vast assemblage of errors, which has so sadly perplexed our mental vision, and so frightfully distorted the real proportions of the world, as to lead philosophers, such as Kant and others, to pronounce a Theodicy impossible. We put them aside utterly, in order that we may proceed to vindicate the glory of God, as manifested in the constitution and government of the moral world.
Section III.The scheme of necessity is supported by false logic.One reason why the advocates of necessity deceive themselves, as well as others, is, that there is great want of precision and distinctness in their views and definitions. We are told by them that the will is always determined by the strongest motive; that this is invariably the cause of volition. But what is meant by the termcause? We have final causes, instrumental causes, occasional causes, predisposing causes, efficient causes, and many others. Now, in which of these senses is the word used, when we are informed that motive is the cause of volition? On this point we are not enlightened. Neither Leibnitz nor Edwards is sufficiently explicit. The proposition, as left by them, is vague and obscure.Leibnitz inclined to the use of the wordreason, because he carried on a controversy with Bayle and Hobbes, who were atheists; though he frequently speaks of a chain of causes which embrace human volitions.121While Edwards, who opposed the Arminians, generally employs the more rigid termcause; though he, too, frequently represents motive as“the ground and reason”of volition. The one softens his language, in places, as he contends[pg 150]with those who had rendered themselves obnoxious to the Christian world by an advocacy of the doctrine of necessity in connexion with atheistical sentiments. The other appears to prefer the stronger expression, as he puts forth his power against antagonists whose views of liberty were deemed subversive of the tenets of Calvinism. But the law of causality, as stated by Edwards, and the principle of the sufficient reason, as defined and employed by Leibnitz, are perfectly identical.When we are told that motive is the cause of volition, it is evident we cannot determine whether to deny or to assent to the proposition, unless we know in what sense the termcauseis used. We might discuss this perplexed question forever, by the use of such vague and indefinite propositions, without progressing a single step toward the end of the controversy. We must bring a more searching analysis to the subject, if we hope to accomplish anything. We must take the word cause orreason, in each of its significations, in order to discover in what particulars the contending parties agree, and in what particulars they disagree, in order to see how far each party is right, and how far it is wrong. This is the only course that promises the least prospect of a satisfactory result.If we mean by the cause of volition, that which wills or exerts the volition, there is no controversy; for in this sense the advocates of necessity admit that the mind is the cause of volition. Thus says Edwards:“The acts of my will are my own; i. e., they are acts of my will.”122It is universally conceded that it is the mind which wills, and nothing else in the place of it; and hence, in this sense of the word, there is no question but that the mind is the cause of volition. But the advocates of necessity cannot be understood in this sense; for they deny that the mind is the cause of volition, and insist that it is caused by motive.The termcauseis very often used to designate the condition of a thing, or that without which it could not happen or come to pass. Thus we are told by Edwards, that he sometimes uses“the word cause to signify anyantecedent”of an event,“whether it has any influence or not,”in the production of such event.123If this be the meaning, when it is said that motive is the cause of volition, the truth of the proposition is conceded by the advocates of free-agency. In speaking of arguments and[pg 151]motives, Dr. Samuel Clarke says:“Occasions indeed there may be, and are, upon which that substance in man, wherever the self-moving principle resides, freely exerts its active power.”124Herein, then, there is a perfect agreement between the contending parties. The fact that the mind requires certain conditions or occasions, on which to exercise its active power, does not at all interfere with its freedom; and hence the advocates of free-agency have readily admitted that motives are the occasional causes of volition. We must look out for some other meaning of the term, then, if we would clearly and distinctly fix our minds on the point in controversy.We say that an antecedent is the cause of its consequent, when the latter is produced by the action of the former. For example, a motion of the body is said to be caused by the mind; because it is produced by an act of the mind. This seems to be what is meant by an“efficient cause.”It is, no doubt, the most proper sense of the word; and around this it is that the controversy still rages, and has for centuries raged.The advocates of necessity contend, not only that volition is the effect of motive, but also that“to be an effect impliespassiveness, or the being subject to the power and action of its cause.”125Such precisely is the doctrine of Edwards, and Collins, and Hobbes. In this sense of the word it is denied that motive is the cause of volition, and it is affirmed that mind is the cause thereof. Thus, says Dr. Samuel Clarke, in his reply to Collins,“'Tis the self-moving principle, and not at all the reason or motive, which is thephysicalorefficientcause of action;”by which we understand him to mean volition, as that is the thing in dispute. Now, when the advocates of free-agency insist that motive is not the efficient cause of volition, and that mind is the efficient cause thereof, we suppose them to employ the expression,efficient cause, in one and the same sense in both branches of the proposition. This is the only fair way of viewing their language; and if they wished to be understood in any other manner, they should have taken the pains to explain themselves, and not permit us to be misled by an ambiguity. Here the precise point in dispute is clearly presented; and let us hear the contending parties, before we proceed to decide between them.[pg 152]You are in error, says the necessitarian to his opponents, in denying that motive, and in affirming that mind, is the efficient cause of volition. For if an act of the mind, or a volition, is caused by the mind, it must be produced by a preceding act of the mind, and this act must be produced by another preceding act of the mind, and so onad infinitum; which reduces the matter to a plain impossibility. Now, if the necessitarian has not been deceived by an unwarrantable ambiguity on the part of his adversary, he has clearly reduced his doctrine to the absurdity of an infinite series of acts: that is to say, if the advocate of free-agency does not depart from the ordinary meaning of words, when he affirms that mind is theefficient causeof volition; and if he does not use these terms“efficient cause,”in different senses in the same sentence, then we feel bound to say that he is fairly caught in the toils of his adversary. But we are not yet in condition to pass a final judgment between the parties.The necessitarian contends that“volition, or an act of the mind, is the effect of motive, and that it is subject to the power and action of its cause.”126The advocate of free-will replies, If we must suppose an action of motive on the mind to account for its act, we must likewise suppose another action to account for the action of motive; and so onad infinitum. Thus the necessitarian seems to be fairly caught in his own toils, and entrapped by his own definition and arguments.Our decision (for the correctness of which we appeal to the calm and impartial judgment of the reader) is as follows: If the termcausebe understood in the first or the second sense above mentioned, there is no disagreement between the contending parties; and if it be understood in the third sense, then both parties are in error. If, in order to account for an act of the mind, we suppose it is caused by an action of motive, we are involved in the absurdity of an infinite series of actions; and on the other hand, if we suppose it is caused by a preceding act of the mind itself, we are forced into the same absurdity. Hence, we conclude, that an act of the mind, or a volition, is not produced by the action of either mind or motive, but takes its rise in the world without any such efficient cause of its existence.[pg 153]Each party has refuted his adversary, and in the enjoyment of his triumph he seems not to have duly reflected on the destruction of his own position. Both are in the right, and both are in the wrong; but, as we shall hereafter see, not equally so. If we adopt the argument of both sides, in so far as it is true, we shall come to the conclusion that action must take its rise somewhere in the universe without being caused by preceding action. And if so, where shall we look for its origin? in that which by nature is endowed with active power, or in that which is purely and altogether passive?We lay it down, then, as an established and fundamental position, that the mind acts or puts forth its volitions without being efficiently caused to do so—without being impelled by its own prior action, or by the prior action of anything else. The conditions or occasions of volition being supplied, the mind itself acts in view thereof, without being subject to the power or action of any cause whatever. All rational beings must, as we have seen, either admit this exemption of the mind in willing from the power and action of any cause, or else lose themselves in the labyrinth of an infinite series of causes. It is this exemption which constitutes the freedom of the human soul.We are now prepared to see, in a clear light, the sophistical nature of the pretended demonstration of the scheme of necessity.