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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
THE FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY.
BY
THOMAS DANCER HUTCHISON, Ex-Siz. T.C.D.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Sixpence.
�1
�13 '2-6 IS
ON THE FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY.
HATEVER may be thought of the interest and
importance hitherto attaching to the Problem of
the Human Will, whether regarded as the subject of
religious or of metaphysical disputation, it is certain
that at no period in its history has it come forward
with such weighty and urgent claims to the serious
attention of all thinking men, as in our own immediate
times. Emerging into notoriety some fourteen hun
dred years ago, in the celebrated Pelagian controversy
concerning human freedom, it was not until the middle
of the seventeenth century that it escaped from the
dark and bewildering mists of theological discussion,
into the higher and serener atmosphere of purely
philosophical enquiry. For our own time was reserved
the further step which it was destined to take, and
whereby it has descended from the remoteness of
abstract speculation, to take its place among the
importunate problems of practical life, challenging
with an ever increasing emphasis the exertion of our
highest efforts in its solution.
Tremendous as were the issues that hung upon the
decision of the theological phase of the Free-Will
controversy, it must not be supposed that these issues
were any of them of a distinctively practical character.
Terrible and repugnant as it might well seem to be
forced to regard man “as incurably wicked—wicked
by the constitution of his flesh, and wicked by eternal
decree—as doomed, unless exempted by special grace
A
W
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On the Free-Will Controversy.
which he cannot merit, or hy any effort of his own
obtain, to live in sin while he remains on earth, and to
be eternally miserable when he leaves it,—to regard
him as born unable to keep the commandments, yet
as justly liable to everlasting punishment for break
ing them,” *—nevertheless these, and all other such
conclusions of theology, left the men by whom they
were entertained, for all practical purposes pretty much
in the same position as that in which they found them.
We do not observe that the possession of a fatalist
creed exercised any blighting or paralysing influence on
the active nature of the great leaders on the Calvinistic
side: indeed, if we are to believe Mr Froude, “they
were men possessed of all the qualities which give
nobility and grandeur to human nature,—unalterably
just when duty required them to be stern, but with the
tenderness of a woman in their hearts ; frank, true,
cheerful, humorous, as unlike sour fanatics as it is pos
sible to imagine any one.”
However stupendous, then, the questions involved in
the Arminian controversy concerning Human Freedom,
this much is certain, that these questions had, one and
all of them, little or no bearing upon the conduct of
men in this present life. As far as external behaviour
went, you would have had no grounds for distinguish
ing between Libertarian and Calvinist,—between the
man who believed himself to be the arbiter of his own
destiny, and the man who regarded himself as a mere
puppet in the hands of an irresistible and unyielding
external Power. In a word, the differences which
separated the Calvinist from the Arminian were
theological, not moral,—points of belief, and not of
practice. In matters involving considerations purely
ethical,—good or evil, virtue, responsibility, wrong
doing—the two antagonistic parties met on common
ground.
While it is thus manifest that the theological phase
* Froude, “Short Studies,” vol. ii. p. 3.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
5
of this great controversy is open to the charge of a
want of practical interest, it must at the same time be
allowed that the Problem of the Will, when viewed in
the aspect which it presents to us of the present day,
comes home to men’s business and bosoms with a
cogency and force which are unquestionable. The
main controversy now-a-days lies between those who
uphold the Principle of Determinism, or the uniformity
of Sequence between motive and action, on the one
hand, and the defenders of the metaphysical theory
*
of Free-Will, on the other. The Determinists maintain
(to use the words of one of the ablest of their number)!
that “ an invariable sequence exists between the sum
of motives present in the mind of a given individual,
and the action (or attempted action) which follows ; ”
and that consequently the phenomena of human voli
tion constitute a legitimate subject for scientific
explanation, calculation and prediction.
Thus the
great department of human action is brought under the
sway of the law of causation; and as a necessary result
following the recognition of the correlation between
mental and cerebral changes, the vast principle of the
transformation and equivalence of forces is seen to
embrace and pervade, not only the action, organic and
inorganic, of the external world, but also the widelyextended field of volitional agency, whether individual
or in the aggregate.| It may readily be imagined how
numerous and how momentous are the results of the
application of this Determinist principle or doctrine to
the subjects of morality and education; but its import
ance does not rest on this alone. It is made the basis
of a science of politics or sociology, which, applying
the laws of mind to the scientific explanation of the
* We say metaphysical theory, as opposed to the practical feeling
of freedom, which, as J. Stuart Mill points out, (Logic, Bk. vi. ch.
ii.) is in no wise inconsistent with the Determinist, or (as it is
often improperly called), the Necessitarian theory.
■f See Westminster Review for October 1873.
t Cf. Herbert Spencer’s work “ On the Study of Sociology," p. 6.
�6
On the Free-Will Controversy.
actions of mankind in the aggregate, seeks thereby to
arrive at a system of general principles for the guidance
of the politician. Nay more,—this principle is at the
very root of the science of Psychology itself; for if we
refuse to acknowledge uniformity of succession in the
phenomena of volition,—if we believe that the normal
action of motives is liable to he at any time neutralised
and superseded, in a manner wholly irregular and un
foreseeable by us,—then indeed the attempt to establish
any even approximate general principles or laws of the
association and reproduction of ideas becomes as absurd
as it would be to set about developing a science of
mechanics “ on a planet where gravitation was liable to
fits of intermission.” Annihilate the principle of
Determinism, and Mental Science becomes the baseless
fabric of a vision.
Thus it is quite clear that the principleof Determinism,
if admitted to be true, Carries with it practical results
of wide and deep importance. To the Determinist, the
ordinary notions of responsibility and punishment will
appear to be merely the vague and unreal products of
the imagination; virtue will be simply good luck, and
vice misfortune, while punishment will be regarded
simply as a means to an end—the end being the refor
mation of the criminal and the protection of society.
For him, the science of education opens a prospect of
unlimited advancement in the condition of the indi
vidual; while Sociology, through the long vista of
future years, gives glimpses of a coming golden age.
He is possessed with the idea “ of the gradual develop
ment of the human mind—of the spiritual unity of the
human race; ” and throughout the troubles and
anxieties that attend the fluctuating and often appar
ently retrogressive movement of his day, he is sustained
and cheered by a firm belief in the mighty “ human
organism, fraught with the vast results of ages, and big
with a life which stretched over myriads of years,” *
* VFesimMsier Review for October 1860, p. 308.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
7
ever slowly growing more and more unto the light of
perfect day.
It need hardly be said that all this is absolutely
incompatible with the Libertarian’s creed. He believes
that the phenomena of volition are marked out in the
strongest manner from all other phenomena whatever ;
that whereas by reason of the uniformity of sequence
which is permitted to prevail in the material world, the
whole of the vast department of physical phenomena
forms a legitimate subject for scientific explanation and
prediction, the individual and collective action of man
kind, on the contrary, admits neither “ scientific calcu
lations before the fact,” nor “scientific explanations
after the fact.” His theory maintains that there is
inherent in man a mysterious power, completely inde
pendent of motives, and capable of acting against the
preponderance of them—“ as if ” (to quote the words of
Dr Carpenter), “ when one scale of a balance is inclining
downwards, a hand placed on the beam from which the
other scale is suspended, were to cause that lighter
scale to go down.” It arrogates for man a faculty of
undetermined Choice, called forth indeed into active
operation on the presentation of some motive or
motives to the mind, but in no wise conditioned or
coerced by their influence. This notion of an undeter
mined power of choice is regarded by those who hold
the doctrine of Free Will as a necessary factor in our
common emotions of admiration, disapprobation, and
contrition. “ If there is no free choice ” (says Mr
Froude), “the praise or blame with which we regard
one another are impertinent and out of place.”
Of course, those who maintain this theory ipso facto
deny the possibility of the sciences of Psychology and
Sociology, together with the fair hopes which they
hold out to us. Mr Froude talks of the time “ when
the speculative formulas into which we have mapped
out the mysterious continents of the spiritual world
shall have been consigned to the place already thronged
�8
On the Free-Will Controversy.
with the ghosts of like delusions which have had their
day and perished ”—thus contemplating the possible
collapse of Psychology at some future day. He scouts
at the notion of a science of History (i.e., a social
science developed after the Deductive or Historic
method) so long as “ natural causes are liable to be set
aside and neutralised by what is called volition.” True,
men are “ at least half animals, and are subject in this
aspect of them to the conditions of animals. So far as
those parts of man’s doings are concerned, which
neither have, nor have had, anything moral about
them, so far the laws of him are calculable. . . . But
pass beyond them, and where are we ? In a world
where it would be as easy to calculate man’s actions by
laws like those of positive philosophy as to measure
the orbit of Neptune with a foot-rule, or weigh Sirius
in a grocer’s scale.”
