An Examination of President Edwards' Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will Part 4

Such was the idea of Butler himself. He frequently speaks of the supremacy of conscience, in terms such as the following: "That principle by which we survey, and either approve or disapprove, our heart, temper, and actions, is not only to be considered as what in its turn is to have some influence, which may be said of every pa.s.sion, of the basest appet.i.te; but likewise as being superior; as from its very nature manifestly claiming superiority over all others; insomuch that you cannot form a notion of this faculty conscience, without taking in judgement, direction, and superintendency. This is a const.i.tuent part of the idea, that is of the faculty itself; and to preside and govern, from the very economy and const.i.tution of man, belongs to it. Had it _might_, as it has right; had it _power_, as it has manifest authority; it would absolutely govern the world."

This language, it should be observed, is not used in a metaphorical sense; it occurs in the statement of a philosophical theory of human nature. Similar language is frequently to be found in the writings of the most enlightened advocates of free-agency. Thus, says Jouffroy, even while he is contending against the doctrine of necessity: "There are two kinds of _moving powers_ acting upon us; first, the impulses of instinct, or pa.s.sion; and, secondly, the conceptions of reason. . . . .

That these two kinds of moving powers can and do, act efficiently upon our volitions, there can be no doubt," p. 102. If it were necessary, it might be shown, by hundreds of extracts from their writings, that the great advocates of free-agency have held, that the emotions, desires, and pa.s.sions, do really act on the will, and tend to produce volitions.

But why dwell upon particular instances? If any advocate of free-agency had really believed, that the pa.s.sions, desires, affections, &c., exert no influence over the will, is it not certain that he would have availed himself of this principle? If the principle that no desire, or affection, or pa.s.sion, is possessed of any power or causal influence, had been adopted by the advocates of free-agency, its bearing in favour of their cause would have been too obvious and too important to have been overlooked. The necessitarian might have supposed, if he had pleased, that our desires and affections are produced by the action of external objects; and yet, on the supposition that these exerted no positive or causal influence, the doctrine of liberty might have been most successfully maintained. For, after all, the desires and affections thus produced in the mind, would not, on the supposition in question, be the causes of our volitions. They would merely be the occasions on which we act. There would be no necessary connexion between what are called motives and their corresponding actions. Our desires or emotions might be under the influence and dominion of external causes, or of causes that are partly external and partly internal; but yet our volitions would be perfectly free from all preceding influences whatever. Our volitions might depend on certain conditions, it is true, such as the possession of certain desires or affections; but they would not result from the influence or action of them. They would be absolutely free and uncontrolled. The reason why this principle has not been employed by the advocates of free-agency is, I humbly conceive, because it has not been entertained by them.

In short, if the advocates of free-agency had shaken off the common illusion that there is a real efficiency, or causal influence, exerted by the desires of the soul, they would have made it known in the most explicit and unequivocal terms. Instead of resorting to the expedients they have adopted, in order to surmount the difficulties by which they have been surrounded, they would, every where and on all occasions, have reminded their adversaries that those difficulties arise merely from ascribing a literal signification to language, which is only true in a metaphorical sense; and we should have had pages, not to say volumes, concerning this use of language, where we have not had a syllable.

If the illusion in question has been as general as I have supposed, it is not difficult to account for its prevalence. The fact that a desire, or affection is the indispensable condition, the invariable antecedent, of an act of the will, is of itself sufficient to account for the prevalence of such a notion. Nothing is more common than for men to mistake an invariable antecedent for an efficient cause. This source of error, it is well known, has given rise to some of the most obstinate delusions that have ever infested and enslaved the human mind.