“It is impossible to consider occurrences,”says Sir James Mackintosh, otherwise than as bound together in“the relation of cause and effect.”Now this relation, if we interpret it according to the nature of things, and not according to the sound of words, is not one, but two.The motions of the body are caused by the mind, that is, they are produced by the action of the mind; this constitutes one relation: but acts of the mind are caused, that is, they are produced by the action of nothing; and this is a quite different relation. In other words, the motions of body are produced by preceding action, and the acts of the mind are not produced by preceding action. Hence, the first are necessitated, and the last are free: the first come under“the relation of cause and effect,”and the last come under a very different relation. The relation of cause and effect connects the most remote consequences of volition with volition itself; but when we reach volition[pg 154]there a new relation arises: it is the relation which subsists between an agent and its act. We may trace changes in the external world up to the volitions or acts of mind, and perceive no diversity in the chain of dependencies; but precisely at this point the chain of cause and effect ceases, and agency begins. The surrounding circumstances may be conditions, may be occasional causes, may be predisposing causes, but they are not, and cannot be, producing or efficient causes. Here, then, the iron chain terminates, and freedom commences. In the ambiguity which fails to distinguish between“the relation of cause and effect,”and the relation which volition bears to its antecedents,“consists the strength of the necessitarian system.”Let this distinction be clearly made and firmly borne in mind, and the great boasted adamantine scheme of necessity will resolve itself into an empty, ineffectual sound.Hence, if we would place the doctrine of liberty upon solid grounds, it becomes necessary to modify the categories of M. Cousin. All things, says he, fall under the one or the other of the two following relations: the relation between subject and attribute, or the relation between cause and effect. This last category, we think, should be subdivided, so as to give two relations; one between cause and effect, properly so called, and the other between agent and action. Until this be done, it will be impossible to extricate the phenomena of the will from the mechanism of cause and effect.We think we might here leave the stupendous sophism of the necessitarian; but as it has exerted so wonderful an influence over the human mind, and obscured, for ages, the glory of the moral government of God, we may well be permitted to pursue it further, and to continue the pursuit so long as a fragment or a shadow of it remains to be demolished.
One reason why the advocates of necessity deceive themselves, as well as others, is, that there is great want of precision and distinctness in their views and definitions. We are told by them that the will is always determined by the strongest motive; that this is invariably the cause of volition. But what is meant by the termcause? We have final causes, instrumental causes, occasional causes, predisposing causes, efficient causes, and many others. Now, in which of these senses is the word used, when we are informed that motive is the cause of volition? On this point we are not enlightened. Neither Leibnitz nor Edwards is sufficiently explicit. The proposition, as left by them, is vague and obscure.
Leibnitz inclined to the use of the wordreason, because he carried on a controversy with Bayle and Hobbes, who were atheists; though he frequently speaks of a chain of causes which embrace human volitions.121While Edwards, who opposed the Arminians, generally employs the more rigid termcause; though he, too, frequently represents motive as“the ground and reason”of volition. The one softens his language, in places, as he contends[pg 150]with those who had rendered themselves obnoxious to the Christian world by an advocacy of the doctrine of necessity in connexion with atheistical sentiments. The other appears to prefer the stronger expression, as he puts forth his power against antagonists whose views of liberty were deemed subversive of the tenets of Calvinism. But the law of causality, as stated by Edwards, and the principle of the sufficient reason, as defined and employed by Leibnitz, are perfectly identical.
When we are told that motive is the cause of volition, it is evident we cannot determine whether to deny or to assent to the proposition, unless we know in what sense the termcauseis used. We might discuss this perplexed question forever, by the use of such vague and indefinite propositions, without progressing a single step toward the end of the controversy. We must bring a more searching analysis to the subject, if we hope to accomplish anything. We must take the word cause orreason, in each of its significations, in order to discover in what particulars the contending parties agree, and in what particulars they disagree, in order to see how far each party is right, and how far it is wrong. This is the only course that promises the least prospect of a satisfactory result.
If we mean by the cause of volition, that which wills or exerts the volition, there is no controversy; for in this sense the advocates of necessity admit that the mind is the cause of volition. Thus says Edwards:“The acts of my will are my own; i. e., they are acts of my will.”122It is universally conceded that it is the mind which wills, and nothing else in the place of it; and hence, in this sense of the word, there is no question but that the mind is the cause of volition. But the advocates of necessity cannot be understood in this sense; for they deny that the mind is the cause of volition, and insist that it is caused by motive.
The termcauseis very often used to designate the condition of a thing, or that without which it could not happen or come to pass. Thus we are told by Edwards, that he sometimes uses“the word cause to signify anyantecedent”of an event,“whether it has any influence or not,”in the production of such event.123If this be the meaning, when it is said that motive is the cause of volition, the truth of the proposition is conceded by the advocates of free-agency. In speaking of arguments and[pg 151]motives, Dr. Samuel Clarke says:“Occasions indeed there may be, and are, upon which that substance in man, wherever the self-moving principle resides, freely exerts its active power.”124Herein, then, there is a perfect agreement between the contending parties. The fact that the mind requires certain conditions or occasions, on which to exercise its active power, does not at all interfere with its freedom; and hence the advocates of free-agency have readily admitted that motives are the occasional causes of volition. We must look out for some other meaning of the term, then, if we would clearly and distinctly fix our minds on the point in controversy.
We say that an antecedent is the cause of its consequent, when the latter is produced by the action of the former. For example, a motion of the body is said to be caused by the mind; because it is produced by an act of the mind. This seems to be what is meant by an“efficient cause.”It is, no doubt, the most proper sense of the word; and around this it is that the controversy still rages, and has for centuries raged.
The advocates of necessity contend, not only that volition is the effect of motive, but also that“to be an effect impliespassiveness, or the being subject to the power and action of its cause.”125Such precisely is the doctrine of Edwards, and Collins, and Hobbes. In this sense of the word it is denied that motive is the cause of volition, and it is affirmed that mind is the cause thereof. Thus, says Dr. Samuel Clarke, in his reply to Collins,“'Tis the self-moving principle, and not at all the reason or motive, which is thephysicalorefficientcause of action;”by which we understand him to mean volition, as that is the thing in dispute. Now, when the advocates of free-agency insist that motive is not the efficient cause of volition, and that mind is the efficient cause thereof, we suppose them to employ the expression,efficient cause, in one and the same sense in both branches of the proposition. This is the only fair way of viewing their language; and if they wished to be understood in any other manner, they should have taken the pains to explain themselves, and not permit us to be misled by an ambiguity. Here the precise point in dispute is clearly presented; and let us hear the contending parties, before we proceed to decide between them.