After what has been already said, it will be readily
admitted that the decision of the Free Will question
at the present day, carries with it results of no small
practical importance, and that it is manifestly incum
bent on us to put forth our best efforts in the attempt
to solve it. In some quarters, indeed, our endeavours
would meet with small encouragement. Many persons
—notably, Professor Huxley—believe that the battle
between Libertarian and Necessitarian is destined for
ever to remain a drawn one. But it is only right that
before we acquiesce in so disheartening an opinion, we
should ourselves review with some carefulness the con
troversy as it stands at present, and try to find out
whether after all the battle does not afford us indica
tions, however faint, of a definite issue.
“The advocate of Free Will appeals to conscience
and instinct—to an b, priori sense of what ought in
equity to be. The Necessitarian falls back upon the
experienced reality of facts.” * It is admitted on all
hands that the testimony of experience is in favour of
* Froude, “ Short Studies,” vol. i. p. 4.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
9
necessity. Thus even Mr Mansel writes:—“Were it
not for the direct testimony of my own consciousness
to my own freedom, I could regard human actions only
as necessary links in the endless chain of phenomenal
cause and effect.” * This fact, when taken in connec
tion with the extremely unique and exceptional nature
of the Free Will theory (according to which there is,
as Herbert Spencer says, “ one law for the rest of the
universe, and another law for mankind ”), seems fully
to justify the enquiry whether in thus denying the
universality of the law of uniform Succession, men may
not be under the influence of some bias which misleads
their judgment. Now, it is a well known fact that
the universality of this law has often been denied, both
in ancient and in modern times, the supposed excep
tions to it being always some one or other of the more
mysterious and apparently unpredictable phenomena of
nature. Thus Sokrates denied that Astronomy or
Physical Philosophy in general were fit subjects for
human study, maintaining that these two departments
were under the immediate and special control of the
gods. We are all familiar with that type of the pietist
which sees the handiwork of an all-wise and doubt
less retributory Providence in each of the petty acci
dents of life —so long as these be advantageous to
himself or calamitous merely to his neighbour.f This
attitude of mind is well illustrated by the following
story, which Dean Stanley relates as having been told
of a late dignitary of the Church by himself :—“ A
friend,” he used to relate, “ invited me to go out with
him on the water. The sky was threatening, and I
declined. At length he succeeded in persuading me,
and we embarked. A squall came on, the boat
lurched, and my friend fell overboard. Twice he sank,
* “ Metaphysics,” p. 168.
_
>
f “Think ye that those eighteen upon the tower of Siloam fell,”
is the characteristic lesson of the Gospel on the occasion of any
sudden visitation. Yet it is another reading of such calamities
which is commonly insisted upon.”—“ Essays and Reviews,” p. 365.
�io
On the Free-Will Controversy.
and twice he rose to the surface. He placed his hands
on the prow, and endeavoured to climb in. There was
great apprehension lest he should upset the boat.
Providentially I had brought my umbrella with me.
I had the presence of mind to strike him two or three
hard blows over the knuckles. He let go his hand,
and sank. The boat righted itself, and we were saved.”
Mr Huxley reminds us of the vast difference between
our mode of accounting for the Great Plague and the
Great Fire which devastated London in the 17th cen
tury, and that which recommended itself to our ances
tors. * It can hardly be asserted even of the most
cultivated classes of this country, that there prevails
amongst them a unanimous belief in the uniformity of
physical phenomena. The Prayer Book of the Estab
lished Church of England still contains prayers for
rain and for fair weather • and a public Thanksgiving
was celebrated not long since on the recovery of the
heir to the Throne from a dangerous illness ; though
in this latter case (as Herbert Spencer points out) a
different interpretation of the issue would seem to be
indicated by the conferring of a baronetcy upon the
attendant physician. The doctrine of a particular
providence, as it is preached from our pulpits, while
conceding the prevalence of law in all those phenomena
which are familiar and thoroughly understood, main
tains that in the as yet unexplained mysteries of nature
(such as the changes of the weather, the process of
deliberative thought, &c.), the Deity may and does
direct the course of nature according to his pleasure.
We see then that there is, and always has been, in the
human mind a tendency to refer all the apparently
irregular and unforeseeable phenomena of nature to the
agency of some free and unconditioned power. Viewed
in the light of this fact, the undoubtedly complex and
(to all appearance) variable nature of volitional action
* “ Lay Sermons: Essay on the Advisableness of Improving
Natural Knowledge.”
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
11
assumes at once a deep significance in the explanation of
the origin of the Free Will hypothesis.
Another influence modifying our conceptions of the
will is to be found in the conservative power which
language exercises over our thoughts and beliefs. It
is notorious that the Libertarian theory can claim a far
higher antiquity than its rival; indeed, even during
the period in which speech was in process of formation,
some conception more or less crude of Indeterminism
must have prevailed amongst mankind. This concep
tion has by means of language become fixed and
crystallised in the general mind, to such a degree that
it is only by means of a considerable effort, and after
some practice, that we can entertain the notion of an
unbroken sequence of antecedent and consequent in the
world of human action. Thus it is seen that a potent
influence on the side of the Free-Will theory is con
stantly at work in the language of every-day life.
Here too we must call attention to the unfortunate
complication which has been introduced into the Pro
blem of the Will by the general adoption of the figure
embodied in the terms “Freedom of the Will,”
“ NecessityI’ and others of like nature. This metaphor
originated with the Stoics, who declared the virtuous
man to be free, the vicious man to be a slave. It was
subsequently adopted, and applied in a similar sense,
by Philo Judeeusand the early Christian Fathers. It
need hardly be said that this figure was addressed to
the heart rather than to the understanding; “as
regards appropriateness in everything but the associa
tions of dignity and indignity” says Professor Bain,
“ no metaphor could have been more unhappy. So far
as the idea of subjection is concerned, the virtuous man
is the greater slave of the two.” * The epithet “ free ”
was subsequently adopted by those who controverted
the Predestinarían theories of Augustine.
This
theologian taught that all men were the slaves of some
* Bain, “ Mental and Moral Science,” p. 398.’
�12
On the Free-Will Controversy;
external constraining power—the elect being subject
to irresistible grace, and the reprobate to original sin.
As opposed to this notion of earfernaZ compulsion, the
term Free-Will had a definite intelligible meaning.
Augustine maintained that for every man there existed
a certain class of motives, the due operation of which
in arousing him to volitional action was hindered by
some external force—that the elect were restrained
from sinning, and the reprobate from doing what was
good. This was evidently to suspend volitional action,
quite as much as it is suspended when men are thrown
into prison; and in opposition to this notion, any
conscious being “under a motive to act, and not
interfered with by any other being, is to all intents
free ; * and this moreover is the only meaning which
can possibly be attached to the word Freedom. But,
most unhappily, after the emergence of the theory of
determinism in the writings of Hobbes and his followers,
this term “ Freedom of the Will ” was borrowed from the
ancient theological controversy by the opponents of the
new philosophical system, and, carrying with it all the
inveterate and potent associations of dignity which had
belonged to it in its former employment, thus intro
duced an emotional bias of immense force into the
question now at issue. The Determinists were called
Necessitarians, and their antagonists were men who
upheld the Freedom of the Human Will. In conse
quence of the associations attaching to these words,
necessity and freedom, it came to pass that “ the
doctrine of causation, when considered as obtaining
between our volitions and their antecedents, was almost
universally conceived as involving more than uniform
sequence.................. Even if the reason repudiated, the
imagination retained, the feeling of some more intimate
connection, of some peculiar tie, or mysterious con
straint exercised by the antecedent over the consequent.
Now this it wras which, considered as applying to
the human will, conflicted with men’s consciousness
* Bain, “ Mental and Moral Science,” p. 398.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
13
and revolted their feelings. They were certain that, in
the case of their volitions, there was not this mysterious
constraint. They felt, that if they wished to prove
that they had the power of resisting the motive, they
could do so (that wish being, it needs scarcely be
observed, a new antecedent;) and it would have been
humiliating to their pride, and (what is of more import
ance) paralysing to their desire of excellence, had they
thought otherwise. But neither is any such mysterious
compulsion now supposed, by the best philosophical
authorities, to be exercised by any other cause over its
effect. Those who think that causes draw their effects
after them by a mystical tie, are right in believing that
the relation between volitions and their antecedents is
of another nature. But they should go further, and
admit that this is also true of all other effects and their
antecedents. If such a tie is considered to be involved
in the word necessity, the doctrine is not true of human
actions ; but neither is it then true of inanimate objects.
It would be more correct to say that matter is not
bound by necessity, than that mind is so.” *
There is a further emotional influence tending to
foster the belief in Free-Will which must be briefly
noticed here. It is manifest that when men claim to
have a direct consciousness of liberty, they are thinking,
not so much of their past conduct as of their future and
yet unrealised volitions. With regard to the past, as has
already been remarked, most persons are ready to admit
that experience proves their actions to have uniformly
followed some preponderating motive. Now the con
templation of a man’s past history does not, in the
majority of cases, bring with it any keen emotions of
pride or satisfaction ; too often it is but the record of
the conquest of temporary fleeting solicitations of the
present over the permanent interests embodied in our
more comprehensive and ideal motives. Hence the
belief that our course of action will be pretty much the
* J. S. Mill, “ Logic,” Bk. vi., Chap, ii., § 2.