And besides, when such an error or illusion prevails, its hold upon the mind is confirmed and rendered almost invincible by the circ.u.mstance, that it is interwoven into the structure of all our language. In this case in particular, we never cease to speak of "the active principles,"

of "the ruling pa.s.sion," of "ungovernable desire," of "the dominion of l.u.s.t," of being "enslaved to a vicious propensity;"--in a thousand ways, the idea that there is a real efficiency in the desires and affections of the soul, is wrought into the structure of our language; and hence, there is no wonder that it has gained such an ascendency over our thoughts. It has met us at every turn; it has presented itself to us in a thousand shapes; it has become so familiar, that we have not even stopped to inquire into its true nature. Its dominion has become complete and secure, just because its truth has never been doubted.

The illusion in question, if it be one, has derived an accession of strength from another source. It is a fact, that whenever we feel intensely, we do, as a general thing, act with a proportioned degree of energy; and _vice versa_. Hence, we naturally derive the impression, that the determinations of the will are produced by the strength of our feelings. If the pa.s.sion or desire is languid, (since we must use a metaphor,) the action is in general feeble; and if it is intense, the act is _usually_ powerful and energetic. Hence, we are p.r.o.ne to conclude, that the mind is moved to act by the influence of pa.s.sion or desire; and that the energy of the action corresponds with the strength of the motive, or moving principle.

Though the principle in question has been so commonly received, I think we should be led to question it in consequence of the conclusions which have been deduced from it. If our desires, affections, &c., operate to influence the will, how can it be free in putting forth volitions? How does Mr. Locke meet this difficulty? Does he tell us, that it arises solely from our mistaking a metaphorical for a literal mode of expression? Far from it.

He does not place liberty on the broad ground, that the desires by which volitions are supposed to be determined, are in reality nothing more than the conditions or occasions on which the mind acts; and that they themselves can exert no positive influence or efficiency. The liberty of the soul consists, according to him, not in the circ.u.mstance that its desires do not _operate_, but in its power to arrest the operation of its desires. He admits that they operate, that they tend to produce volition; but the mind is nevertheless free, because it can suspend the operation of desire, and prevent the tendency thereof from pa.s.sing into effect. "There being," says he, "in us a great many uneasinesses always soliciting and ready to determine the will, it is natural, as I have said, that the greatest or most pressing should determine the will to the next action; and so it does for the most part, but not always. For the mind having in most cases, as is evident in experience, a power to suspend the execution and satisfaction of its desires, and so all, one after another, examine them on all sides, and weigh them with others. In this lies the liberty man has."

Thus we are supposed to be free, because we have a power to resist, in some cases at least, the influence of desire. But this is not always the case. Our desires may be so strong as entirely to overcome us--and what then? Why we cease to be free agents; and it is only when the storm of pa.s.sion subsides, that we are restored to the rank of accountable beings. "Sometimes a boisterous pa.s.sion hurries away our thoughts," says Locke, "as a hurricane does our bodies, without leaving us the liberty of thinking on other things, which we would rather choose. But as soon as the mind regains the power to stop or continue, begin or forbear, any of these motives of the body without, or thoughts within, according as it thinks fit to prefer either to the other, we then consider the man as a free-agent again." This language is employed by Mr. Locke, while attempting to define the idea of liberty or free-agency; and he evidently supposed, as appears from the above pa.s.sage, as well as from some others, that we frequently cease to be free-agents, in consequence of the irresistible power of our desires or pa.s.sions.

Dr. Reid set out from the same position, and he arrived at the same conclusion. He frequently speaks of the appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions as so many forces, whose action is "directly upon the will." "They draw a man towards a certain object, without any further view, by a sort of violence."--Essays, p. 18. "When a man is acted upon by motives of this kind, he finds it easy to yield to the strongest. They are like two forces pus.h.i.+ng him in contrary directions. To yield to the strongest, he need only be pa.s.sive," p. 237. "In actions that proceed from appet.i.te and pa.s.sion, we are pa.s.sive in part and only in part active. They are therefore in part imputed to the pa.s.sion; and if it is supposed to be irresistible, we do not impute them to the man at all. Even an American savage judges in this way; when in a fit of drunkenness he kills his friend; as soon as he comes to himself, he is very sorry for what he has done, but pleads that drink, and not he, was the cause," p. 14, 15. Such is the dreadful consequence, which Dr. Reid boldly deduces from the principle, that the appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions do really act upon the will.