You are in error, says the necessitarian to his opponents, in denying that motive, and in affirming that mind, is the efficient cause of volition. For if an act of the mind, or a volition, is caused by the mind, it must be produced by a preceding act of the mind, and this act must be produced by another preceding act of the mind, and so onad infinitum; which reduces the matter to a plain impossibility. Now, if the necessitarian has not been deceived by an unwarrantable ambiguity on the part of his adversary, he has clearly reduced his doctrine to the absurdity of an infinite series of acts: that is to say, if the advocate of free-agency does not depart from the ordinary meaning of words, when he affirms that mind is theefficient causeof volition; and if he does not use these terms“efficient cause,”in different senses in the same sentence, then we feel bound to say that he is fairly caught in the toils of his adversary. But we are not yet in condition to pass a final judgment between the parties.
The necessitarian contends that“volition, or an act of the mind, is the effect of motive, and that it is subject to the power and action of its cause.”126The advocate of free-will replies, If we must suppose an action of motive on the mind to account for its act, we must likewise suppose another action to account for the action of motive; and so onad infinitum. Thus the necessitarian seems to be fairly caught in his own toils, and entrapped by his own definition and arguments.
Our decision (for the correctness of which we appeal to the calm and impartial judgment of the reader) is as follows: If the termcausebe understood in the first or the second sense above mentioned, there is no disagreement between the contending parties; and if it be understood in the third sense, then both parties are in error. If, in order to account for an act of the mind, we suppose it is caused by an action of motive, we are involved in the absurdity of an infinite series of actions; and on the other hand, if we suppose it is caused by a preceding act of the mind itself, we are forced into the same absurdity. Hence, we conclude, that an act of the mind, or a volition, is not produced by the action of either mind or motive, but takes its rise in the world without any such efficient cause of its existence.
Each party has refuted his adversary, and in the enjoyment of his triumph he seems not to have duly reflected on the destruction of his own position. Both are in the right, and both are in the wrong; but, as we shall hereafter see, not equally so. If we adopt the argument of both sides, in so far as it is true, we shall come to the conclusion that action must take its rise somewhere in the universe without being caused by preceding action. And if so, where shall we look for its origin? in that which by nature is endowed with active power, or in that which is purely and altogether passive?
We lay it down, then, as an established and fundamental position, that the mind acts or puts forth its volitions without being efficiently caused to do so—without being impelled by its own prior action, or by the prior action of anything else. The conditions or occasions of volition being supplied, the mind itself acts in view thereof, without being subject to the power or action of any cause whatever. All rational beings must, as we have seen, either admit this exemption of the mind in willing from the power and action of any cause, or else lose themselves in the labyrinth of an infinite series of causes. It is this exemption which constitutes the freedom of the human soul.
We are now prepared to see, in a clear light, the sophistical nature of the pretended demonstration of the scheme of necessity.“It is impossible to consider occurrences,”says Sir James Mackintosh, otherwise than as bound together in“the relation of cause and effect.”Now this relation, if we interpret it according to the nature of things, and not according to the sound of words, is not one, but two.
The motions of the body are caused by the mind, that is, they are produced by the action of the mind; this constitutes one relation: but acts of the mind are caused, that is, they are produced by the action of nothing; and this is a quite different relation. In other words, the motions of body are produced by preceding action, and the acts of the mind are not produced by preceding action. Hence, the first are necessitated, and the last are free: the first come under“the relation of cause and effect,”and the last come under a very different relation. The relation of cause and effect connects the most remote consequences of volition with volition itself; but when we reach volition[pg 154]there a new relation arises: it is the relation which subsists between an agent and its act. We may trace changes in the external world up to the volitions or acts of mind, and perceive no diversity in the chain of dependencies; but precisely at this point the chain of cause and effect ceases, and agency begins. The surrounding circumstances may be conditions, may be occasional causes, may be predisposing causes, but they are not, and cannot be, producing or efficient causes. Here, then, the iron chain terminates, and freedom commences. In the ambiguity which fails to distinguish between“the relation of cause and effect,”and the relation which volition bears to its antecedents,“consists the strength of the necessitarian system.”Let this distinction be clearly made and firmly borne in mind, and the great boasted adamantine scheme of necessity will resolve itself into an empty, ineffectual sound.
Hence, if we would place the doctrine of liberty upon solid grounds, it becomes necessary to modify the categories of M. Cousin. All things, says he, fall under the one or the other of the two following relations: the relation between subject and attribute, or the relation between cause and effect. This last category, we think, should be subdivided, so as to give two relations; one between cause and effect, properly so called, and the other between agent and action. Until this be done, it will be impossible to extricate the phenomena of the will from the mechanism of cause and effect.
We think we might here leave the stupendous sophism of the necessitarian; but as it has exerted so wonderful an influence over the human mind, and obscured, for ages, the glory of the moral government of God, we may well be permitted to pursue it further, and to continue the pursuit so long as a fragment or a shadow of it remains to be demolished.
Section IV.The scheme of necessity is fortified by false conceptions.One of the notions to which the cause of necessity owes much of its strength, is a false conception of liberty, as consisting in“a power over the determinations of the will.”Hence it is said that this power over the will can do nothing, can cause no determination except by acting to produce it. But according[pg 155]to this notion of liberty, this causative act cannot be free unless it be also caused by a preceding act; and so onad infinitum. Such is one of the favourite arguments of the necessitarian. But in truth the freedom of the mind does not consist in its possessing a power over the determinations of its own will, for the true notion of freedom is a negative idea, and consists in the absence of every power over the determinations of the will. The mind is free because it possesses a power of acting, over which there is no controlling power, either within or without itself.It must be admitted, it seems to us, that the advocates of free-agency have too often sanctioned this false conception of liberty, and thereby strengthened the cause of their opponents. Cudworth, Clark, Stuart, Coleridge, and Reid, all speak of this supposed power of the mind over the determinations of the will, as that which constitutes its freedom. Thus says Reid, for example:“By the liberty of a moral agent, I understand a power over the determinations of his own will.”Now, it is not at all strange that this language should be conceived by necessitarians in such a manner as to involve the doctrine of liberty in the absurd consequence of an infinite series of acts, since it is so understood by some of the most enlightened advocates of free-agency themselves.