�14
On the Free-Will Controversy.
same in the future as it has been in the past is one
which administers a heavy blow to our feelings of self
satisfaction and of power ; and we are apt under the
influence of these feelings to imagine that in our future
course of life the higher and more permanent aims will,
through the operation of our hitherto inactive power of
Free Choice, predominate over the more sensual and
transient motives,—“ the fleeting actualities of pleasure
and pain.” Here also, then, it is evident that the
notion of an undetermined Will finds strong support in
the natural instincts of emotion.
In concluding this portion of our subject, it will be
necessary to call attention to a well-known infirmity of
thought, which plainly operates in favour of the per
sistence of Libertarianism. We allude to the strong
tendency existing in the mind to objectify, or ascribe
separate existence to, its abstractions. “ Mankind in
all ages have had a strong propensity to conclude that
wherever there is a name, there must be a distinguish
*
able separate entity corresponding to the name ; and
every complex idea which the mind has formed for
itself by operating upon its conceptions of individual
things, was considered to have an outward objective
reality answering to it. Fate, Chance, Nature, Time,
Space, were real beings, nay, even gods. In ancient
times to the vulgar and to the scientific alike, whiteness
was an entity, inhering or sticking in the white sub
stance : and so of all other qualities.” * Language
favours this fallacious tendency of the mind; the
abstract name (“alike the facility and the snare of
general expression,” as it has been aptly described), is
generally understood to denote something more than
the bare fact of similarity between a number of objects,
some mysterious entity whereby they resemble each
other as they do, and which resides in each and all
of them. We are inclined to believe that for every
name there must be a corresponding thing. In this
* Mill, “ Logic,” Bk. v., Chap, iii., § 4.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
15
manner, after that men had found it convenient to
frame a general term which should embrace all volitional
phenomena, the constant employment of this term
(velle “to will,”) easily generated a belief in some
mysterious entity or power, underlying all volitional
action, and originating within itself all those effects of
“deliberating, weighing, and choosing,” which con
stituted the most obvious common element originally
embodied in the abstract idea of Will. Just as the
Eleatic Philosophy taught that a peculiar entity or sub
stance, to sv or Oneness, inhered in all things which are
said to be one,, so did men frame for themselves
“ the conception of an underlying substantive power,
the will, from which all single acts of volition were
supposed to emanate.”*
Having now enumerated some of the principal
psychological causes for the wide and early prevalence,
and the long continuance of the doctrine of Free-Will,
we will now proceed to pass in review some of the de
finitions of freedom which have been advanced by the
upholders of this doctrine. In doing so, we shall pass
over without comment the theological phase of the
controversy, as conducted on principles, and proceed
ing by a method wholly alien to the spirit of scientific
enquiry, and we shall commence with a notice of
Descartes, who may be said to be the first of the purely
philosophical libertarians.
Descartes was a cotemporary of Hobbes, the first
philosopher who consistently taught and believed the
doctrine of Determinism. It would be a mistake, how
ever, to suppose that in writing on the subject of the
Will, Descartes had any conception of this doctrine in
his mind; for the pamphlet in which Hobbes made
known his system to the world was not published until
* Westminster Review, July 1871. Whoever desires to attain to an
adequate conception of the various causes of the genesis and per
sistence of Libertarianism, cannot do better than read the masterly
article on the subject contained in this number of the Review.
�16
On the Free-Will Controversy.
after the year 1655, while the writings in which
Descartes’ opinions concerning the Will are chiefly
found, appeared at Paris in the year 1641. As might
have been expected, then, Descartes’ doctrine of FreeWill was set up in opposition, not to Determinism, but
to that system of Necessitarianism or Fatalism with
which Bishop Butler deals in his Analogy, and which,
it need hardly be said, is altogether distinct from and
incompatible with the Determinist theory. Accord
ingly, Descartes’ definition of Freedom is such as might
be conscientiously adopted by the most scrupulous of
Determinists. “ The power of will,” he says, “ consists
in this alone, that in pursuing or shunning what is
proposed to us by the understanding, we so act that
we are not conscious of being determined to a particular
action by any external force.
*
This is a perfectly
truthful, though inadequate, definition of the Will,
and it is with strict justice that Descartes replies to
Hobbes (who had remarked on the passage quoted
above, that it assumed, without proving, the doctrine
of Free-Will) ; “I have assumed or advanced nothing
concerning Freedom, save that which we experience to
be true every day of our lives, and which the light of
nature plainly teaches us.” * That Descartes was not
far off from Determinism in his views is seen from his
remarks on Indifference. “ In order to be free,” he
says, “it is not necessary that I should be indifferent
as to the choice of one or other of two contrary things.
Nay, rather, the more I incline towards one thing
(whether because I see clearly that right and truth agree
in it, or because God has so ordered the course of my
feelings), with so much the greater freedom do I make
my choice and adhere to that thing. And assuredly the
grace of God and my natural understanding, far from
diminishing my freedom, augment it and strengthen it
rather ; so that the indifference which I feel when I
am not led away on one side more than on the other by
* Quatrième Meditation.
4 Troisième Response.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
17
the influence of any motive, is the lowest kind of
liberty, and indicates rather a defect in knowledge than
a perfection of the will. For if I always knew clearly
what was true and what was good, I would never have
to go to the trouble of deliberating what decision and
w’hat choice I should make j and so I should be per
fectly free without ever being indifferent.
*
Accord
ing to Descartes, then, “every sentient being, under a
motive to act, and not interfered with by any other
being, is to all intents free;”! and thus “the fox
impelled bv hunger, and proceeding unmolested to the
poultry yard, would be a free agent.But this, it
needs hardly be said, is precisely the teaching of De
terminism. Indeed Descartes has fallen short of that
system merely in so far as he has admitted the con
ception of a liberty of indifference. This is, of course,
to give a double sense to the word liberty, and so to
confuse the question not a little. But we have already
seen that on this point Descartes speaks with hesitation,
and we may safely agree with Professor Bain in regard
ing him as “ willing to give up the liberty of in
difference,” while anxious to establish the internal feel
ing of freedom.
While Descartes is thus to be regarded merely as the
exponent of the popular practical feeling of liberty
protesting against the paralysing creed of fatalism,. or
of an overruling and irresistible external power which
guides men’s actions irrespective of their will ; Clarke,
Price, and Reid, on the other band, have each framed
definitions of Freedom, having special reference to, and
combating, the doctrine of Determinism. Clarke and
Price agree in making freedom to consist in a power of
self-motion or self-determination, which in all animate
agents, is spontaneity, in moral agents, is liberty. How,
they asked, can it be supposed that motives are the
immediate cause of action 1 It is true that our faculty
* Quatrième Meditation,
f Bain, “ Mental and Moral Science,” page 398.
Î Bain, “Mental and Moral Science,” p. 398.
B
�18
On the Free-Will Controversy.
of self-determination is never called forth into action
save on the presentation of some end or design to the
mind. But it is unmeaning to make such ends or
motives the physical causes of action. “ Our ideas may
be the occasion of our acting, but are certainly
not mechanical efficients.” “ If,” says Clarke, “ every
action of man is to be regarded as determined by some
motive, then either abstracted notions (f.e. motives)
have a real subsistence (which would be Realism),
or else what is not a substance can put a body in
motion.”* According to Leibnitz, the will is to be
compared to a balance, whose motion one way or an
other is determined by the weights in the scales (the
motives). In the opinion of Clarke and his followers,
however, the true comparison would be to a hand
placed on either side of the beam, and determining the
motion of the scales irrespective of, and possibly in
opposition to, the preponderance of weights.
In thus assimilating Spontaneity and Freedom,
Clarke and Price laid themselves open to the severe
criticism of Sir W. Hamilton, who writes (note to
Reid on “The Active Powers”):—“The Liberty from
Go-action or Violence—the Liberty of Spontaneity—is
admitted by all parties; is common equally to brutes
and men; is not a peculiar quality of the Will; and
is, in fact, essential to it, for the will cannot possibly
be forced. The greatest spontaneity is the greatest
necessity. Thus a hungry horse, who turns of necessity
to food, is said, on this definition of liberty, to do so
with freedom, because he does so spontaneously; and,
in general, the desire of happiness, which is the most
necessary tendency, will, on this application of the
term, be the most free. The definition of liberty
given by the celebrated advocate of moral freedom,
Dr Samuel Clarke, is in reality only that of the liberty
of spontaneity.”
But while Clarke and Price, by incautiously identi* For an explanation of the misconception involved here, see
Bain “ Mind and Body,” pp. 76, 132.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
19
fying spontaneity and liberty, were guilty of confusing
together the freedom of self-determination with the
freedom which is opposed to external constraint (z.e.,
the “ liberty from co-action ” of Hamilton, Reid is
careful to withhold from the brute creation the posses
sion of any faculty analogous to our volitional power.