Though he was an advocate of free-agency; yet, holding this principle, he could speak of _actions that are partly pa.s.sive;_ and that in so far as they are pa.s.sive, he maintained they should not be imputed to the man whose actions they are, but to the pa.s.sions by which they are produced, This may appear to be strange doctrine for an advocate of free-agency and accountability; but it seems to be the natural and inevitable consequence of the commonly received notion with respect to the relation which subsists between the pa.s.sions and the will.

The principle that our appet.i.tes, desires, &c., do exert a real influence in the production of volition, was common to Edwards, Locke, and Reid: indeed, so far as I know, it has been universally received. In the opinion of Edwards, this influence becomes "so powerful" at times as to establish a moral necessity beyond all question; and in that of Locke and Reid, it is sometimes so great as to destroy free-agency and accountability. Is not this inference well drawn? It seems to me that it is; and this const.i.tutes one reason, why I deny the principle from which it is deduced.

Is it true, then, that any power or efficacy belongs to the sensitive or emotive part of our nature? Reflection must show us, I think, that it is absurd to suppose that any desire, affection, or disposition of the mind, can really and truly exert any positive or productive influence.

When we speak of the appet.i.tes, desires, affections, &c., as the "active principles" of our nature, we must needs understand this as a purely metaphorical mode of expression.

Edwards himself has shown the impropriety of regarding similar modes of speech as a literal expression of the truth. "To talk of liberty," says he, "or the contrary, as belonging to the _very will itself_, is not to speak good sense; if we judge of sense, and nonsense, by the original and proper signification of words. For the will _itself_ is not an agent that _has a will:_ the power of choosing, itself, has not a power of choosing. That which has the power of volition is the man, or the soul, and not the power of volition itself. To be free is the property of an agent, who is possessed of powers and faculties, as much as to be cunning, valiant, bountiful, or zealous. But _these qualities are the properties of persons_, and not the _properties of properties_." This remark, no doubt, is perfectly just, as well as highly important. And it may be applied with equal force and propriety, to the practice of speaking of the strength of motives, or inclinations, or desires; for power is a "property of the person, or the soul; and not the property of a property."

It appeared exceedingly absurd to the author of the "Inquiry," to speak of "the free acts of the will," as being _determined by the will itself;_ because the _will_ is not an agent, and "actions are to be ascribed to agents, and not properly to the powers and properties of agents." But he seemed to perceive no absurdity, in speaking of "the free acts of the will," as being caused by the strongest motives, by the dispositions and appet.i.tes of the soul. Now, are the strongest motives, as they are called, are the strongest dispositions and desires of the soul, agents, or are they merely the properties of agents? Let the necessitarian answer this question, and then determine whether his logic is consistent with itself.

Mr. Locke, also, has well said, that it is absurd to inquire whether "the will be free or no; inasmuch as _liberty_, which is but a _power_, belongs only to agents, and cannot be an attribute or modification of will, which is also but a power." Though Mr. Locke applied this remark to the usual form of speech, by which freedom is ascribed to the will, he failed to do so in regard to the language by which power, which is a property of the mind itself, is ascribed to our desires, or pa.s.sions, or affections, which are likewise properties of the mind. And hence have arisen many of his difficulties in regard to the freedom of human actions. Supposing that our desires exerted some positive influence or efficiency in the production of volitions, his views on the subject of free-agency become vague, inconsistent, fluctuating and unsatisfactory.

The hypothesis that the desires impel the will to act, is inconsistent with observed facts. If this hypothesis were true, the phenomena of volition would be very different from what they are. A man may desire that it should rain, for example; he may have the most intense feeling on this subject imaginable, and there may be no counteracting desire or feeling whatever; now if desire ever impelled a man to volition, it would induce him, in such a case, to will that it should rain. But no man, in his senses, ever puts forth a volition to make it rain--and why?