“A power over the determinations of our will,”says Sir William Hamilton,“supposes an act of the will that our will should determine so and so; for we can only exert power through a rational determination or volition.This definition of liberty is right.But the question upon question remains, (and thisad infinitum)—have we a power (a will) over such anterior will? and until this question be definitively answered, which it never can, we must beunable to conceive the possibility of the fact of liberty. But, though inconceivable, this fact is not therefore false.”True, we are unable to conceive the possibility of the fact of liberty, if this must be conceived as consisting in a power over the determinations of the will; but, in our humble opinion, this definition of liberty is not right. It seems more correct to say, that the freedom of the will consists in the absence of a power over its determinations, than in the presence of such a power.There is another false conception which has given great apparent force to the cause of necessity. It is supposed that[pg 156]the states of the will, the volitions, are often necessitated by the necessitated states of the sensibility. In other words, it is supposed that the appetites, passions, and desires, often act upon the will, and produce its volitions. But this seems to be a very great mistake, which has arisen from viewing the subtle operations of the mind through the medium of those mechanical forms of thought that have been derived from the contemplation of the phenomena of the material world. In truth, the feelings do not act at all, and consequently they cannot act upon the will. It is absurd, as Locke and Edwards well say, to ascribe power, which belongs to the agent himself, to the properties of an agent. Hence, it is absurd to suppose that our feelings, appetites, desires, and passions, are endowed with power, and can act. They are not agents—they are merely the properties of an agent. It is the mind itself which acts, and not its passions. These are but passive impressions made upon the sensibility; and hence,“it is to philosophize very crudely concerning mind, and to image everything in a corporeal manner,”to conceive that they act upon the will and control its determinations, just as the motions of body are caused and controlled by the action of mind.127This conception, however, is not peculiar to the necessitarian. It has been most unfortunately sanctioned by the greatest advocates of free-agency. Thus says Dr. Reid, in relation to the appetites and passions:“Such motives are not addressed to the rational powers. Their influence isimmediatelyupon the will.”“When a man is acted upon by contrary motives of this kind, he finds it easy to yield to the strongest.They are like two forces pushing him in contrary directions. To yield to the strongest he needs only be passive.”If this be so, how can Dr. Reid maintain, as he does, that“the determination was made by theman, and not by the motive?”To this assertion Sir William Hamilton replies:“But was themandetermined by no motive to that determination? Was his specific volition to this or to that without a cause? On the supposition that the sum of the influences (motives, dispositions, tendencies) to volition A is equal to 12, and the sum of counter volition B, equal to 8—can we conceive that the determination of volition A should not be necessary? We can only conceive the volition[pg 157]B to be determined by supposing that the mancreates(calls from nonexistence into existence) a certain supplement of influences. But this creation as actual, or in itself, is inconceivable; and even to conceive the possibility of this inconceivable act, we must suppose some cause by which the man is determined to exert it. We thusin thought, never escape determination and necessity. It will be observed that I do not consider this inability to notion any disproof of the fact of free-will.”It is true, that if we suppose, according to the doctrine of Sir William and Dr. Reid, that two counter influences act upon the will, the one being as 12 and the other as 8, then the first must necessarily prevail. But if this supposition be correct, we are not only unable to conceive the fact of liberty, we are also able to conceive that it cannot be a fact at all. There is a great difference, we have been accustomed to believe, between being unable to conceive how a thing is, and being able to conceive that it cannot be anyhow at all: the first would leave it a mere mystery,—the last would show it to be an absurdity. In the one case, the thing would be above reason, and in the other, contrary to reason. Now, to which of these categories does the fact of liberty, as left by Sir William Hamilton, belong? Is it a mystery, or is it an absurdity? Is it an inconceivable fact, or is it a conceived impossibility? It seems to us that it is the latter; and that if we will only take the pains to view the phenomena of mind as they exist in consciousness, and not through the medium of material analogies, we shall be able to untie the knot which Sir William Hamilton has found it necessary to cut.The doctrine of liberty, if properly viewed, is perfectly conceivable. We can certainly conceive that the omnipotence of God can put forth an act without being impelled thereto by a power back of his own; and to suppose otherwise, is to suppose a power greater than God's, and upon which the exercise of his omnipotence depends. By parity of reason, we should be compelled to suppose another power still back of that, and so onad infinitum. This is not only absurd, but, as Calvin truly says, it is impious. Here, then, we have upon the throne of the universe a clear and unequivocal instance of a self-active power,—a power whose goings forth are not impelled by any[pg 158]power without itself. It goes forth, it is true, in the light of the Eternal Reason, and in pursuit of the ends of the Eternal Goodness; but yet in itself it possesses an infinite fulness, being self-sustained, self-active, and wholly independent of all other powers and influences whatsoever.Now, if such a Being should create at all, it is not difficult to conceive that he would create subordinate agents, bearing his own image in this, namely, the possession of a self-active power. It is not difficult to conceive that he should produce spiritual beings like himself, who can act without being necessitated to act, like the inanimate portions of creation, as well as those of an inferior nature. Nor is it more difficult to conceive that man, in point of fact, possesses such a limited self-active power, than it is to conceive that God possesses an infinite self-active power. Indeed we must and do conceive this, or else we should have no type or representative in this lower part of the world, by and through which to rise to a contemplation of its universal Lord and Sovereign. We should have a temple without a symbol, and a universe without a God. But God has not thus left himself without witness; for he has raised man above the dust of the earth in this, that he is endowed with a self-active power, from whence, as from an humble platform, he may rise to the sublime contemplation of the Universal Mover of the heavens and the earth. But for this ray of light, shed abroad in our hearts by the creative energy of God, the nature of the divine power itself would be unknown to us, and its eternal, immutable glories shrouded in impenetrable darkness. The idea of an omnipotent power, moving in and of itself in obedience to the dictates of infinite wisdom and goodness, would be forever merged and lost in the dark scheme of an implexed series and concatenation of causes, binding all things fast, God himself not excepted, in the iron bonds of fate.If liberty be afact, as Sir William Hamilton contends it is, then no such objections can be urged against it as those in which he supposes it to be involved. We are aware of what may be said in favour of such a mode of viewing subjects of this kind, as well as of the nature of the principles from which it takes its rise. But we cannot consider those principles altogether sound. They appear to be too sceptical, with respect[pg 159]to the powers of the human mind, and the destiny of human knowledge. The sentiment of Leibnitz seems to rest upon a more solid foundation.“It is necessary to come,”says he,“to the grand question which M. Bayle has recently brought upon the carpet, to wit, whether a truth, and especially a truth of faith, can be subject to unanswerable objections. That excellent author seems boldly to maintain the affirmative of this question: he cites grave theologians on his side, and even those of Rome, who appear to say what he pretends; and he adduces philosophers who have believedthat there are even philosophical truths, the defenders of which cannot reply to objections made against them.”“For my part,”says Leibnitz,“I avow that I cannot be of the sentiment of those who maintain that a truth can be liable to invincible objections; for what is anobjectionbut an argument of which the conclusion contradicts our thesis? and is not an invincible argument a demonstration?”“It is always necessary to yield to demonstrations, whether they are proposed for our adoption, or advanced in the form of objections. And it is unjust and useless to wish to weaken the proofs of adversaries, under the pretext that they are only objections; since the adversary has the same right, and can reverse the denominations, by honouring his arguments with the name ofproofs, and lowering yours by the disparaging name of objections.”128There is another false conception, by which the necessitarian fortifies himself in his opposition to the freedom of the will. As he identifies the sensibility and the will, so when the indifference of the latter is spoken of, the language is understood to mean that the mind is indifferent, and destitute of all feeling or emotion. But this is to view the doctrine of liberty, not as it is held by its advocates, but as it is seen through the medium of a false psychology. We might adduce a hundred examples of the truth of this remark, but one or two must suffice. Thus, Collins supposes that the doctrine of liberty implies, that the mind is“indifferent to good and evil;”“indifferent to what causespleasureorpain;”“indifferent to all objects, and swayed by no motives.”Gross as this misrepresentation of the doctrine of free-agency is, it is frequently made by its opponents. It occurs repeatedly in the writings of President Edwards and President[pg 160]Day.129The freedom of thewill, indeed, no more implies an indifference of thesensibilitythan the power of a bird to fly implies the existence of a vacuum.
