An Examination of President Edwards' Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will Part 5

Mr. Whewell admits the law in question to be a truth; he only denies that it is a necessary or self-evident truth. Now, if it be not a necessary truth, I should like to know how he has ascertained it to be a truth at all. Has any man ever seen a body put in motion, and continue to move on in a right line forever? Has any man ever ascertained the truth of this law by observation and experiment? It is evident, that if it be true at all, it must be a necessary truth. Who that is capable of rising above the a.s.sociations of sense, so as to view things as they are in themselves, can meditate upon this subject, without perceiving that the law of _inertia_ is a self-evident truth, necessarily arising out of the very nature of matter?

It does not follow, then, that a truth is not "self-evident", because it does not appear so to all men; for some may be blinded to the truth by an illusion of the senses. This is the case, with the necessitarian. He has always seen the motion of body produced by the action of something else; and hence, confounding the activity of mind with the motion of body, he concludes that volition is produced by the prior action of something else. All that he needs in order to see the impossibility of such a thing, is severe and sustained meditation. But how can we expect this from him? Is he not a great reasoner, rather than a great thinker?

Does he not display his skill in drawing logical conclusions from the illusions of the senses, and a.s.sumptions founded thereon; rather than in laying his foundations and his premises aright, in the immutable depths of meditation and consciousness? We may appeal to his _reason_, and he will fall to _reasoning_. We may ask for _meditation_, and he will give us _logic_. Indeed, he wants that severe and scrutinizing observation which pierces through all the illusions and a.s.sociations of the senses, rising to a contemplation of things as they are in themselves; which is one of the best attributes of the great thinker.

To show that he does this, I shall begin with President Day. No other necessitarian has made so formal and elaborate an attempt to prove, that the mind may be caused to act. He undertakes to answer the objection which has been urged against the scheme of moral necessity, that it confounds action and pa.s.sion. It is alleged, that a volition cannot be produced or caused by the action or influence of any thing. To this President Day replies, "these are terms of very convenient ambiguity, with which it is easy to construct a plausible but fallacious argument.

The word pa.s.sive is sometimes used to signify that which is _inactive_.

With this meaning, it must, of course, be the opposite of every thing which is active. To say that that which is in _this_ sense pa.s.sive, is at the same time active, is to a.s.sert that that which is active is not active. But this is not the only signification of the term pa.s.sive in common use. It is very frequently used to express the relation of an effect to its cause," p. 159.

Now, here is the distinction, but is it not without a difference? If an effect is produced, is it not pa.s.sive in relation to its cause? This is not denied. Is it active then in relation to any thing? President Day says it is. But is this so? Is not an effect, which is wholly produced in one thing by the action or influence of another, wholly pa.s.sive? Is not the thing which, according to the supposition, is wholly pa.s.sive to the influence acting upon it, wholly pa.s.sive? In other words; is it made to act? Does it not merely suffer? If it is endued with an active nature, and really puts forth an act, is not this act clearly different from the pa.s.sive impression made upon it?

One would certainly suppose so, but for the logic of the necessitarian.

Let us examine this logic. "The term pa.s.sive," says President Day, "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 thing may be _caused_ to be active. A cannon shot is said to be pa.s.sive, 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?"

&c. &c., p. 160.

Now, all these ill.u.s.trations are brought to show that the mind may be caused to act;--that it may be pa.s.sive in relation to the cause of its volition, and active in relation to the effect of its volition. A more striking instance could not be adduced to prove the correctness of the a.s.sertion already made, that the necessitarian confounds the motion of body with the action of mind. "A thing may be caused to act," says President Day. But how does he show this? By showing that a thing may be caused to move! "Is no _activity_ given to the ball? Is not the whirlwind _active_, when it tears up the forest?" And so he goes on, leaving the light of reason and of consciousness; now rus.h.i.+ng into the darkness of the whirlwind; now riding "on the mountain wave;" and now plunging into the depths of "volcanic lava;"--all the time in quest of light respecting the phenomena of mind! We could have wished him to stop awhile, in the impetuous current of rhetoric, and inform us, whether he really considers, "the motion of a ball" as the same thing with the volition of the mind. If he does, then he may suppose that his ill.u.s.trations are to the purpose, how great soever may be his mistake; but if he supposes there is a real difference between them, how can he ever pretend to show that mind may be caused to act, by showing that body may be caused to move?