Reid, Clarke, and Price, however, unite in regarding
this power as a faculty of self-determination. “ By the
liberty of a Moral Agent,” says Reid, “I understand
a power over the determinations of his own will.” “A.
free agent,” says Clarke, “when there is more than one
perfectly reasonable way of acting (i.e., when there is
a perfect equilibrium of motives), has still within itself,
by virtue of its self-motive principle, a power of acting.”
This notion of a self-determining agent has been criti
cally examined both by Edwards and Hamilton, a brief
outlineof whose remarks on the subjectwill next hegiven.
Edwards starts by proclaiming the inconceivability
of such a notion as that of self-determination. The
Will, he says, is said to determine its own acts. Now,
it is manifest that it can do this solely by means of an
act of volition; for (to quote Hamilton’s words) “it is
only through a rational determination or volition that
we can freely exert power.” But if this be so, then it
follows that every free volitional act requires a preceding
volition to constitute it free; and so on ad infinitum.
This evidently is to bring the matter to an absurdity.
If it be answered that the act of determining the
volitional action, and the act of willing, are one and
the same, then the obvious rejoinder is, that a freeaction is determined by nothing, and is entirely un
caused. Self-determinism, therefore, is a misnomer,
and the correct name for such a creed is Indeterminism.
Now Indeterminism teaches that the actions of our will
do not originate in any causes. It therefore contradicts
the law of causality. But if this law be made void,
then the foundation of all reasoning—nay, the only
possible proof for the existence of God—will have
vanished; and there will remain nothing save the
�20
On the Free-Will Controversy.
fleeting thoughts present to our consciousness, of the
existence of which we can be certain.
*
Nor is Sir William Hamilton less emphatic when he
exposes the inconsistent and inconceivable character of
Heid’s definition of Freedom. “ According to Reid,” he
writes, “ Moral Liberty does not merely consist in
doing what we will, but in the power of willing what
we will. For a power over the determinations of our
will supposes an act of will that our will should deter
mine so and so. . . . But here question upon question
remains (and this ad infinitum)—Have we a power (a
will) over such anterior will ? And until this question
shall be distinctively answered, we must be unable to
conceive the possibility of the fact of Liberty!’
To those Libertarians who endeavoured to evade the
charge of denying causality by affirming that the per
son was the cause of his volitions, Hamilton puts the
question :—“Is the person an original undetermined
cause of the determination of his will ? If he be not,
then he is not a free agent, and the scheme of Necessity
is admitted. If he be, in the first place, it is imposs
ible to conceive the possibility of this ; and, in the
second, if the fact, though inconceivable, be allowed, it
is impossible to see how a cause, undetermined by any
motive, can be a rational, moral, and accountable cause.”
But while Sir William Hamilton insisted so unspar
ingly on the inconceivability of the liberty of a moral
agent as defined by Reid, and on the fact that, if
conceived, it could only he conceived as morally worth
less, it is nevertheless notorious that he regarded this
* “To show that any doctrine contradicted the law of cause and
effect was, Edwards conceived, a perfect reductio ad dbsurdum. He
did not anticipate that anyone would impugn the universality of
cause and effect.” Some Libertarians, endeavouring to save the
law of causation by a verbal quibble, asserted that the soul was the
cause of its volitions. “Edwards answers, that this may explain
why the soul acts at all, but not why it acts in a particular manner.
And unless the soul produce diverse acts, it cannot produce diverse
effects, otherwise the same cause, in the same circumstances, would
produce different effects at different times.”—Bain, Mental and
Moral Science, page 417.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
2I
definition as correct, and that he was a strenuous
upholder of the doctrine of self-determination. Hamil
ton adopts a peculiar attitude towards the controversy
of the Will, and his positions on this subject cannot he
understood without a reference to his general philo
sophical system. In this system a very prominent
place is assigned to what he calls the Law of the
Conditioned, which is expressed thus :—“ All that is
conceivable in thought lies between two extremes,
which, as contradictory of each other, cannot both be
true, but of which, as. mutual contradictories (by the
Law of Excluded Middle), one must.’’ This law
Hamilton illustrates by adducing our conceptions of
Space and Time. “ Space must be bounded or not
bounded, but we are unable to conceive either alter
native. We cannot conceive space as a whole, beyond
which there is no further space. Neither can we
conceive space as without limits. Let us imagine space
never so large, we yet fall infinitely short of infinite
space. But finite and infinite space are contradictories ;
therefore, although we are unable to conceive either
alternative, one must be true and the other false. The
conception of Time illustrates the same law. Starting
from the present, we cannot think past time as
bounded, as beginning to be. On the other hand, we
cannot conceive time going backwards without end ;
eternity is too big for our imaginations. Yet time had
either a beginning or it had not. Thus ‘ the con
ditioned or the thinkable lies between two extremes or
poles ; and these extremes or poles are each of them
unconditioned, each of them inconceivable, each of
them exclusive or contradictory of the other.’ ” *
To apply this doctrine to the subject of the Will;
the two unconditioned extremes or poles are here
represented by the contradictory doctrines of Deter
minism and Casualism (or the self-determinist theory
of Liberty). These two contradictory schemes are
* Bain’s Compendium of Mental and Moral Science, Appendix
B, p. 68.
�'ll
On the Free-Will Controversy.
equally inconceivable. “ For, as we cannot compass
in thought an undetermined cause, an absolute com
mencement-—the fundamental hypothesis of the one ;
so we can as little think an infinite series of determined
causes—of relative commencements,—the fundamental
hypothesis of the other. The champions of the opposite
doctrines are thus at once resistless in assault and
impotent in defence. The doctrine of Moral Liberty
cannot be made conceivable, for we can only conceive
the determined and the relative. All that can be
*
done is to show, (1.) That, for the fact of Liberty, we
have immediately or mediately, the evidence of con
sciousness ; and (2.) that there are, among the
phenomena of mind, many facts which we must admit
as actual, but of whose possibility we are wholly unable
to form any notion/’ Thus according to Hamilton,
the inconceivability of the self-determinist scheme is
counterbalanced by a co-equal inconceivability in the
doctrine of determinism, and the scale is turned in
favour of self-determinism by the testimony, mediate
or immediate, of consciousness.
If Sir William Hamilton has displayed no small
stringency in his destructive criticisms upon the defini
tions of Freedom coming from Clarke and Reid, and
has thus saved his adversaries a considerable amount
of trouble by vigorously demolishing his friends, his
own peculiar doctrines, on the other hand, have been
subjected to an examination no less searching and no
less destructive, by the illustrious philosopher recently
gone from among us, John Stuart Mill. In one of the
concluding chapters of his masterly work, the
“ Examination of Sir W. Hamilton’s Philosophy,”
Mill enters upon a minute and exhaustive discussion
on the subject of the Will, and of the Libertarian
theories of it. After severely censuring Hamilton for
his attempt to give a fictitious importance to his
doctrine of Freedom by representing it as affording the
* It has already been pointed out that Hamilton rejects the
evasive quibble that the soul is the cause of our volitions.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
23
only valid argument in support of the existence of God,
he proceeds :—“ Let us concede to Hamilton the co
equal inconceivability of the conflicting hypothesis, an
uncaused commencement and an infinite regress. But
this choice of inconceivabilities is not offered to us in
the case of volitions only. We are held, as he not only
admits but contends, to the same alternative in all
cases of causation whatever. But we find our way out
of the difficulty, in other cases, in quite a different
manner. In the case of every other kind of fact, we
do not elect the hypothesis that the event took place
without a cause : we accept the other supposition, that
of a regress, not indeed to infinity, but either generally
into the region of the unknowable, or back to a
universal cause, regarding which, as we are only con
cerned with it in relation to what it preceded, and not
as itself preceded by anything, we can afford to make
a plain avowal of our ignorance.” Now why do we
thus, in all cases save only our volitions, accept the
alternative of regress 1 “ Apparently it is because the
causation hypothesis, inconceivable as he ” (Hamilton)
“ may think it, possesses the advantage of having
experience on its side. And how or by what evidence
does experience testify to it 1 Not by disclosing any
nexus between the cause and the effect, any sufficient
reason in the cause itself why the effect should follow
it. No philosopher now makes this supposition, and
Sir W. Hamilton positively disclaims it. What
experience makes known, is the fact of an invariable
sequence between every event and some special com
bination of antecedent conditions, in such sort that
wherever and whenever that union of antecedents
exists, the event does not fail to occur. Any must in
the case, any necessity, other than the unconditional
universality of the fact, we know nothing of. Still
this a posteriori “does,” though not confirmed by an
a priori “must,” decides our choice between the two
inconceivables, and leads us to the belief that every
event within the phenomenal universe, except human
�24
On the Free-Will Controversy.
volitions, is determined to take place by a cause. Now
the so-called Necessitarians demand the application of
the same rule of judgment to our volitions. They
maintain that there is the same evidence for it. They
affirm as a truth of experience that volitions do, in
point of fact, follow determinate moral antecedents with
the same uniformity and . . . with the same certainty
as physical effects follow their physical causes. . . .