One of the notions to which the cause of necessity owes much of its strength, is a false conception of liberty, as consisting in“a power over the determinations of the will.”Hence it is said that this power over the will can do nothing, can cause no determination except by acting to produce it. But according[pg 155]to this notion of liberty, this causative act cannot be free unless it be also caused by a preceding act; and so onad infinitum. Such is one of the favourite arguments of the necessitarian. But in truth the freedom of the mind does not consist in its possessing a power over the determinations of its own will, for the true notion of freedom is a negative idea, and consists in the absence of every power over the determinations of the will. The mind is free because it possesses a power of acting, over which there is no controlling power, either within or without itself.
It must be admitted, it seems to us, that the advocates of free-agency have too often sanctioned this false conception of liberty, and thereby strengthened the cause of their opponents. Cudworth, Clark, Stuart, Coleridge, and Reid, all speak of this supposed power of the mind over the determinations of the will, as that which constitutes its freedom. Thus says Reid, for example:“By the liberty of a moral agent, I understand a power over the determinations of his own will.”Now, it is not at all strange that this language should be conceived by necessitarians in such a manner as to involve the doctrine of liberty in the absurd consequence of an infinite series of acts, since it is so understood by some of the most enlightened advocates of free-agency themselves.“A power over the determinations of our will,”says Sir William Hamilton,“supposes an act of the will that our will should determine so and so; for we can only exert power through a rational determination or volition.This definition of liberty is right.But the question upon question remains, (and thisad infinitum)—have we a power (a will) over such anterior will? and until this question be definitively answered, which it never can, we must beunable to conceive the possibility of the fact of liberty. But, though inconceivable, this fact is not therefore false.”True, we are unable to conceive the possibility of the fact of liberty, if this must be conceived as consisting in a power over the determinations of the will; but, in our humble opinion, this definition of liberty is not right. It seems more correct to say, that the freedom of the will consists in the absence of a power over its determinations, than in the presence of such a power.
There is another false conception which has given great apparent force to the cause of necessity. It is supposed that[pg 156]the states of the will, the volitions, are often necessitated by the necessitated states of the sensibility. In other words, it is supposed that the appetites, passions, and desires, often act upon the will, and produce its volitions. But this seems to be a very great mistake, which has arisen from viewing the subtle operations of the mind through the medium of those mechanical forms of thought that have been derived from the contemplation of the phenomena of the material world. In truth, the feelings do not act at all, and consequently they cannot act upon the will. It is absurd, as Locke and Edwards well say, to ascribe power, which belongs to the agent himself, to the properties of an agent. Hence, it is absurd to suppose that our feelings, appetites, desires, and passions, are endowed with power, and can act. They are not agents—they are merely the properties of an agent. It is the mind itself which acts, and not its passions. These are but passive impressions made upon the sensibility; and hence,“it is to philosophize very crudely concerning mind, and to image everything in a corporeal manner,”to conceive that they act upon the will and control its determinations, just as the motions of body are caused and controlled by the action of mind.127
This conception, however, is not peculiar to the necessitarian. It has been most unfortunately sanctioned by the greatest advocates of free-agency. Thus says Dr. Reid, in relation to the appetites and passions:“Such motives are not addressed to the rational powers. Their influence isimmediatelyupon the will.”“When a man is acted upon by contrary motives of this kind, he finds it easy to yield to the strongest.They are like two forces pushing him in contrary directions. To yield to the strongest he needs only be passive.”If this be so, how can Dr. Reid maintain, as he does, that“the determination was made by theman, and not by the motive?”To this assertion Sir William Hamilton replies:“But was themandetermined by no motive to that determination? Was his specific volition to this or to that without a cause? On the supposition that the sum of the influences (motives, dispositions, tendencies) to volition A is equal to 12, and the sum of counter volition B, equal to 8—can we conceive that the determination of volition A should not be necessary? We can only conceive the volition[pg 157]B to be determined by supposing that the mancreates(calls from nonexistence into existence) a certain supplement of influences. But this creation as actual, or in itself, is inconceivable; and even to conceive the possibility of this inconceivable act, we must suppose some cause by which the man is determined to exert it. We thusin thought, never escape determination and necessity. It will be observed that I do not consider this inability to notion any disproof of the fact of free-will.”
It is true, that if we suppose, according to the doctrine of Sir William and Dr. Reid, that two counter influences act upon the will, the one being as 12 and the other as 8, then the first must necessarily prevail. But if this supposition be correct, we are not only unable to conceive the fact of liberty, we are also able to conceive that it cannot be a fact at all. There is a great difference, we have been accustomed to believe, between being unable to conceive how a thing is, and being able to conceive that it cannot be anyhow at all: the first would leave it a mere mystery,—the last would show it to be an absurdity. In the one case, the thing would be above reason, and in the other, contrary to reason. Now, to which of these categories does the fact of liberty, as left by Sir William Hamilton, belong? Is it a mystery, or is it an absurdity? Is it an inconceivable fact, or is it a conceived impossibility? It seems to us that it is the latter; and that if we will only take the pains to view the phenomena of mind as they exist in consciousness, and not through the medium of material analogies, we shall be able to untie the knot which Sir William Hamilton has found it necessary to cut.
The doctrine of liberty, if properly viewed, is perfectly conceivable. We can certainly conceive that the omnipotence of God can put forth an act without being impelled thereto by a power back of his own; and to suppose otherwise, is to suppose a power greater than God's, and upon which the exercise of his omnipotence depends. By parity of reason, we should be compelled to suppose another power still back of that, and so onad infinitum. This is not only absurd, but, as Calvin truly says, it is impious. Here, then, we have upon the throne of the universe a clear and unequivocal instance of a self-active power,—a power whose goings forth are not impelled by any[pg 158]power without itself. It goes forth, it is true, in the light of the Eternal Reason, and in pursuit of the ends of the Eternal Goodness; but yet in itself it possesses an infinite fulness, being self-sustained, self-active, and wholly independent of all other powers and influences whatsoever.
Now, if such a Being should create at all, it is not difficult to conceive that he would create subordinate agents, bearing his own image in this, namely, the possession of a self-active power. It is not difficult to conceive that he should produce spiritual beings like himself, who can act without being necessitated to act, like the inanimate portions of creation, as well as those of an inferior nature. Nor is it more difficult to conceive that man, in point of fact, possesses such a limited self-active power, than it is to conceive that God possesses an infinite self-active power. Indeed we must and do conceive this, or else we should have no type or representative in this lower part of the world, by and through which to rise to a contemplation of its universal Lord and Sovereign. We should have a temple without a symbol, and a universe without a God. But God has not thus left himself without witness; for he has raised man above the dust of the earth in this, that he is endowed with a self-active power, from whence, as from an humble platform, he may rise to the sublime contemplation of the Universal Mover of the heavens and the earth. But for this ray of light, shed abroad in our hearts by the creative energy of God, the nature of the divine power itself would be unknown to us, and its eternal, immutable glories shrouded in impenetrable darkness. The idea of an omnipotent power, moving in and of itself in obedience to the dictates of infinite wisdom and goodness, would be forever merged and lost in the dark scheme of an implexed series and concatenation of causes, binding all things fast, God himself not excepted, in the iron bonds of fate.