I freely admit, that body may be caused to move. Body is perfectly pa.s.sive in motion; and hence, its motion may be caused. But the mind is not pa.s.sive in volition; and hence the difference in the two cases. It is an error, as I have already said, pervading the views of the necessitarian, that he confounds the action of mind with the motion of body. Even Mr. Locke, who, in some places, has recognized the essential difference between them, has frequently confounded them in his reasonings and ill.u.s.trations. Hence, it becomes necessary to bear this distinction always in mind, in the examination of their writings. It should be rendered perfectly clear to our minds by meditation; and never permitted to grow dim through forgetfulness. This is indispensably necessary to shut out the illusions of the senses, in order that we may have a clear and unclouded view of the phenomena of nature.

Is the motion of body, then, one and the same thing with the action of mind? They are frequently called by the same name. The motion of mind, and the action of body, are very common modes of expression. Body is said to act, when it only moves; and mind is said to move, when it really acts. These metaphors and supposed a.n.a.logies are intimately and inseparably interwoven into the very frame-work of our language; and hence the necessity of guarding against them in our conceptions. They are almost as subtle as the great adversary of truth; and therefore we should be constantly on the watch, lest we should be deceived or misled by them.

Let us look, then, at these things just as they are in themselves. When a body moves, it simply pa.s.ses from one place to another; and when the mind acts or chooses, it simply prefers one thing to another. Here, there is no real ident.i.ty or sameness of nature. The body _suffers_ a change; the mind itself _acts_. The one is pure pa.s.sim or pa.s.siveness; the other is pure action--the very opposite of pa.s.sivity. The one is a _suffering_, and the other is a _doing_. There are no two things in the whole range of nature, which are more perfectly and essentially distinct; and he who confounds them in his reasonings, as philosophers have so often done, can never arrive at a clear perception of the truth.

President Day, if he intended any thing to the purpose, undertook to show that an act may be produced in mind, in that which is active, by the action or influence of something else; and what has he shown? Why, that body may be caused to move! Let a case be produced in which the mind, the active soul of man, is made to act: let a case be produced in which a volition is caused to exist in the soul of man, by the action or influence of any thing whatever, and it will be something to the purpose: but what does it signify to tell us, that a body, that that which is wholly and essentially pa.s.sive in its nature, may be made to move, or _suffer_ a change of place? A more palpable sophism was never perpetrated; and that such a mind should have recourse to such an argument, only betrays the miserable weakness, and the forlorn hopelessness, of the cause in which it is enlisted.

Indeed, the learned president seems, after all, to be at least half conscious that the a.n.a.logies of matter can throw no light on the phenomena of mind; and that what he has so eloquently said, amounts to just nothing at all. For he says, "It may be objected, that these are all examples of _inanimate_ objects; and that they have no proper application to mental activity," p. 161. Yes, truly, this is the very objection which we should urge against all the fine ill.u.s.trations of President Day; and it is a full and complete answer to them. It is the great principle of the inductive study of mind, that its phenomena can be understood only in so far as we have observed them in the pure light of consciousness, and no farther; they should never be viewed through the darkening and confounding a.n.a.logies of matter.

No one, that I know of, has ever denied that a body may be caused to move; the only point on which we desire to be enlightened is, whether the mind may be caused to act. To this point President Day next directly comes. Leaving "inanimate objects," he says, "take the case of deep and earnest thinking. Is there no activity in this? And is it without a cause? When reading the orations of Demosthenes, or the demonstrations of Newton, are our minds wholly inactive; or if they think intensely, have our thoughts no dependence on the book before us?" p. 161. Truly, there is activity in this, in our "deep and earnest thinking"; but what is the cause of this activity? Does the book before us _cause_ us to think? This is the point at which the argument of the author is driving, and to which it should come, if it would be to the purpose, and yet he does not seem to like to speak it out right manfully; and hence, instead of saying that the book causes us to think, he chooses to say that our thoughts have a _dependence_ on the book. It is true, that no man can read a book, unless he has it to read; and, consequently, his thoughts in reading the book are absolutely dependent on the possession of it.