Whether they must do so, I acknowledge myself to be
entirely ignorant, be the phenomenon moral or
physical; and I condemn accordingly the word
necessity as applied to either case. All I know is that
they tZo.”*
The testimony of experience, then, which is admitted
on all hands to be in favour of (so called) Necessity, is
that on which the Determinists ground their system.
The Libertarians, on the other hand, agree in claiming
the evidence of consciousness as making for their side.
“We have by our constitution,” says Reid, “a natural
conviction or belief that we act freely.” In his notes
to Reid’s essay on the Active Powers, Hamilton
hesitates between regarding the sense of freedom as an
ultimate datum of consciousness, and treating it as
involved in our consciousness of the law of moral
obligation or responsibility; in his lectures on Meta
physics, however, he speaks of it more plainly as a fact
of which we are directly conscious. Is it really the
case, then, asks Mill, that the admitted testimony of
man’s universal experience, is hopelessly at variance
with the testimony of his consciousness 1 If this be so,
then is the mental philosopher in an unenviable plight
indeed. But let us examine more nearly what is meant
by the testimony of consciousness. “To be conscious
of free-will, must mean, to be conscious before I have
decided that I am able to decide either way. Exception
may be taken, in limine, to the use of the word
consciousness in such an application. Consciousness
tells me what I do or feel. But what I am able to do,
* “ Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy,” p. 500.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
25
is not a subject of consciousness. Consciousness is
not prophetic; we are conscious of what is, not of
what will or can be. We never know that we are able
to do a thing except from having done it or something
equal or similar to it. . . . If our so-called conscious
ness' of what we are able to do is not borne out by
experience, it is a delusion. It has no title to. ciedence
but as an interpretation of experience, and if it is a
false interpretation it must give way.” Our so-called
consciousness of, or belief in, freedom,, therefore, must
be an interpretation of our past experience, t.e., with
regard to foregone acts of deliberation and choice, we
must be conscious that we could have decided the
other way ; “ but, the truth is, not unless we preferred
that way. 'When we imagine ourselves acting .differ
ently from what we did, we think of a change in the
antecedents, as by knowing something that we did not
know. Mill therefore altogether disputes the assertion
that we are conscious of being able to act in opposition
to the strongest present desire or aversion.”*
Having in this manner pointed out the error of those
who claim the testimony of consciousness in support of
the Freedom or Indeterminatensss of the will, Mill
proceeds to consider the other position assumed by
Hamilton, viz., that the fact of freedom is involved m
our consciousness of moral obligation or responsibility.
To quote Hamilton’s words
“ Our consciousness of
the m oral law, which, without a moral liberty in man,
would be a mendacious imperative, gives a decisive
preponderance to the doctrine of freedom over the
doctrine of fate. AVe are free in act, if we are account
able for our actions.” Now this is the main argument
of the Indeterminist; it seeks to establish the doctrine
of free-will by representing it as inextricably involved
in the common conception of accountability or moral
desert, so that the two must stand or fall togethei.
There is not a writer on the side of Libertarianism who
has not dwelt with emphasis upon this argument.
* Bain, “ Mental and Moral Science,” p. 427.
�26
On the Free-Will Controversy.
Thus Reid writes, “Let us suppose a man necessarily
determined in all cases to will and to do what is best
to be done • he would surely be innocent and inculp
able. But as far as I am able to judge, he would not
be entitled to the esteem and moral approbation of
those who knew and believed this necessity. . . . On
the other hand, if a man be necessarily determined to
do ill, this case seems to me to move pity, but not dis
approbation. He was ill because he could not be
otherwise. Who can blame him ? Necessity has no
law.” “If there is no free choice,” writes Mr Froude,
“ the praise or blame with which we regard one another
are impertinent and out of place.”* “ Man,” says
Hamilton in another place, “ is a moral agent only as
he is unaccountable for his actions—in other words, as
he is the object of praise or blame ; and this he is only
inasmuch as he has prescribed to him a rule of duty,
and as he is able to act, or not to act, in conformity
with its precepts. The possibility of morality thus
depends on the possibility of liberty • for if a man be
not a free agent he is not the author of his actions, and
has, therefore, no responsibility,—no moral personality
at all.”
Now, in order to determine whether freedom from
causation is involved in the notion of moral responsi
bility, we shall be obliged to subject that notion to a
careful analysis. What, then, is meant by the feeling
of responsibility 1 Simply a conviction that if we
committed certain actions, we should deserve punish
ment for so doing. A sense of responsibility is pre
cisely identical with a sense of the justice of punish
ment. Now, punishment presupposes Law, of which
it is the sanction, i.e., to ensure obedience to which it
is inflicted on the disobedient. Accountability, then,
or responsibility, involves a sense of the justice of Law;
and the question before us resolves itself into this—Is
it necessary to assume that human voluntary action is
undetermined by any moral antecedents, in order to
* Quoted before on p. 7.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
27
justify the institution of law and punishment ? So far
is this from being the case, that (to use the words of
Herbert Spencer) “if there is no natural causation
throughout the actions of incorporated humanity,
government and legislation are absurd. Acts of Par
liament may, as well as not, be made to depend on the
drawing of lots or the tossing of a coin; or, rather,
there may as well be none at all.” * The exigencies of
human society require that restrictions should be placed
upon the conduct of the individuals who together make
it up ; this justifies the institution of Law. The justi
fication of Punishment absolutely necessitates the
assumption that men’s actions follow the law of cause
and effect. “Unless pain, present or prospective,
impels human beings to avoid whatever brings it, and
to perform whatever delivers from it, punishment has
no relevance, whether the end be the benefit of the
society, or the benefit of the offender, or both to
gether.” f It may be asked—“ Is it just to punish a
man for what he cannot help ? Certainly it is, if
punishment is the only means by which he can be
enabled to help it. Punishment is inflicted as a
means towards an end—that is to say, if our volitions
are not determined by motives, then punishment is
without justification. If an end is justifiable, the sole
and necessary means to that end must be justifiable.
Now the Necessitarian theory proceeds upon two ends
-—the benefit of the offender himself and the protection
of others. To punish a child for its benefit, is no
more unjust than to administer medicine.” $
Such is a brief outline of Mill’s answer to the
position of Hamilton, that freedom is involved in our
consciousness of moral responsibility. Those who wish
to examine the arguments on both sides in detail, will
find them in the 26th chapter of Mill’s “ Examination
of Sir W. Hamilton’s Philosophy,” and in the admir* “Study of Sociology,” p. 46.
t Bain, “ Compendium,” p. 404,
+ Bain, “ Compendium," p. 428.
�28
On the Free-Will Controversy.
able remarks on “ Liberty and Necessity,” contained in
the lltli chapter of Bain’s “Exposition of the Will,”
to be found in his invaluable “ Compendium of Psy
chology and Ethics.” We have seen that in demolish
ing this position of his opponent, Mill has established
the very opposite principle, viz., that the doctrine of
Determinism is necessarily implicated in the notion of
moral agency or responsibility. This, however, does
not hinder but that there should be some truth in the
assertion that the common notion of responsibility
involves in it the hypothesis of a free and undeter
mined will. For, according to the common conception
of moral desert, there is inherent in moral evil or
wrong-doing a heinousness and a perniciousness quite
unique, irrespective of its consequences; and it is
obviously difficult to reconcile with this view the hypo
thesis of a will determined by the strongest motive,
seeing that the peculiar pravity which is the essential
characteristic of moral evil ought in the natural course
of things to exercise a deterring influence stronger than
any counter-influence arising from the prospect of pos
sible advantage to be gained thereby. Accordingly,
the notion of a free and undetermined will, raised
above the influence of motive, and resolving on a course
of wickedness in spite of the dissuasive considerations
suggested by the horrible nature of wrong-doing, was
called in to explain the phenomena of man’s moral
frailty; and this notion soon generated a conception of
punishment as of a kind of vengeance, rightly and duly
inflicted upon the ill-doer, without regard to any bene
ficial results accruing to himself or to society. Now,
this vague notion of the nature of punishment is wholly
incompatible with the definition of it which has been
already given, and which is admitted on all hands to
embody some at least, if not all, of the elements con
tained in the positive signification of the word “ pun
ishment.” On the Determinist theory of volition,
therefore, the vulgar notions of virtue and of vice, as
qualities to be lauded and reprobated irrespective of
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
29
their consequences, as well as the conception of punish
ment as a righteous retribution for ill-doing, apart from
any consideration of the useful ends to be served by it,
must disappear altogether. Virtue is « a great happi
ness but no merit in the vulgar sense of the term;
and vice is “ a great misfortune, but no demerit. *
We have now concluded our review of the great
controversy of the Will. Starting with the considera
tion of the question as it stands at the present day, we
saw how numerous and how momentous are the practi
cal issues involved in its solution. We then went on
to enquire whether any, and if so, what psychological
or other causes there were, which would exercise a dis
turbing influence in the decision of this question, and,
as a result, we found that there were many and potent
emotional and other agencies at work in generating and
fostering the belief in an indeterminate will. ± .inally,
we have passed in review the leading definitions of
pree-Will which have been advanced on the side of
Indeterminism, and have given a brief outline of the
destructive criticism of these definitions which has pro
ceeded from Edwards, Hamilton, and Mill.successively.