If liberty be afact, as Sir William Hamilton contends it is, then no such objections can be urged against it as those in which he supposes it to be involved. We are aware of what may be said in favour of such a mode of viewing subjects of this kind, as well as of the nature of the principles from which it takes its rise. But we cannot consider those principles altogether sound. They appear to be too sceptical, with respect[pg 159]to the powers of the human mind, and the destiny of human knowledge. The sentiment of Leibnitz seems to rest upon a more solid foundation.“It is necessary to come,”says he,“to the grand question which M. Bayle has recently brought upon the carpet, to wit, whether a truth, and especially a truth of faith, can be subject to unanswerable objections. That excellent author seems boldly to maintain the affirmative of this question: he cites grave theologians on his side, and even those of Rome, who appear to say what he pretends; and he adduces philosophers who have believedthat there are even philosophical truths, the defenders of which cannot reply to objections made against them.”“For my part,”says Leibnitz,“I avow that I cannot be of the sentiment of those who maintain that a truth can be liable to invincible objections; for what is anobjectionbut an argument of which the conclusion contradicts our thesis? and is not an invincible argument a demonstration?”“It is always necessary to yield to demonstrations, whether they are proposed for our adoption, or advanced in the form of objections. And it is unjust and useless to wish to weaken the proofs of adversaries, under the pretext that they are only objections; since the adversary has the same right, and can reverse the denominations, by honouring his arguments with the name ofproofs, and lowering yours by the disparaging name of objections.”128
There is another false conception, by which the necessitarian fortifies himself in his opposition to the freedom of the will. As he identifies the sensibility and the will, so when the indifference of the latter is spoken of, the language is understood to mean that the mind is indifferent, and destitute of all feeling or emotion. But this is to view the doctrine of liberty, not as it is held by its advocates, but as it is seen through the medium of a false psychology. We might adduce a hundred examples of the truth of this remark, but one or two must suffice. Thus, Collins supposes that the doctrine of liberty implies, that the mind is“indifferent to good and evil;”“indifferent to what causespleasureorpain;”“indifferent to all objects, and swayed by no motives.”Gross as this misrepresentation of the doctrine of free-agency is, it is frequently made by its opponents. It occurs repeatedly in the writings of President Edwards and President[pg 160]Day.129The freedom of thewill, indeed, no more implies an indifference of thesensibilitythan the power of a bird to fly implies the existence of a vacuum.
Section V.The scheme of necessity is recommended by false analogies.It is insisted that there is no difficulty in conceiving of a caused action or volition; but this position is illustrated by false and deceptive analogies. Thus says an advocate of necessity:“The term passive is sometimes employed to express the relation of an effect to its cause. In this sense, it is so far from being inconsistent with activity, that activity may be the very effect which is produced. A cannonshot is said to be passive, with respect to the charge of powder which impels it. But is there no activity given to the ball? Is not the whirlwind active when it tears up the forest?”130Not at all, in any sense pertaining to the present controversy. The tremendous power, whatever it may be, which sets the whirlwind in motion, is active; the wind itself is perfectly passive. The air is acted on, and it merelysuffersa change of place. If it tears up the forest, this is not because it exercises an active power, but because it is body coming into contact with body, and both cannot occupy the same space at one and the same time. It tears up the forest, not as an agent, but as an instrument.The same is true of the cannonball. This does notact; it merelymoves. It does not put forth a volition, or an exercise of power; it merely suffers a change of place. In one word, there is no sort of resemblance between an act of mind and the motion of body. This has no active power, and cannot be made to act: it is passive, however, and may be made to move. If the question were, Can a body be made to move? these illustrations would be in point; but as it relates to the possibility of causing the mind to put forth a volition, they are clearly irrelevant. And if they were really apposite, they would only show that the mind may be caused to act like a cannonball, a whirlwind, a clock, or any other piece of machinery. This is the only kind ofactionthey serve to prove may be caused; and[pg 161]such action, as it is called, has far more to do with machinery than with human agency.President Edwards also has recourse to false analogies. To select only one instance:“It is no more a contradiction,”says he,“to suppose that action may be the effect of some other cause besides the agent, or being that acts, than to suppose that life may be the effect of some other cause besides the being that lives.”131Now, as we are wholly passive in the reception of life, so it may be wholly conferred upon us by the power and agency of God. The very reason why we suppose an act cannot be caused is, that it is a voluntary exercise of our own minds; whereas, if it were caused, it would be a necessitated passive impression. How can it show the fallacy of this position, to refer to the case of a caused life, in regard to which, by universal consent, we do not and cannot act at all?The younger Edwards asserts, that“to say that an agent that is acted upon cannot act, is as groundless as to say that a body acted upon cannot move.”Again:“My actions aremine; but in what sense can they be properly called mine, if I be not the efficient cause of them?—Answer: my thoughts and all my perceptions and feelings aremine; yet it will not be pretended that I am the efficient cause of them.”132But in regard to all our thoughts and feelings, we are, as we have seen, altogether passive; and these are ours, because they are necessarily producedin us. Is it only in this sense that our acts are ours? Are they ours only because they are necessarily caused to exist in our minds? If so, then indeed we understand these writers; but if they are not merely passive impressions, why resort to states of the intelligence and the sensibility, which are conceded to be passive, in order to illustrate the reasonableness of their scheme, and to expose the unreasonableness of the opposite doctrine? We admit that every passive impression is caused; but the question is, Can the mind be caused to act? As we lay all the stress on thenature of an act, as seen in the light of consciousness, what does it signify to tell us that another thing, which possesses no such nature, may be efficiently caused? All such illustrations overlook the essential difference between action and passion, betweendoingandsuffering.
It is insisted that there is no difficulty in conceiving of a caused action or volition; but this position is illustrated by false and deceptive analogies. Thus says an advocate of necessity:“The term passive is sometimes employed to express the relation of an effect to its cause. In this sense, it is so far from being inconsistent with activity, that activity may be the very effect which is produced. A cannonshot is said to be passive, with respect to the charge of powder which impels it. But is there no activity given to the ball? Is not the whirlwind active when it tears up the forest?”130Not at all, in any sense pertaining to the present controversy. The tremendous power, whatever it may be, which sets the whirlwind in motion, is active; the wind itself is perfectly passive. The air is acted on, and it merelysuffersa change of place. If it tears up the forest, this is not because it exercises an active power, but because it is body coming into contact with body, and both cannot occupy the same space at one and the same time. It tears up the forest, not as an agent, but as an instrument.
The same is true of the cannonball. This does notact; it merelymoves. It does not put forth a volition, or an exercise of power; it merely suffers a change of place. In one word, there is no sort of resemblance between an act of mind and the motion of body. This has no active power, and cannot be made to act: it is passive, however, and may be made to move. If the question were, Can a body be made to move? these illustrations would be in point; but as it relates to the possibility of causing the mind to put forth a volition, they are clearly irrelevant. And if they were really apposite, they would only show that the mind may be caused to act like a cannonball, a whirlwind, a clock, or any other piece of machinery. This is the only kind ofactionthey serve to prove may be caused; and[pg 161]such action, as it is called, has far more to do with machinery than with human agency.