Just because he is a rational creature, and knows that his volition cannot produce any such effect. In the same manner, a man might wish to fly, or to do a thousand other things which are beyond his power; and yet not make the least effort to do so, not because he has no power to put forth such efforts, but because he does not choose to make a fool of himself: This shows that desire, feeling, &c., is merely one of the conditions necessary to volition, and not its producing cause.

Again. It has been frequently observed, since the time of Butler, that our pa.s.sive impressions often become weaker and weaker, while our active habits become stronger and stronger. Thus, the feeling of pity, by being frequently excited, may become less and less vivid, while the active habit of benevolence, by which it is supposed to be induced, becomes more and more energetic. That is to say, while the power, as it is called, or the causal influence, is gradually diminis.h.i.+ng, the effect, which is supposed to flow from it, is becoming more and more conspicuous. And again, the feeling of pity is sometimes exceedingly strong; that is to say, exceedingly vivid and painful, while there is no act attending it. The pa.s.sive impression or susceptibility is entirely dissociated, in many cases, from the acts of the will. The feeling often exists in all its _power_, and yet there is no act, and no disposition to act, on the part of the individual who is the subject of it. The cause operates, and yet the effect does not follow!

All that we can say is, that when we see the mind deeply agitated, and, as it were, carried away by a storm of pa.s.sion, we also observe that it frequently acts with great vehemency. But we do not observe, and we do not know, that this increased _power of action_, is the result of an increased _power of feeling_. All that we know is, that as a matter of fact, when our feelings are languid, we are apt to act but feebly; and that when they are intense, we are accustomed to act with energy. Or, in other words, that we do not _ordinarily_ act with so much energy in order to gratify a slight feeling or emotion, as we do to gratify one of greater intensity and painfulness. But it is wrong to conclude from hence, that it is the increased intensity of feeling, which produces the increased energy of the action. No matter how intense the feeling, it is wrong to conclude, that it literally causes us to act, that it ever lays the will under constraint, and thereby destroys, even for a moment, our free-agency. Such an a.s.sumption is a mere hypothesis, unsupported by observation, inconsistent with the dictates of reason, and irreconcilable with observed facts.

I repeat it, such an a.s.sumption is inconsistent with observed facts; for who that has any energy of will, has not, on many a trying occasion, stood firm amid the fiercest storm of pa.s.sion; and, though the elements of discord raged within, remained _himself_ unmoved; giving not the least sign or manifestation of what was pa.s.sing in his bosom? Who has not felt, on such an occasion, that although the pa.s.sions may storm, yet the will alone is power?

It is not uncommon to see this truth indirectly recognized by those who _absolutely know_ that some power is exerted by our pa.s.sions and desires, and that the will is always determined by the strongest. Thus, says President Day, "our acts of choice, are _not_ always controlled by those emotions which _appear to be most vivid_. We often find a determined and settled purpose, apparently calm, but unyielding, which carries a man steadily forward, amid all the solicitations of appet.i.te and pa.s.sion The inflexible determination of Howard, _gave law to his emotions_, and guided his benevolent movements," p. 65. Here, although President Day holds that the will is determined by the strongest desire, pa.s.sion, or emotion, he unconsciously admits that the will, "the inflexible determination," is independent of them all.

Let it be supposed, that no one means so absurd a thing as to say, that the affections themselves act upon the will, but that the mind in the exercise of its affections acts upon it, and thereby exerts a power over its determinations; let us suppose, that this is the manner in which a real force is supposed to bear upon the will; and what will be the consequence? Why, if the will is not distinguished from the affections, we shall have the will acting upon itself; a doctrine to which the necessitarian will not listen for a moment. And if they are distinguished from the will, we shall have two powers of action, two forces in the mind, each contending for the mastery. But what do we mean by a will, if it is not the faculty by which the mind acts, by which it exerts a _real force?_ And if this be the idea and definition of a will, we cannot distinguish the will from the affections, and say that the latter exerts a real force, without making two wills. This seems to be the inevitable consequence of the commonly received notion, that the mind, in the exercise of its affections, does really act upon the will with an impelling force. Indeed, there seems to have been no little perplexity and confusion of conception on this subject, arising from the extreme subtlety of our mental processes, as well as from the ambiguities of language.