But still, the possession of a book is the _condition_, and not the _cause_, of his reading it. The cause of a thing, and the indispensable _condition_ of it, are perfectly distinct from each other; and the argument of Day, in confounding them, has presented us with another sophism.

The ideas of a condition and of a cause, though so different in themselves, are always blended together by necessitarians; and hence the confusion into which they run. Edwards has united them, as we have seen, under the term cause; and then employed this term to signify the one or the other at his pleasure. The word "dependence," is the favourite of President Day; and he uses it with fully as much vagueness and vacillation of meaning, as Edwards does the term cause. He has undertaken to show us, that the mind may be _caused_ to act; and he has shown us, that a particular cla.s.s of thoughts cannot come to existence, except upon a particular condition! This is not to reason; but to slip and to slide from one meaning of an ambiguous word to another.

When it is said that the mind cannot be caused to act, President Day must have known in what sense the term cause is used in this proposition. He must have known, that no one meant to a.s.sert, that there are no _conditions_ or _antecedents_, on which the action of the mind depends. There is not an advocate of free-agency in the universe, who will contend, that the mind can choose a thing, unless there is a thing to be chosen; or, to take his own ill.u.s.tration, can read a book, unless there is a book to be read. The question is not, whether there are _conditions_, without the existence of which the mind cannot act; this no one denies; but whether there is, or can be, a real and efficient cause of the mind's action. The point in dispute, relates not to mere fact of dependence, but to the _nature_ of that dependence. The question is, _can the mind be efficiently caused to act?_ This being the question, what does it signify to tell us, that it cannot read a book, unless it has a book to read? Or what does it signify to tell us, that a body may be caused to move? These are mere irrelevancies; they fall short of the point in dispute; and they only seem to reach it by means of a very "convenient ambiguity" of words.

But still it may be said, that although a body is pa.s.sive in motion, it may act upon other bodies, and thereby communicate motion to them. This is the ground taken by President Day. "The very same thing," says he, "may be both cause and effect. The mountain wave, which is the effect of the wind, may be the cause which buries the s.h.i.+p in the ocean," p. 160.

I am aware, that one body is frequently said to _act_ upon another; but this word action, as President Day has well said, is a term "of very convenient ambiguity, with which it is easy to construct a plausible but fallacious argument," p. 159. The only cause in every case of motion, is that _force_, whatever it may be, which acts upon the body moved, and puts it in motion. All the rest is pure pa.s.sion or pa.s.siveness. The motion of the body is not action; it is the most pure pa.s.sion of which the mind can form a conception. If a body in action is said to act upon another, this is but a metaphor; there is no real action in the case.

Indeed, if a body be put in motion, and meets with no resistance, it will move on in a right line forever--and why? just because of its _inertia_, of its inherent dest.i.tution of a power to act. As a mathematician, President Day certainly knew all this; but he seems to have forgotten it all, in his eagerness to support the cause of moral necessity.

He saw that motion is frequently called action; he saw that one body is sometimes said to act upon another; and this was sufficient for his purpose. He did not reflect upon the natures of motion and of volition, as they are in themselves; he views them through the medium of an ambiguous phraseology. Nor did he reflect, that if motion is communicated from one body to another, this is not because one body really acts upon another, but because it is impossible for two bodies to occupy the same place at one and the same time. He did not reflect, that if motion is communicated from one body to another, this does not arise from the activity, but from the impenetrability of matter. In short, he did not reflect, that there is no state or phenomena of matter, whatever may be its name, that at all resembles the state of mind which we call action or volition; or else he would have seen, that all his ill.u.s.trations drawn from material objects can throw no light on the point in controversy.