We have seen that our consciousness, which has been
so triumphantly appealed to by the supporters of free
will, does not in truth, when closely interrogated, yield
any evidence whatever in. favour of that doctrine ; and
that the testimony of experience, which is universally
regarded as a sufficient ground for the belief m the law
of°causality as holding throughout the pheenomenal uni
verse (volitional acts alone being excepted), is admitted
by everybody to be altogether in favour of Determinism,
i.e. of the law of causality as extending over the field
of human action also. We have noticed, however, that
the theory of Determinism involves the sacrifice of the
common notions of moral excellence and depravity;
and it is precisely here (as has been shown by the writer
in the Westminster Review) that the strength of Libertar
ianism lies. Men are indignant when it is insinuated
* Westminster Review, October 1873, p. 311,
�50
On the Free-Will Controversy.
that the popular beliefs with regard to merit and demerit,
responsibility, and punishment, are in great part the
products of lying imagination. They refuse to allow
any moral excellence to actions performed unconsciously
under the constraining influence of unreflecting love or
sympathy. Mr Mivart declares that “acts unaccom
panied by mental acts of conscious will directed towards
the fulfilment of duty ” are “ absolutely destitute of
the most incipient degree of real or formal goodness.”*
According to Reid, a man necessarily determined by
the constitution of his nature to will and to do what is
best to be done, “ would not be entitled to the esteem
and moral approbation of those who knew and believed
this necessity.” “ What was by an ancient author said
of Cato, might indeed be said of him :■—he was good be
cause he could not be otherwise. But this saying if
understood literally and strictly is not the praise of
Cato, but of his constitution, which was no more the
work of Cato than his existence?’ Now, in the first
place, be it remarked that this view of moral excellence,
as involving free and undetermined choice of the good,
excludes not only the man who does good without
thinking about it, but the Deity also, from the category
of beings possessed of a claim to our moral approbation.
We are compelled to think of God as necessarily good;
to attribute to Him the power of moral evil is, as
Hamilton has pointed out, to detract from his essential
goodness. Precisely in the same sense as Cato was
said to be good, because he could not be otherwise, so
is God declared to be, in virtue of his nature, necessarily
determined to goodness. “ As Euripides hath it, h
(hoi ri dpuciiv differpbv, ovx, iislv
According to the
Libertarian definition of moral excellence, then, we
shall be obliged to deny that God possesses any moral
attributes at all, or else to detract from his essential
goodness by admitting the possibility of his becoming
* “On the Genesis of Species,” quoted by Huxley, “Critiques,”
&c. p. 287.
Hamilton, note to Reid’s Essay on the Active Powers.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
31
evil; and it need hardly be said that this is a corollary
of their doctrine from which most Libertarians would
recoil with horror. But, not to press this point any
further—can it be possible that we are to regard all
actions prompted by unreflecting sympathy and affection
as “ absolutely destitute of the most incipient degree of
real or formal goodness ?” Surely not; the unanimous
verdict of mankind forbids it. The perfect ideal of a
virtuous character is that of the man whose actions
invariably have for their spring and source an instinc
tive feeling of sympathy for his fellow-men, irrespective
of any selfish considerations. Or do Mr Mivart and
those who agree with him think to persuade us that
the mother who rushes forward to save her child’s life
at the sacrifice of her own—that a Howard and a
Nightingale, whom the importunate promptings of their
inn er nature nrge irresistibly forth from the refinements
and the pleasures of domestic life, to all the horrors
and miseries of an existence passed in the midst of
prisons, lazar-houses, and hospitals that these are
creatures devoid of any “ title to our esteem or moral
approbation?” Such a doctrine only requires to be
fully and definitely stated, in order to be instantly and
unequivocally repudiated.
Our space will not permit us to enter upon a con
sideration of the various collateral arguments urged by
the two sides of this great controversy of the wifi. For
a full account of these, the reader is referred to the
admirable “ History of the Free-Will Controversy,” to
be found in Professor Bain’s Compendium of Mental
and Moral Science. We will merely add, in conclusion,
that the Determinist hypothesis has always been practi
cally recognised by men in their dealings with one
another. It has been already shown that the institution
of Law presupposes the fact of a uniform connection
between pain and the action necessary to avoid it, that
is, of the law of uniform succession in our acts and
their moral antecedents. Nor does the conduct of
individuals towards one another show less clearly the
�22
On the Free-Will Controversy.
conviction of such a principle of uniformity. For ex
ample (to quote an instance from J. Stuart Mill), “Men
often regard the doubt what their conduct will be, as
a mark of ignorance of their character, and sometimes
even resent it as an imputation.”* Indeed, not only
is prevision concerning the conduct of others constantly
necessary, in virtue of the interdependence of human
beings aggregated in society j it is also no less easy and
sure than the prevision of physical phenomena. “ If,
in crossing a street, a man sees a carriage coming upon
him, you may safely assert that, in nine hundred and
ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, he will try to get
out of the way. ... If he can buy next door a com
modity of daily consumption better and cheaper than
at the other end of town, we may affirm that, if he does
not buy next door, some special relation between him
and the remoter shopkeeper furnishes a strong reason
for taking a worse commodity at greater cost of money
and trouble.” f Finally, what logical justification of
sympathy can there be—how is it possible to reconcile
reason and fellow-feeling, save on the hypothesis of
determinism 1 Is it not in this creed that we find the
strongest incentive to mercy, charity, long-suffering—
to “hatred of the sin, and yet love for the sinner j in
a word, to all that is highest and noblest in the charac
ter of man as a social being ? May the day soon come
—and perhaps it is not far distant—when a public and
practical recognition shall be given to this great prin
ciple, and when the popular sanction shall establish a
basis and a system of psychology so fruitful in beneficial
result, not only in Legislation, but in the Sciences of
Morality and Education also. This paper will not
have been written in vain, if it should arouse any to
the earnest and sincere examination of the great sub
ject with which it has dealt.
* Mill, “ Logic,” Book VI., chapter it, §2.
f Spencer, “Study of Sociology,” page 38.
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On Faith Cruelty and Christianity : A Lecture,
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Science and Theology -
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HARE, The Right Rev FRANCIS, D.D., formerly Lord Bishop of Chichester.
The Difficulties and Discouragements which attend the Study of the
Scriptures
-06
HENNELL, SARA S.
On The Need of Dogmas in Religion. A letter to Thos. Scott
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HINDS, SAMUEL, D.D., late Bishop of Norwich.
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JEVONS, WILLIAM.
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Recent Theological Addresses. A Lecture
MAITLAND, EDWARD.
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6
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Genesis Critically Analysed, and continuously arranged; with Introductory
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-------- 1 0
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Against Hero-Making in Religion James and Paul
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--------PRESBYTER ANGLICANUS.
.
.
m
„f
Eternal Punishment. An Examination of the Doctrines held by theCleigj oi
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-------- 0
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The Doctrine of Immortality in its Bearing on Education
fi
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ROBERTSON, JOHN, Coupar-Angus.
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The Finding of the Book
0 fi
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SCOTT, THOMAS.
O 9
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--------- 0
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The Speaker’s Commentary Reviewed
The Christian Evidence Society'
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----- 0
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The Province of Prayer,
- *
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On the free-will controversy
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Hutchison, Thomas Dancer
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Free will
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Free Will and Determinism
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l-ITS
C(
THE
PHYSICAL BASIS OF WILL.
jKite
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ON
EUNBAY AFTERNOON, FEBRUARY 15th, 1880,
BY
HENRY MAUDSLEY, M.D.
Honban:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1880.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�The Society’s Lectures by the same Author,
now printed, are—
“ Lessons of Materialism.” (Price 3d., or 3jd. by Post.)
“The Physical Basis
of
Will.” (Same Price.)
Can be obtained (on remittance by letter of postage stamps or
order) of the Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry Domville, Esq,., 15,
Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W., or at the Hall on the days
of Lecture; or of Mr. John Bumpus, 158, Oxford Street, W.
Works by the same Author:
“ The Pathology of Minh.” Being the Third Edition of the
Second Part of the “ Physiology and Pathology of Mind,” re
cast, much enlarged and re-written. In 8vo, price 18s.
“ The Physiology of Mind.” Being the First Part of a
Third Edition, revised, enlarged, and re-written, of “The
Physiology and Pathology of Mind.” Crown 8vo, 10s. 6d.
“ Body and Mind
An Inquiry into their Connection and
Mutual Influence, specially with reference to Mental Dis
orders. Second Edition, enlarged and revised, with Psycho
logical Essays added. Crown 8vo, 6s. 6d.
Macmillan & Co., London.
�SYLLABUS.