President Edwards also has recourse to false analogies. To select only one instance:“It is no more a contradiction,”says he,“to suppose that action may be the effect of some other cause besides the agent, or being that acts, than to suppose that life may be the effect of some other cause besides the being that lives.”131Now, as we are wholly passive in the reception of life, so it may be wholly conferred upon us by the power and agency of God. The very reason why we suppose an act cannot be caused is, that it is a voluntary exercise of our own minds; whereas, if it were caused, it would be a necessitated passive impression. How can it show the fallacy of this position, to refer to the case of a caused life, in regard to which, by universal consent, we do not and cannot act at all?
The younger Edwards asserts, that“to say that an agent that is acted upon cannot act, is as groundless as to say that a body acted upon cannot move.”Again:“My actions aremine; but in what sense can they be properly called mine, if I be not the efficient cause of them?—Answer: my thoughts and all my perceptions and feelings aremine; yet it will not be pretended that I am the efficient cause of them.”132But in regard to all our thoughts and feelings, we are, as we have seen, altogether passive; and these are ours, because they are necessarily producedin us. Is it only in this sense that our acts are ours? Are they ours only because they are necessarily caused to exist in our minds? If so, then indeed we understand these writers; but if they are not merely passive impressions, why resort to states of the intelligence and the sensibility, which are conceded to be passive, in order to illustrate the reasonableness of their scheme, and to expose the unreasonableness of the opposite doctrine? We admit that every passive impression is caused; but the question is, Can the mind be caused to act? As we lay all the stress on thenature of an act, as seen in the light of consciousness, what does it signify to tell us that another thing, which possesses no such nature, may be efficiently caused? All such illustrations overlook the essential difference between action and passion, betweendoingandsuffering.
Section VI.The scheme of necessity is rendered plausible by a false phraseology.The false psychology, of which we have spoken, has been greatly strengthened and confirmed in its influences by the phraseology connected with it. As Mr. Locke distinguished between will and desire, partially at least, so he likewise distinguished a preference of the mind from a volition. But President Edwards is not satisfied with this distinction.“The instance he mentions,”says Edwards,“does not prove there is anything else inwillingbut merely preferring.”133This may be very true; but is there nothing in willing, inacting, but merelypreferring? This last term, however it may be applied, seems better adapted to express a state of the intelligence, than an act of the will. Two objects are placed before the mind: one affects the sensibility in a more agreeable manner than the other, and therefore the intelligence pronounces that one is more to be desired than the other. This seems to be precisely what is meant by the use of the term preference. One prefers an orange to an apple, for instance, because the orange affects his sensibility more agreeably than the apple; and the intelligence perceiving this state of the sensibility, declares in favour of the orange. This decision of the judgment is what is usually meant by the use of the term preference, or choice. To prefer, is merely to judge, in view of desire, which of two objects is more agreeable. But judging and desiring are, as we have seen, both necessitated states of the mind. Why, then, apply the term preference, or choice, to acts of the will? Why apply a term, which seems to express merely a state of the intelligence, which all concede is necessitated, to an act of the will? Is it not evident, that by such a use of language the cause of necessity gains great apparent strength?There is another way in which the language of the necessitarian deceives. The language he employs often represents the facts of nature, but not facts as they would be, if his system were true. Hence, when this system is attacked, its advocates repel the attack by the use of words which truly represent nature, but not their errors. This gives great plausibility[pg 163]to their apologies. Thus, when it is objected that the scheme of necessity“makes men no more than mere machines,”they are always ready to reply,“that notwithstanding this doctrine, man is entirely, perfectly, and unspeakably different from a machine.”But how? Is it because his volitions, as they are called, are not necessarily determined by causes? No. Is it because his will may be loose from the influence of motives? No. Is it because he may follow the strongest motive, or may not follow it? No. Nothing of the kind is hinted. How does the man, then, differ so entirely from a machine? Why,“in that he has reason and understanding, with a faculty of will, and so is capable of volition and choice.”True, a machine has no reason or understanding; but suppose it had, would it be a person? By no means. We have seen that the understanding, or the intelligence, is necessarily determined; all its states are necessitated as completely as the movements of a machine. This constitutes an essential likeness, and it is what is always meant, when it is said that necessity makes men mere machines. But it seems that man also has“a faculty of will, and so is capable of volition or choice.”134Yes, he canact. Now this language means something according to the system of nature; but what does it mean according to the system of necessity? It merely means that the human mind is susceptible of being necessitated to undergo a change by the“power and action of a cause,”which the advocates of that system are pleased to call an act. They never hint that we are not machines, because we have any power by which we are exempt from the most absolute dominion of causes. They never hint that we are not machines, because our volitions, or acts, are not as necessarily produced in us, as the motions of a clock are produced in it. Now, if this scheme were true, there would be no such things as acts or volitions in us: all the phenomena of our minds would be passive impressions, like our judgments and feelings. When they speak of the will, then, which is capable of volitions, or acts, they deceive by using the language of nature, and not of their false scheme.
The false psychology, of which we have spoken, has been greatly strengthened and confirmed in its influences by the phraseology connected with it. As Mr. Locke distinguished between will and desire, partially at least, so he likewise distinguished a preference of the mind from a volition. But President Edwards is not satisfied with this distinction.“The instance he mentions,”says Edwards,“does not prove there is anything else inwillingbut merely preferring.”133This may be very true; but is there nothing in willing, inacting, but merelypreferring? This last term, however it may be applied, seems better adapted to express a state of the intelligence, than an act of the will. Two objects are placed before the mind: one affects the sensibility in a more agreeable manner than the other, and therefore the intelligence pronounces that one is more to be desired than the other. This seems to be precisely what is meant by the use of the term preference. One prefers an orange to an apple, for instance, because the orange affects his sensibility more agreeably than the apple; and the intelligence perceiving this state of the sensibility, declares in favour of the orange. This decision of the judgment is what is usually meant by the use of the term preference, or choice. To prefer, is merely to judge, in view of desire, which of two objects is more agreeable. But judging and desiring are, as we have seen, both necessitated states of the mind. Why, then, apply the term preference, or choice, to acts of the will? Why apply a term, which seems to express merely a state of the intelligence, which all concede is necessitated, to an act of the will? Is it not evident, that by such a use of language the cause of necessity gains great apparent strength?