We find the same confusion of things in the works of the Edwardses. We do not at all confound action and pa.s.sion, President Edwards contends, by supposing that acts of the soul are effects, wherein the soul is the object of something acting upon and influencing it, p. 203. And again, "It is no more a contradiction to suppose that action may be the effect of some other cause beside the agent, or being that acts, than to suppose that life may be the effect of some other cause beside the being that lives," p. 203. The younger Edwards also a.s.serts, 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," p. 131. We might adduce many similar pa.s.sages; but these are sufficient. What do they prove? If they are any thing to the purpose, they are only so by confounding motion with volition, pa.s.sion with action.

No one would pretend to deny, that the mind may be, and is, caused to exist, or that the agent may be caused to live. In regard to our being and living we are perfectly pa.s.sive; and hence we admit that we may be caused to exist and to live. _Living_ and _being_ are not _acting_. We are not pa.s.sive in regard to volition; this is an act of the mind itself. The above a.s.sertions only overlook the slight circ.u.mstance that _being_ and _doing_ are two different things; that motion is not volition, that pa.s.sion is not action. This strange confusion of things is very common in the writings of the Edwardses, as well as in those of all other necessitarians.

Edwards held volition to be a produced effect. This identifies a pa.s.sive impression made upon the mind, with an act of the mind itself. In order to escape this difficulty, Edwards was bound to show that action and pa.s.sion are not opposite in their natures. "Action, when properly set in opposition to pa.s.sion or pa.s.siveness," says he, "is no real existence; it is not the same with _an action_, but is a mere relation." And again, "Action and pa.s.sion are not two contrary natures;" when placed in opposition they are only contrary relations. The same ground is taken by President Day. "Are not cause and effect," says he, "opposite in their natures? They are opposite relations, but not always opposite things."

They contend, that an object may be pa.s.sive in relation to one thing, and active in relation to another; that a volition may be pa.s.sive in relation to its producing cause, and yet active in relation to its produced effect.

Now, this is not true. An act is opposite in its nature to a pa.s.sive impression made upon the mind. This every man may clearly see by suitable reflection, if he will not blind himself to the truth, as the necessitarian always does, by false a.n.a.logies drawn from the world of matter, and the phenomena of motion. We have seen how President Day has attempted to show, that an object may be pa.s.sive in relation to one thing, and yet active in relation to another; and that in all these attempts he has confounded the motion of body with the action or choice of mind. We have seen that all the ill.u.s.trations adduced to throw light on this subject are fallacious. Let this subject be studied in the light of consciousness, not through the darkening and confounding medium of false a.n.a.logies, and we may safely antic.i.p.ate a verdict in our favour.

For who that will closely and steadily reflect upon _an action_ of the mind, does not perceive that it is different, in nature and in kind, from a pa.s.sive impression made upon the mind from without? I do not say action, which President Edwards seems to think does not signify any thing positive, such as _an action_, when it is set in opposition to pa.s.sion; but I say that _an action_ itself is opposite in its nature to pa.s.sion, to a produced effect.

President Edwards cannot escape the absurdity of his doctrine by alleging, that when action and pa.s.sion are set in opposition, they do not signify opposite natures, but only opposite relations. For he has confounded _an act_ of the mind with a _pa.s.sive impression_ made thereon; and these things are opposite in their natures, whether he is pleased to say that action and pa.s.sion are opposite _natures_ or not.

This position may be easily established. "I humbly conceive," says he, "that the affections of the soul are not properly distinguished from the will, as though they were two faculties in the soul." . . . . "The affections are no other than the more vigorous and sensible exercises of the inclination and will of the soul." These pa.s.sages are referred to by President Day to prove, that Edwards regarded our "emotions or affections as acts of the will," p. 39. Having confounded the will and the sensibility, it became exceedingly easy for Edwards to show that a volition may be produced or caused: all that he had to do was to show, that an emotion may be produced, which is the same thing with an act of the will or a volition. It is upon this confusion of things, that his whole system rests; for if the sensibility is different from the will, as most persons, at the present day, will admit it is; then to excite an emotion, or to make a pa.s.sive impression upon the sensibility, is very different from producing a volition.