The truth is, that in feeling the mind is pa.s.sive; and it is absurd to make a pa.s.sive impression, the active cause of any thing. The sensibility does not _act_, it merely _suffers_. The appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions, which have always been called the "active powers," the "moving principles," and so forth, should be called the pa.s.sive susceptibilities. Unless this truth be clearly and fully recognized, and the commonly received notion respecting the relation which the appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions sustain to the will, to the _active power_, be discarded, it seems to me, that the great doctrine of the liberty of the will, must continue to be involved in the sadest perplexity, the most distressing darkness.

SECTION IX.

OF THE LIBERTY OF INDIFFERENCE.

IF, as I have endeavoured to show, the appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions exert no positive influence in the production of volition, if they do not sustain the relation of cause to the acts of the will; then is the doctrine of the liberty of indifference placed in a clear and strong light having admitted that the sensitive part of our nature always tends to produce volition, and in some cases irresistibly produces it, the advocates of free agency have not been able to maintain the doctrine of a perfect liberty in regard to all human actions. They have been compelled to retire from the broad and open field of the controverted territory, and to take their stand in a dark corner, in order to contend for that perfect liberty, without which there cannot be a perfect and unclouded accountability. Hence, it has been no uncommon thing, even for those who have been the most disposed to sympathize with them, to feel a dissatisfaction in reading what they have written on the subject of a liberty of indifference. This they have placed in a perfect freedom to choose between a few insignificant things, in regard to which we have no feeling; while, in regard to the great objects which relate to our eternal destiny, we have been supposed to enjoy no such freedom.

The true liberty of indifference does not consist, as I have endeavoured to show, in a power to resist the influence of the appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions struggling to produce volition; because there is no such influence in existence. This notion is enc.u.mbered with insuperable difficulties; it supposes two powers struggling for the mastery--the desires on the one hand, and the will on the other; and that when the desires are so strong as to prevail, and bear us away in spite of ourselves, we cease to be free agents. It supposes that at no time we have a perfect liberty, unless we are perfectly dest.i.tute of feeling; and that at some of the most trying, and critical, and awful moments of our existence, we have no liberty at all; the whole man being pa.s.sive to the power and dominion of the pa.s.sions. What a wound is thus given to the cause of free-agency and accountability! What scope is thus allowed for the sophistry of the pa.s.sions! Every man who can persuade himself that his appet.i.tes, his desires, or his pa.s.sions, have been too strong for him, may blind his mind to a sense of his guilt, and lull his conscience into a fatal repose.

The necessitarian, like a skilful general, is not slow to attack this weak point in the philosophy of free-agency. If our emotions operate to produce volition, says he, then the strongest must prevail; to say otherwise, is to say that it is not the strongest. This is the ground uniformly occupied by President Day. And it is urged by President Edwards, that if a great degree of such influence destroys free agency, as it is supposed to do, then every smaller degree of it must impair free agency; and hence, according to the principles and scheme of its advocates, it cannot be perfect. Is not this inference well drawn?

Indeed, it seems to me, that while the notion that our desires possess a real power and efficacy, which are exerted over the will, maintains its hold upon the mind, the great doctrine of liberty can never be seen in the brightness of its full-orbed glory; and that it must, at times, suffer a total eclipse.

The liberty which we really possess, then, does not consist in an indifference of the desires and affections, but in that of the will itself. We are perfectly free, says the libertarian, in regard to all those things about which our feelings are in a state of indifference; such as touching one of two spots, or choosing one of two objects that are perfectly alike. To this the necessitarian replies, what does it signify that a man has a perfect liberty in regard to the choice of "one of two peppercorns?" Are not such things perfectly insignificant, and unworthy "the grave attention of the philosopher," while treating of the great questions of moral good and evil?