There is another way in which the language of the necessitarian deceives. The language he employs often represents the facts of nature, but not facts as they would be, if his system were true. Hence, when this system is attacked, its advocates repel the attack by the use of words which truly represent nature, but not their errors. This gives great plausibility[pg 163]to their apologies. Thus, when it is objected that the scheme of necessity“makes men no more than mere machines,”they are always ready to reply,“that notwithstanding this doctrine, man is entirely, perfectly, and unspeakably different from a machine.”But how? Is it because his volitions, as they are called, are not necessarily determined by causes? No. Is it because his will may be loose from the influence of motives? No. Is it because he may follow the strongest motive, or may not follow it? No. Nothing of the kind is hinted. How does the man, then, differ so entirely from a machine? Why,“in that he has reason and understanding, with a faculty of will, and so is capable of volition and choice.”True, a machine has no reason or understanding; but suppose it had, would it be a person? By no means. We have seen that the understanding, or the intelligence, is necessarily determined; all its states are necessitated as completely as the movements of a machine. This constitutes an essential likeness, and it is what is always meant, when it is said that necessity makes men mere machines. But it seems that man also has“a faculty of will, and so is capable of volition or choice.”134Yes, he canact. Now this language means something according to the system of nature; but what does it mean according to the system of necessity? It merely means that the human mind is susceptible of being necessitated to undergo a change by the“power and action of a cause,”which the advocates of that system are pleased to call an act. They never hint that we are not machines, because we have any power by which we are exempt from the most absolute dominion of causes. They never hint that we are not machines, because our volitions, or acts, are not as necessarily produced in us, as the motions of a clock are produced in it. Now, if this scheme were true, there would be no such things as acts or volitions in us: all the phenomena of our minds would be passive impressions, like our judgments and feelings. When they speak of the will, then, which is capable of volitions, or acts, they deceive by using the language of nature, and not of their false scheme.
Section VII.The scheme of necessity originates in a false method, and terminates in a false religion.This system, as we have seen, has been built up, not by an analysis of the phenomena of the human mind, but by means of universal abstractions and truisms. It takes its rise, not from the facts of nature, but from the conceptions of the intellect. In other words, instead of anatomizing the world which God has made so as to exhibit the actual plan according to which it has been constituted, it sets out from certain identical propositions, such as that every effect must have a cause, and proceeds to inform us how the worldmusthave been constituted. This“usual method of discovery and proof,”as Bacon says,“by first establishing the most general propositions, then applying and proving the intermediate axioms according to these, is the parent of error and the calamity of every science.”Nowhere, it is believed, can a more striking illustration of the truth of these pregnant words be found, than in the method adopted by necessitarians. They begin with the universal proposition, that every effect must have a cause, as a self-evident truth, and then proceed, not to examine and discover how the world is made, but to demonstrate how itmusthave been constructed. This is not to“interpret,”it is to“anticipate”nature.By this higha priorimethod the freedom of the human mind is demonstrated, as we have seen, to be an impossibility, and the accountability of man a dream. Man is not responsible for sin, or rather, there is no such thing as moral good and evil in the lower world; since God, the only efficient fountain of all things and events, is the sole responsible author of all evil as well as of all good. Such, as we have seen, are the inevitable logical consequences of this boasted scheme of necessity.But we have clearly shown, we trust, that the grand demonstration of the necessitarian is a sophism, whose apparent force is owing to a variety of causes:—First, it seeks out, and lays its foundation in, a false psychology; identifying the feelings, or affections, and the will. Secondly, by viewing the opposite scheme through the medium of this false psychology, it reduces[pg 165]its main position to the pitiful absurdity that a thing may produce itself, or arise out of nothing, and bring itself into existence; and then demolishes this absurdity by logic! Thirdly, it reduces itself to the truism, that a thing is always as it is; and being entrenched in this stronghold, it gathers around itself all the common sense and all the reason of mankind, as well it may, and looks down with sovereign contempt on the feeble attacks of its adversaries. Fourthly, it fortifies itself by a multitude of false conceptions, arising from a hasty application of its universal truism, and not from a severe inspection and analysis of things. Fifthly, it decorates itself in false analogies, and thereby assumes the imposing appearance of truth. Sixthly, it clothes itself in deceptive and ambiguous phraseology, by which it speaks the language of truth to the ear, but not to the sense. And, seventhly, it takes its rise in a false method, and terminates in a false religion.These are some of the hidden mysteries of the scheme of necessity; which having been detected and exposed, we do not hesitate to pronounce it a grand imposition on the reason of mankind. As such, we set aside this stupendous sophism, whose dark shadow has so long rested on the beauty of the world, obscuring the intrinsic majesty and glory of the infinite goodness therein displayed. We put away and repudiate this vast assemblage of errors, which has so sadly perplexed our mental vision, and so frightfully distorted the real proportions of the world, as to lead philosophers, such as Kant and others, to pronounce a Theodicy impossible. We put them aside utterly, in order that we may proceed to vindicate the glory of God, as manifested in the constitution and government of the moral world.
This system, as we have seen, has been built up, not by an analysis of the phenomena of the human mind, but by means of universal abstractions and truisms. It takes its rise, not from the facts of nature, but from the conceptions of the intellect. In other words, instead of anatomizing the world which God has made so as to exhibit the actual plan according to which it has been constituted, it sets out from certain identical propositions, such as that every effect must have a cause, and proceeds to inform us how the worldmusthave been constituted. This“usual method of discovery and proof,”as Bacon says,“by first establishing the most general propositions, then applying and proving the intermediate axioms according to these, is the parent of error and the calamity of every science.”Nowhere, it is believed, can a more striking illustration of the truth of these pregnant words be found, than in the method adopted by necessitarians. They begin with the universal proposition, that every effect must have a cause, as a self-evident truth, and then proceed, not to examine and discover how the world is made, but to demonstrate how itmusthave been constructed. This is not to“interpret,”it is to“anticipate”nature.
By this higha priorimethod the freedom of the human mind is demonstrated, as we have seen, to be an impossibility, and the accountability of man a dream. Man is not responsible for sin, or rather, there is no such thing as moral good and evil in the lower world; since God, the only efficient fountain of all things and events, is the sole responsible author of all evil as well as of all good. Such, as we have seen, are the inevitable logical consequences of this boasted scheme of necessity.
But we have clearly shown, we trust, that the grand demonstration of the necessitarian is a sophism, whose apparent force is owing to a variety of causes:—First, it seeks out, and lays its foundation in, a false psychology; identifying the feelings, or affections, and the will. Secondly, by viewing the opposite scheme through the medium of this false psychology, it reduces[pg 165]its main position to the pitiful absurdity that a thing may produce itself, or arise out of nothing, and bring itself into existence; and then demolishes this absurdity by logic! Thirdly, it reduces itself to the truism, that a thing is always as it is; and being entrenched in this stronghold, it gathers around itself all the common sense and all the reason of mankind, as well it may, and looks down with sovereign contempt on the feeble attacks of its adversaries. Fourthly, it fortifies itself by a multitude of false conceptions, arising from a hasty application of its universal truism, and not from a severe inspection and analysis of things. Fifthly, it decorates itself in false analogies, and thereby assumes the imposing appearance of truth. Sixthly, it clothes itself in deceptive and ambiguous phraseology, by which it speaks the language of truth to the ear, but not to the sense. And, seventhly, it takes its rise in a false method, and terminates in a false religion.
These are some of the hidden mysteries of the scheme of necessity; which having been detected and exposed, we do not hesitate to pronounce it a grand imposition on the reason of mankind. As such, we set aside this stupendous sophism, whose dark shadow has so long rested on the beauty of the world, obscuring the intrinsic majesty and glory of the infinite goodness therein displayed. We put away and repudiate this vast assemblage of errors, which has so sadly perplexed our mental vision, and so frightfully distorted the real proportions of the world, as to lead philosophers, such as Kant and others, to pronounce a Theodicy impossible. We put them aside utterly, in order that we may proceed to vindicate the glory of God, as manifested in the constitution and government of the moral world.