Edwards has taken great pains with the superstructure of his system, while he has left its foundations without support. He has not shown, nor can any man show, that the sensibility and the will are one and the same faculty of the soul. He a.s.sumes that an emotion is an act of the will, and then proceeds to build upon it, and to argue from it, as if it were a clear and unquestionable truth. Thus, he repeatedly says, that whatever pleases us most, or excites the most agreeable sensation, is that which "operates to induce a volition;" and to say otherwise, is to a.s.sert that that which pleases us most, does not please us most. Such a.s.sertions, (and I have already had occasion to adduce many such,) clearly identify a sense of the most agreeable, or the most pleasing emotion, with an act of the will. His definition, as we have already seen, laid the foundation for this, and his arguments are based upon it.

The pa.s.sive impression, or the sensation produced, is, according to Edwards, a volition! No wonder, then, that he could conceive of an action of the mind _as being produced_. The wonder is, how he could conceive of it _as being an action at all_.

Let us suppose, now, that a feeling or an emotion is produced by an object in view of the mind. It will follow, that the mind is pa.s.sive in feeling, or in experiencing emotion. We are conscious of such feeling or emotion; and hence we infer, that we are susceptible of feeling or emotion. This susceptibility we call the sensibility, the heart, the affections, &c. But there is another phenomenon of our nature, which is perfectly distinct in nature and in kind from an emotion or a feeling.

We are conscious of a volition or choice; and hence we infer that we have a power of acting, or putting forth volitions. This power we call the will.

Now, the phenomena exhibited by these two faculties of the soul, the sensibility and the will, are entirely different from each other; and there is not the least shadow of evidence going to show that the faculties themselves are one and the same. On the contrary, we are compelled by a fundamental law of belief, to regard the susceptibility of our nature, by which we feel, as different from that power of the soul, by which we act or put forth volitions. The only reason we have for saying that matter is different from mind, is that its manifestations or phenomena are different; and we have a similar reason for a.s.serting, that the emotive part of our nature, or the sensibility, is distinct from the will. And yet, in the face of all this, President Edwards has expressly denied that there is any difference between these two faculties of the soul. It is in this confusion of things, in this false psychology, that he has laid the foundation of his system.

If President Edwards be right, it is no wonder that the younger Edwards should so often a.s.sert, that it is no more absurd to say, that volition may be caused, than it is to say, that feeling or emotion may be caused.

For, if the doctrine in question be true, a volition is an emotion or feeling; and to produce the one is to produce the other. How short and easy has the path of the necessitarian been made, by a convenient definition!

If we only bear the distinction between the sensibility and the will in mind, it will be exceedingly easy to see through the cloudy sophistications of the necessitarian. "How does it appear to be a _fact_," asks President Day, "that the will cannot act when it is acted upon?" I reply that the _will_ is not acted upon at all; that pa.s.sive impressions are made upon the sensibility, and not upon the will. This is a _fact_ which the necessitarian always overlooks.

Again; the same object may be both pa.s.sive and active; pa.s.sive with respect to one thing, and active with respect to another. Thus, says President Day, "The axe is pa.s.sive, with respect to the hand which moves it; but active, with respect to the object which it strikes. The cricket club is pa.s.sive in _receiving_ motion from the hand of the player; it is active in _communicating_ motion to the ball." The fallacy of all such ill.u.s.trations, in confounding motion and action, I have already noticed, and I intend to say nothing more in relation to this point. But there is another less palpable fallacy in them.