Is there a physical basis of will ?
Statement of the doctrine of free will.
The difficulties of the doctrine—(1) In its relation to universal
causation; (2) In its relation to supernatural workings on the
mind.
The practical life of mankind always in conformity with the
theory that the will is not outside causation, but is determined
by motives.
What are the grounds of the conviction of a free will ?
The value of the testimony of consciousness as a witness;
what it does say, and does not say.
The physiological basis of will: nervous functions which go
along with its functions and may be its material equivalents.
Observed dependence of will upon organization; impairment
of will accompanying the beginnings of physical derangement.
The formation of will is the formation of character by means
of good training on a sound physical basis.
The apprehension of the reign of law in mind as in matter not
inconsistent with moral feeling and responsibility, but necessary
in order to infix and develop a rational sense of responsibility.
The limited range of all human knowledge.
��THE
PHYSICAL BASIS OF WILL.
N a lecture which I gave here last year, and published
afterwards in the Fortnightly Review * I pointed out
that moral feeling is just as closely dependent upon
organization as is the meanest function of mind, and
asserted broadly “that there was not an argument to
prove the so-called materialism of one part of mind which
did not apply with equal force to the whole mind.” For
this statement I was taken to task in an article in the
Spectator, the critic in that journal summoning up to
confront and confound me the alleged self-determining
power of human will—the freedom of the will. I pro
pose, then, to make this lecture supplementary to the
former one in some respects, by considering now whether
we are entitled to assume, as I hold, a Physical Basis of
Will, or whether, as my critic thinks, we have in the Will
a self-sustained spiritual entity, which owns no cause,
obeys not law, and has no sort of affinity with matter.
’Tis not a discussion of much lively or fruitful promise,
but inasmuch as those who engage in the Freewill con
troversy, ■while repeating the old and trite arguments, for
the most part leave out of sight the physical aspect of the
subject, it may be instructive to bring that more into
notice, and to show that those who uphold a material
basis of will have some plain facts to go upon.
They who maintain that the will is not determined
I
* “ Materialism and its Lessons.”
�6
The Physical Basis of Will.
by motives, but is self-determined, free, do not for the
most part go so far as to imply that motives are not at
work in the mind, and that the will takes no account of
them; they affirm that there is not the uniform, in
separable connection between motive and will which
there is between cause and effect in physical nature. The
will is not the unconditionally necessary consequent of
its antecedent motives. It, or some other mysterious
entity in the individual which, having virtually abstracted
from the actual individual, they call his non-bodily self, has,
they allege, an independent, perfectly spontaneous, arbi
trary power to make this or that motive predominate as
it pleases ; to chose this or that one among motives and
make it the motive; in doing which this self-determining
principle is presumed by some, I believe, to act without
motive, of its own pure motion, without cause or reason;
by others to act from motives so high and fine, that they
constrain it instantly, without weighing at all upon its
*
freedom.
Clearly then we have here a very singular
power in nature, which we might call supernatural were
* “The noumenon, ding-an-sich, real self,” “is unknowable,
inscrutable,” “ exists outside Time, Space, and Causality, is ab
solutely free,” “ in itself, per se, is unchangeable; ” “ and, as it is
my only real being, my primitive and inborn self, it must be
present as a factor in every change and every action of which
my phenomenal Self, my empirical character, is capable.” That
is to say, itself outside Time, Space, and Causality, it is the
moving principle of every change in Time, Space, and Causality
which takes place through me. Of a truth a wonderful power
which can thus be actually and not be theoretically at the same
time in and outside Time, Space, and Causality! But more.
Why does a truthful man who has told a falsehood feel a remorse ?
Because “his conscience tells him that he is responsible,not indeed
for this particular act— since this he could not help—but for not
being a better man.” “ Blame not the action, then, but the man
for being capable of such an action. Whip him, not for telling
this particular lie, but for being a liar at heart, in his inmost
nature. For this inmost nature, his real Self, his ding-an-sich,
which, as a noumenon, is in some inscrutable manner emanci
pated from the laws of Time and Causality, from the operation
of motives, is absolutely free.” But surely it will be, on the
one hand, a singularly hard matter to lay hold of and whip the
inmost nature, the real self, the noumenon, when “ it exists out-
�The Physical Basis of Will.
7
it not that it is allowed to be a part of nature acting in
and upon it, although coming from a mysterious source
outside it; but being thus an important agent in nature,
without being of the same kind or having anything in
common with anything else there—any sympathy, affinity,
or relationship whatever with the things which it works
in and upon—-we may fairly call it unnatural.
If there be a power of this kind in the Universe, the
reflection which occurs instantly is that causation is not
universal, as people are in the habit of assuming, but that
there is a large region of human events which is exempt
from the otherwise uniform law of cause and effect, the
region, that is to say, of man’s highei’ mental operations.
A great deal of the force which works in them and by
which they work on the external world obeys not the
law of conservation of energy. Now this is a rather
startling reflection, seeing that the great natural argu
ment for the existence of God is that everything must
have a cause, and that for cause of all things, therefore,
there must be a cause of causes, a great First Cause. At
the outset, then, we come to a perplexing dilemma—to
the obligation of concluding either that the will, like
other things, must have a cause, or that a great first cause
is not a necessity of human thought.
side of Time, Space, and Causality,” and, on the other hand,
rather unfair to whip vicariously the empirical character which
cannot help itself, when the real culprit escapes. How whip it,
too, in any case, seeing that it is a thing-in-itself, incorporeal,
spiritual, “as the air invulnerable”? The foregoing extracts are
taken from, an account of Kant’s Philosophy, by Professor Bowen,
of Harvard College, U.S., in his work on Modern Philosophy.
At the end of his exposition and comments, he says: “ And thus
the deep and dark problem of fixed fate and freewill is solved,
the two contradictories being reconciled with each other.” No
doubt they are reconciled in the minds of those who, like Pro
fessor Bowen, can believe at the same instant two contradictories.
Sir W. Hamilton laid it down that one of two inconceivable con
tradictories must be true, and it passed for a long time for high
philosophy that a man should be able so to conceive inconceivables as to know them to be contradictory. Here we have
a step farther in philosophy, since we have two conceivable con
tradictories which are both true.
�8
The Physical Basis of Will.
But this is only a first difficulty. We are taught by
those who uphold the freedom of the will that although it
is not governed by motives, but is a self-determining
principle in us, it is wrought upon continually and most
powerfully by supernatural agency. A Divine grace is
ever near to help it in time of need, strengthening it to
do well, weakening it to do ill. It is God’s good purpose
to “master our will,” and to make us “surrender and
resign it to his just, wise, and gracious will; ” and to
make good his right, says that eloquent divine, Dr. I.
Barrow, “ God bendeth all his forces and applieth all his
means both of sweetness and severity, persuading us by
arguments, soliciting us by entreaties, alluring us by fair
promises, scaring us by fierce menaces, indulging ample
benefits to us, inflicting sore corrections on us, working
in and upon us by secret influences of grace, by visible
dispensations of providence.” A stupendous array of
motives this, which it is a wonder any one ever withstands,
especially when it is borne in mind that they are worked
by the unlimited power of Omnipotence, which has fore
known and fore-ordained the result from all eternity I
However, we are not to suppose that these mighty agencies
are anywise incompatible with the freedom of will; indeed,
when it has surrendered itself to entire obedience it is
enjoying the most perfect freedom'; when it is in the
grasp of Omnipotence it is most free. Hard sayings no
doubt for reason, but not at all hard to faith seemingly,
since many persons persuade themselves that they have
intelligent apprehension of them.
The will is assailed very powerfully in a second super
natural way—namely, by the Devil, if the Devil, that is
to say, be not defunct. Bor it seems to be an open
question now whether he has not undergone by evolution
such a transformation of kind as to have lost all his per
sonality and much of his power. At the time when he
paid Luther a memorable visit he was a distinct being
enough, with great horns and a tail and cloven hoofs;
later on, when Milton described him, he had lost these
appendages, and become the great Archfiend, above his
fellows “ in shape and gesture proudly eminent,” who
�The Physical Basis of Will.
9
amid the torments of a new-found Hell still flung defiance
at the Omnipotent, with unconquered will declaring it
better to “reign in Hell than serve in Heaven;” still
later he underwent philosophic transformation into the
polished, cultivated, intellectually subtile, but mocking,
doubting, cynical, Mephistopheles of Faust. What form
and substance has he now, if form and substance he has
any ? Those whose professional work it is to do battle
with him, and to frustrate his ever active wiles and malice,
and who ought therefore to know him best, do not tell us
clearly what their exact ideas on the subject are, if they
have clear and exact ideas ; they apparently like to believe
in him as much in a vague and cloudy way as they dislike
to believe in him in any precise and definite way, or at
any rate dislike to be asked to define precisely their belief;
but although they may not be very sure of his present
form and dwelling-place, they have no doubt in a general
way of the evil desires and passions with which he inspires
poor human hearts, and of his open and insidious assaults
on the higher aspirations of human will, which he, un
tiring enemy, besets, besieges, beleaguers, bombards con
tinually. Again then we have a large region of human
events—a region the limits of which it is impossible to
define or to get defined—which is outside the natural
law of causation, and cannot ever be made matter of
scientific study. For as it is plain that we have no means
by which we can measure and register the quantity and
kind of energy which the Devil thus exerts continually
upon the will—no Satanometer or Diabolometer so to
speak—human events, so far as they are effects of his
counsels and instigations, must lie outside the range of
positive knowledge. But once more we are not to suppose
that these supernatural workings upon the will abridge in
the least degree its perfect freedom.