There is some truth in this reply, and some injustice. It truly signifies nothing, that we are at perfect liberty to choose between two pepper-corns, if we are not so to choose between good and evil, life and death. But in making this attack upon the position of his opponent, when viewed as designed to serve the cause of free-agency, the necessitarian overlooks its bearing upon his own scheme. He contends, that the mind cannot act unless it is made to act by some extraneous influence: this is a universal proposition, extending to all our mental acts; and hence, if it can be shown that, in a single instance, the mind can and does put forth a volition, without being made to do so, his doctrine is subverted from its foundations. If this can be shown, by a reference to the case of "two pepper-corns," it may be made to serve an important purpose in philosophy, how much soever it may be despised by the philosopher.

If we keep the distinction between the will and the sensibility in mind, it will throw much light on what has been written in regard to the subject of indifference. If you offer a guinea and a penny to a man's choice, asks President Day, which will he choose? Will the one exert as great an influence over him as the other? President Day may a.s.sert, if he pleases, that the guinea will exert the greater influence over his feelings; but this does not destroy the equilibrium of the will. The feelings and the will are different. By the one we feel, by the other we act; by the one we _suffer_, by the other we _do_. Why, then, will the man be certain to choose the guinea, all other things being equal? Not because its influence acts upon the will, either directly or indirectly through the pa.s.sions, and compels him to choose it, but because he has a purpose to accomplish; and, as a rational being, he sees that the guinea will answer his purpose better than the penny. He is not made to act, therefore, by a blind impulse; he acts freely in the light of reason.

The philosophy of the necessitarian overlooks the slight circ.u.mstance, that the will of man is not a ball to be set a-going by external impulse; but that man is a rational being, made in the image of his Maker, and can act as a designing cause. Hence, when we affirm that the will of man acts without being made to do so by the action of any thing upon _the will itself_, he imagines that we dethrone the Almighty, and "place chance upon the throne of the moral universe." Day on the Will, p. 195. But I would remind him, once for all, that the act of a free designing cause, no less than that of a necessitated act, proceeding from an efficient cause, (if such a thing can be conceived,) is utterly inconsistent with the idea of accident. Choice in its very nature is opposed to chance.

The doctrine of the indifference of the will has been subjected to another mode of attack. This doctrine implies that we have a power to choose one thing or another; or, as it is sometimes called, a power of choice to the contrary. For, if the will is not controlled by any extraneous influence, it is evident that we may choose a thing, or let it alone--that we may put forth a volition, or refuse to put it forth.

This power, which results from the idea of indifference as just explained, is regarded as in the highest degree absurd; and a torrent of impetuous questions is poured forth to sweep it away. "When Satan, as a roaring lion," asks President Day, "goeth about, seeking whom he may devour, is he equally inclined to promote the salvation of mankind?" &c.

&c. &c. Now, I freely admit, that when Satan is inclined to do evil, and is actually doing it, he is not inclined to the contrary. I freely admit that a thing is not different from itself; and the learned author is welcome to all such triumphant positions.

In the same easy way, President Edwards, as he imagines, demolishes the doctrine of indifference. He supposes that, according to this doctrine, the will does not choose when it does choose; and, having supposed this, he proceeds to demolish it, as if he were contending with a thousand adversaries; and yet, I will venture to affirm, that no man in his senses ever maintained such a position. The most contemptible advocate of free-agency that ever lived, has maintained nothing so absurd as that the mind ever chooses without choosing. This is the light in which the doctrine of indifference is frequently represented by Edwards, but it is a gross misrepresentation.