How are such ill.u.s.trations intended to be applied to the phenomena of volition? Is it meant, that volition itself is pa.s.sive in relation to one thing, and active in relation to another? If so, I reply it is absurd to affirm, that volition, or an act, is pa.s.sive in relation to any thing? Is it meant, that not volition itself, but the will, is pa.s.sive to that which acts upon it, while it is active in relation to its effect? If so, I contend that the will is not acted upon at all; that the pa.s.sive impression is made upon the sensibility, and not upon the will. Is it supposed, that it is neither the volition nor the will, which is both active and pa.s.sive at the same time; but that it is the mind? This may be very true. The mind may be pa.s.sive, if you please, in relation to that which acts upon its sensibility, while it is active in volition; but how does this prove the doctrine, that _an act_ may be produced by something else acting upon the will? How does this show, that action and pa.s.sion are not confounded, in supposing that an act is caused? The pa.s.sive impression, the state of the sensibility is produced but this is not _a volition_. The pa.s.sive impression exists in the sensibility; the volition exists in the will. The first is a produced effect; the last is an act of the mind. And the only way in which this act of the mind itself has been linked with that which acts upon the mind, as an effect is linked with its cause, has been by confounding the _sensibility_ with the _will_; and the light of this distinction is no sooner held up, than we see that a very important link is wanting in the chain of the necessitarian's logic. Let this light be carried around through all the dark corners of his system, and through all its dark labyrinths of words; and many a lurking sophism will be detected and brought out from its unsuspected hiding place.

When it is said, that the same thing may be active and pa.s.sive, this remark should be understood with reference to the mind itself. The language of the necessitarian, I am aware, sometimes points to the volition itself, and sometimes to the will; but we should always understand him as referring to the mind. He may not have so understood himself; but he must be so understood. For it is not the will that acts; it is the mind. This is conceded by the necessitarian. Hence, when he says, that the same thing may be both active and pa.s.sive, he must be understood as applying this proposition to the mind itself; and not to the will or to volition. It is the mind that acts; and hence the mind must be also pa.s.sive; or we cannot say that _the same thing_ may be both active and pa.s.sive.

The mind then, it may be said, is both active and pa.s.sive at the same time. But it is pa.s.sive in regard to its emotions and feelings; and hence, if you please, these may be produced. It is active in regard to its volitions, or rather in its volitions; and hence these cannot be produced by the action of any thing upon the mind. To show that they can, the necessitarian, as we have seen, has confounded a pa.s.sive impression with an active volition. If these be distinct, as they most clearly are, the necessitarian can make his point good, only by showing that the pa.s.sive impression made upon the mind, is connected with the volition of the mind, as a producing cause is connected with its effect.

But this he has not shown; and hence his whole system rests upon gratuitous and unfounded a.s.sumptions. I say his whole system; for if the mind cannot be caused to act, if it is absurd to speak of a produced action, it is not true, that an action or volition does or can result from the necessitating action, or influence of motives.

SECTION XI.

OF THE ARGUMENT FROM THE FOREKNOWLEDGE OF G.o.d.

THE argument from the foreknowledge of G.o.d, is one on which the necessitarian relies with great confidence. Nor is this at all surprising; since to so many minds, even among distinguished philosophers, the prescience of Deity and the free-agency of man have appeared to be irreconcilable.

Thus, says Mr. Stewart, "I have mentioned the attempt of Clarke and others to show that no valid argument against the scheme of free-will can be deduced from the prescience of G.o.d, even supposing _that_ to extend to all the actions of voluntary beings. On this point I must decline offering any opinion of my own, because I conceive it as placed far beyond the reach of our faculties." Dr. Campbell also says, "To reconcile the divine prescience with the freedom, and even contingency, and consequently with the good or ill desert of human actions, is what I have never yet seen achieved by any, and indeed despair of seeing." And Mr. Locke declares, "I cannot make freedom in man consistent with omnipotence and omniscience in G.o.d, though I am as fully persuaded of both as of any truth I most firmly a.s.sent to; and therefore I have long since given off the consideration of that subject, resolving all into this short conclusion, that if it is possible for G.o.d to make a free-agent, then man is free, though I see not the way of it."

Sentiments like these, which are so often met with in the writings of eminent philosophers, have repeatedly led me to reconsider the conclusion at which I have arrived on this subject; but I have been able to discover no reason why it should be abandoned. Indeed, if authority were a sufficient reason why the great difficulty in question should be regarded as incapable of being solved, I should abandon it in despair, and leave the necessitarian to make the most of his argument; but it has only induced me to proceed with the greater caution; and this, instead of having shaken my convictions, has settled them with the greater firmness and clearness in my mind. Whether I am in the right, or whether I labour under a hallucination, satisfactory only to myself, and perplexing to all others, I must submit to the candid consideration of the reader.

Why should it be thought impossible to reconcile the free-agency of man with the foreknowledge of G.o.d? No one pretends that there is any disagreement between the things themselves, as they really exist; if there is any discrepancy in the case, it must exist only between our ideas of foreknowledge and free-agency. Indeed, we cannot think of the things themselves, or compare them, except by means of the ideas we have formed of then; and if our ideas of them are really irreconcilable, it is because they have not been correctly formed, and do not correspond with the things themselves. What shall we do then? Shall we set to work to reform our ideas? Shall we explain away the free-agency of man, or deny the foreknowledge of G.o.d? No. We may retain both.

Edwards contends, that volitions are brought to pa.s.s by the influence of motives, and that it is impossible in any case, that a volition should depart from the influence of the strongest motive. This is the great doctrine of moral necessity, which it is the object of President Edwards to establish. Now, if his celebrated argument, or "demonstration," as it is called, proves this point, then it is to be held as true and valid; but if it only proves some other thing which is called by the name of necessity, it is not to the purpose. And if it can be shown, that his argument does not prove any thing at all in relation to the causation of choice, it will appear that it has no relevancy to the point at issue.

The foreknowledge of G.o.d, I admit, infers the necessity of all human actions, in one sense of the word; but not that _kind_ of necessity for which any necessitarian pleads, or against which _any_ libertarian is at all concerned to contend. The fallacy of the argument in question is, that it shows all human actions to be necessary in a sense in which it is not opposed to any scheme of liberty whatever, and a.s.sumes them to be necessary in another and quite different sense; and thus the great doctrine of freewill, otherwise so clear and unquestionable, is overshadowed and obscured by an imperfect and ambiguous phraseology, rather than by the inherent difficulties of the subject. This is the position which I shall endeavour to establish.

The first argument of President Edwards is as follows. When the existence of a thing is infallibly and indissolubly connected with something else, which has already had existence, then its existence is necessary; but the future volitions of moral agents, are infallibly and indissolubly connected with the foreknowledge of G.o.d; and therefore they are necessary, p. 114-15. Now this argument is perfectly sound; the conclusion is really contained in the premise, or definition of necessity, and it is fairly deduced from it. It is as perfect as any syllogism in Euclid _but what does it prove?_ It proves that all human actions are necessary--but in what sense? Does it prove that they are necessary with a _moral necessity?_ Does it prove that they are brought to pa.s.s by the influence of moral causes? No such thing is even pretended: "I allow what Dr. Whitby says to be true," says Edwards, "that mere foreknowledge does not affect the thing known, to _make_ it more certain or future," p. 122. He admits that foreknowledge exerts "no influence on the thing known to make it necessary." He does not even pretend that there is any _moral necessity_ shown to exist by this argument; and hence his conclusion has no connexion with the great doctrine of the Inquiry, or the point in dispute. It aims at the word, but not at the thing. The infallible connexion it shows to exist, is admitted to be entirely different from the infallible connexion between moral causes and volitions; that is to say, it is admitted that it does not prove any thing to the purpose.

But is the indissoluble connexion, or necessity, established by this argument, at all inconsistent with human liberty? If it is not; and if our scheme of liberty is perfectly consistent and reconcilable with it; then it infers nothing, and is nothing, that is opposed to what we hold.

This question admits of an easy solution. The foreknowledge of a future event proves it to be necessary in precisely the same manner that the knowledge of a present event shows it to be necessary. This is conceded by Edwards. "All certain knowledge," says he, "whether it be foreknowledge, or after knowledge, or concomitant knowledge, proves the thing known now to be necessary, by some means or other; _or proves that it is impossible it should now be otherwise than true_," p. 121. And again, "All certain knowledge proves the necessity of the truth known; whether it be _before_, or _after_, or _at the same time_," p. 124; and so in other places.