"The question is," says Edwards, "whether ever the soul of man puts forth an act of will, while it yet remains in a state of liberty, viz: as implying a state of indifference; or whether the soul ever exerts an act of preference, while at the very time _the will_ is in a perfect equilibrium, not inclining one way more than another," p. 72. If this be the point in dispute, he may well add, that "the very putting of the question is sufficient to show the absurdity of the affirmative answer;"

and he might have added, the utter futility of the negative reply. "How ridiculous," he continues, "for any body to insist that the soul chooses one thing before another, when, at the very same instant, it is perfectly indifferent with respect to each! This is the same thing as to say, we shall prefer one thing to another, at the very same time that it has no preference. Choice and preference can no more be in a state of indifference than motion can be in a state of rest," &c. p. 72. And he repeats it over and over again, that this is to put "the soul in a state of choice, and in a state of equilibrium at the same time;" "choosing one way, while it remains in a state of perfect indifference, and has no choice of one way more than the other;" p. 74. "To suppose the will to act at all in a state of indifference, is to a.s.sert that the mind chooses without choosing," p. 64; and so in various other places.

Now, if the doctrine of the indifference of the will, as commonly understood, amounts to this, that the will does not choose when it chooses, then Edwards was certainly right in opposing it; but how could he have expected to correct such incorrigible blockheads as the authors of such a doctrine must have been, by the force of logic?

Edwards has not always, though frequently, mis-stated the doctrine of his adversaries. The liberty of indifference, says he, in one place, consists in this, "that the will, in choosing, is subject to _no prevailing_ influence," p. 64. Now this is a fair statement of the doctrine in question. Why did not Edwards, then, combat this idea? Why transform it into the monstrous absurdity, that "the will chooses without choosing," or exerts an act of choice at the same time that it exerts no act of choice; and then proceed to demolish it? Was it because he did not wish to march up, fairly and squarely, in the face of the enemy, and contend with them in their strongholds and fastnesses? By no means. There never was a more honest reasoner than Edwards. But his psychology is false; and hence, he has not only misrepresented the doctrine of his opponents, but also his own. He confounds the sensitive part of our nature with the will, expressly in his definitions, though he frequently distinguishes them in his arguments. This is the reason why he sometimes a.s.serts, that the choice of the mind is always as the sense of the most agreeable; and, at others, throws this fundamental doctrine into the form, as we have seen in our third section, that the choice of the mind is always as the choice of the mind; and holds that to deny it is a plain contradiction. By reason of the same confusion of things, the doctrine of his opponents, that "the will, in choosing, is subject to no prevailing influence," seemed to him to mean that the will, in choosing, does not choose. In both cases, he confounds the most agreeable impression upon the sensibility with the choice of the mind; and thus misrepresents both his own doctrine, and that of his opponents, by reducing the one to an insignificant truism, and the other to a glaring absurdity. President Day should have avoided the error of Edwards, in thus misconceiving the doctrine of his opponents; for he expressly distinguishes the sensibility from the will. But there is this difference between Edwards and Day; the first expressly confounds these two parts of our nature, and then proceeds to reason, in many cases, as if they were distinct; while the last most explicitly distinguishes them, and then frequently proceeds to reason as if they were one and the same. It is in this way that he also gravely teaches that the mind chooses when it chooses; and makes his adversaries a.s.sert that the mind chooses without choosing, or that the will is inclined without being inclined. Start from whatever point he will, the necessitarian never feels so strong, as when he finds himself securely intrenched in the truism, that a thing is always as itself; there manfully contending against those who a.s.sert that a thing is different from itself.

The doctrine of the liberty of indifference, as usually held, is this--that the will is not determined by any prevailing influence. This is not a perfect liberty, it is true, wherever the will is partially influenced by an extraneous cause; but it is not equivalent to the gross absurdity of the position, that the will chooses without choosing. Nor can we possibly reduce it to this form, unless we forget that the authors of it did not confound that which is supposed to exert the influence over the will, with the act of the will itself. They contended for a partial indifference of the will only; and, consequently, they could only contend for a partial, and not a perfect liberty. On the contrary, I think we should contend for a perfect indifference, not in regard to feeling, but in regard to the will. Standing on this high ground, we need not retire from the broad and open field, in order to set up the empire of a perfect liberty in a dark corner, extending to a few insignificant things only: we may establish it over the whole range of human activity, bringing out into a clear and full light, the great fact of man's perfect accountability, for all his _actions_, under all the circ.u.mstances of his life.

SECTION X.

OF ACTION AND Pa.s.sION.

THERE are no two things in nature which are more perfectly distinct than action and pa.s.sion; the one necessarily excludes the other. Thus, if an effect is produced in any thing, by the action or influence of something else, then is the thing in which the effect is produced wholly pa.s.sive in regard to it. The effect itself is called pa.s.sion or pa.s.siveness. It is not an act of that in which it is produced; it is an effect resulting wholly from that which produces it. To say that a thing acts then, is to say that it is not pa.s.sive; or, in other words, that its act is not produced by the action or influence of any thing else. To suppose that an act is so produced, is to suppose that it is not an act; the object in which it is said to be caused being wholly pa.s.sive in regard to it.

If this statement be correct, it follows that an act of the mind cannot be a produced effect; that the ideas of action and pa.s.sion, of cause and effect, are opposite and contrary the one to the other; and hence, it is absurd to a.s.sert that the mind may be caused to act, or that a volition can be produced by any thing acting upon the mind. This is a self-evident truth. The younger Edwards calls for proof of it; but the only evidence there is in the case, is that which arises from the nature of the things themselves, as they must appear to every mind which will bestow suitable reflection on the subject. But as he held the affirmative, maintaining that the mind is caused to act, it would have been well for him to have furnished proof himself, before he called for it from the opposite party.

It may be said, that if it were self-evident that the mind cannot be caused to act, it would appear so to all men, and there could be no doubt on the subject; that a truth or proposition cannot be said to be self-evident, unless it carries irresistible conviction to every mind to which it is proposed. But this does not follow. Previous to the time of Galileo, it was universally believed by mankind, that if a body were set in motion, it would run down of itself; though it should meet with no resistance whatever in its progress. But that great philosopher, by reflecting on the nature of matter, very clearly saw, that if a body were put in motion, and met with no resistance, it would continue to move on in a right line forever. As matter is inert, so he saw that it could not put itself in motion; and if put in motion by the action of any thing upon it, he perceived with equal clearness that it could not check itself in its career. He perceived that it is just as impossible for pa.s.sive, inert matter, to change its state from motion to rest, as it is for it to change its state from rest to motion. Thus, by simply reflecting upon the nature of matter, as that which cannot act, the mind of Galileo recognized it as a self-evident and unquestionable truth, that if a body be put in motion, and there is nothing to impede its career, it will move on in a right line forever. This great law of motion, first recognized by Galileo, and afterwards adopted by all other philosophers, is called the law of inertia; because its truth necessarily results from the fact, that matter is essentially inert, or cannot act.

I am aware it has been contended by Mr. Whewell, in his Bridgewater Treatise, that the law of motion in question is not a necessary or self-evident truth; and the reason he a.s.signs is, that if it were a truth of this nature, it would have been recognized and believed by all men before the time of Galileo. But this reason is not good. For if it did not appear self-evident to those philosophers who lived before Galileo, it was because they did not bestow sufficient reflection upon the subject, and not because it was not a self-evident truth. All men had seen bodies moving only in a resisting medium, amid counteracting influences; and having always seen them run down in such a medium, they very naturally concluded that a body put in motion would run down of itself. Yielding to an illusion of the senses, instead of rising above it by a sustained effort of reason and meditation, they supposed that the motion of a body would spend itself in the course of time, and so come to an end without any cause of its extinction. This is the reason why they did not see, what must have appeared to be a self-evident truth, if they had bestowed sufficient reflection upon the subject, instead of being swayed by an illusion of the senses.