These are difficulties one might suppose great enough
to make even the theologico-metaphysical theorist pause,
but they have no effect to shake his faith in his dogma,
or to lessen his scorn of the profane persons who
doubt and dispute the freedom of the will. He is bold
enough in the last resort to affirm that man’s thoughts,
B
�10
The Physical Basis of Will.
feelings, and doings on earth are not proper subjects of
enquiry by a scientific method, and to avow that true
knowledge of them must come either by an extraordinary
metaphysical intuition or by revelation and faith. The
last key to the problem for him is indeed not “Search and
know,” but “God spake these words and said;” not know
ledge by the well-tried paths of observation and reason,
but “ He that believeth not shall be damned.” Of which
text 1 hope it is not irreverent to sav here that whosoever
believeth, whether it be on the authority of Holy Church
or of Holy Scripture, that which contradicts reason abso
lutely needs no further damnation; he has done himself
damage enough already as a rational being.
Meanwhile mankind has lived always and still lives in
conformity with quite an opposite theory of human will—
namely, that it is governed by natural motives. The
problem of freewill is a problem of the study, it never
has been a problem of practical life; a theoretical dogma
of faith, not a working belief, the doctrine has flourished
in an atmosphere of vague and cloudy phrases, and all
discussions about it have been in the air; it has shifted
its ground too and changed its form so often that it is
not possible to know where and how to seize and hold it.
Laws have been systematically made and punishments
inflicted upon those who broke them under a very deflnite
conviction that the will is not an uncaused power, but
does move in obedience to motive, and may be fashioned
to act in this way or that. The execution of a murderer
does not fail to influence his likeminded fellow, who cer
tainly has not the freedom of will to be unaffected thereby;
the aim and use of the punishment are to determine his
will, and it could not be of the least use if the will were
self-determined. We observe historically the past actions
of men in different situations and circumstances in order
to gain a knowledge of the springs of human action which
shall be of use to us in our present and future dealings.
The person who has had much experience, whether in
politics, business, or any other special department of
human labour, is esteemed a wiser guide than a new
comer, because of the certainty that the thoughts and
�The Physical Basis of Will.
11
acts of men are not in any respect chance-events, but
that what they have done before, that they will do again
when actuated by similar motives.
Prudence and forethought in the conduct of affairs, the
provisions made for education, social institutions and
usages, all the operations of daily life in the intercourse
of sane men are based upon the tacit implication that acts
of will are never motiveless, but conform to law and may
be counted upon. There is not a single department of
practical life which is not an implicit denial of a free self
determining power in each individual, and an implicit
recognition of a common nature in men affected by common
influences, and taking a common development in conse
quence. The only person who answers at all to the
metaphysical definition of a self-determining will is the
madman, since he exults in the most vivid consciousness
of freedom and power, sets reason at naught, and often
does things which no one can predict, because he acts
without motives, or at any rate from motives which no
one can penetrate. Did sane men possess freewill they,
like the madman, would be free from responsibility, since
their wills would act independently of their characters,
just as they listed, not otherwise than as men used to
declare, before they knew better, that “• the wind bloweth
where it listeth,” and no one would have much, if any,
motive left to try to improve his character.
We may take it then to be true that the explicit setting
forth, in formal knowledge, of what is implicit in the
course of human life would be a system of philosophy in
which a self-determining principle had no part nor place,
in which freewill would be a wrnrd void of meaning—
nonsense. But true knowledge has its foundation in
experience, and is really the conscious exposition of what
is implicit in human progress ; it is implicit in action
before it is explicit in thought. Men do not divine
truth and then work to it consciously; it is instinct in
them before it is understanding; and when in mature
time the unconscious breaks forth into consciousness, it
is the man of genius who is the organ through which the
expansion takes place; he is the interpreter of its blind
�12
The Physical Basis of Will.
impulses to the age, and gives them thenceforth clear
utterance and definite aim. The truth then, as testified
practically by the experience of the whole world from the
beginning until now, is that will is a power which does
not stand outside the range of natural causation, but one
which is moved habitually by motive in every man from
his cradle to his grave. The freewill problem might be
compared well to that great logical puzzle which so long
and so much perplexed the philosophers : I mean the
race between Achilles and the tortoise, where the tortoise
being allowed a certain start, and Achilles supposed to
run ten times as fast, it was proved that he never could
logically overtake it. For if we suppose the tortoise to
have a thousand yards’ start, it would have run a hundred
yards when Achilles had run the thousand yards; when
Achilles again had run the hundred yards, the tortoise
would be ten yards ahead; when Achilles had run the
ten yards, the tortoise would have gone one yard; when
Achilles had done the one yard, the tortoise would lead it
by the tenth of a yard; when Achilles had got over the
tenth of a yard, he would still be the hundredth of a yard
behind; and so on by successive subdivisions of the
diminishing space for ever. Clearly then Achilles never
could logically overtake the tortoise, whatever he might
do actually. So it has been with the freewill puzzle : the
philosophers, confusing themselves and others with a
juggling statement of the problem, have applied the word
free to the will instead of to the man, who has always
known himself to be free, not to will, but to do what he
willed when not hindered from doing it by internal or
external causes, just as they proved that Achilles would
not overtake the tortoise, by treating a finite space which
was infinitely divisible as if it were infinite.
*
Put the
race problem in a plain way, without ambiguous use of
words, and the result is plain enough : when Achilles had
run one thousand yards, the tortoise would have run one
* One is required to go on subdividing a unit indefinitely, and
to be surprised that the sum of the diminishing fractions never
can reach 1.
�The Physical Basis of Will.
13
hundred, but when Achilles had run two thousand yards,
where would the tortoise be ? Why, it would have run
two hundred yards altogether, and would of course be
eight hundred yards behind.
So much then for the facts in their relation to freewill.
Now what are the grounds of the metaphysician’s clear
conviction that he has a will and that it is free ? His
consciousness tells him so, he says, and all the arguments
in the world will not invalidate its direct and positive
testimony. But does it really tell him so ? One may
meet that statement truly by affirming that his conscious
ness does not tell him anything like that which he is in
the easy habit of supposing and declaring it to do.
Certainly it is not true that we know immediately by
consciousness that we have such a power as the meta
physician means by will. One-tenth only of that con
fident dogma is the direct deliverance of consciousness,
the other nine-tenths are pure and gratuitous hypothesis.
Consciousness tells us nothing whatever of an abstract
will-entity; it makes known a particular volition when
we have it and no more; the creation of an abstract will
which is supposed to execute the particular volition on
each occasion, and its further fashioning into a spiritual
entity, is an assumption as unwarranted as any that has
ever been made by the crudest materialism. It would be
no whit more absurd to make a spiritual entity of sensa
tion and to maintain that this abstract entity was
necessary to produce each sensation; or to postulate a
special emotional entity which operates in each emotion;
or to create a spirit of greenness and to detect it at work
in each green thing; or to discover the spirit of stoneness
in every stone by the roadside. What the metaphysician
has done has been to convert into an entity the abstract
word which embraces the multitude of particular volitions,
varying infinitely in degree and quality, just as at an
earlier period of thought, when the metaphysical spirit
had more life and sway than it has now, he explained the
sleep-producing properties of opium by a soporific essence
in it, and the difficulty of getting a vacuum by Nature’s
abhorrence of a vacuum; or as at a still earlier period of
�14
The Physical Basis of Will.
thought he put a Naiad in the fountain, a Dryad in the
tree, a Sun-god in the sun.
But, in the second place, while consciousness does not
tell him that he has a will such as he supposes, no more
has it the authority to tell him that his will is free.
Consciousness only illumines directly the mental state of
the moment; it reveals nothing of the long train of
antecedent states of which that state is the outcome—all
is dark beyond where its light directly falls; and it
cannot testify anything as an eyewitness concerning what
is happening there, any more than a person in the light
can testify of what is taking place in the dark. Let
there be a solitary gas-lamp lit in a large square on a
pitchdark night, it enables you to see immediately around
it, but it does not show what is going on in any other
part of the square; and if any one standing near it
chanced to get a severe blow on the head from a stone
coming out of the darkness, he would think it small
satisfaction to be told that the blow was by a selfdetermined stone. So it is with consciousness ; it makes
known the present volition, it does not make known its
causes; and that, as Spinoza pointed out long ago, is the
origin of the illusion of Freewill. How, indeed, could a
present state of consciousness reveal immediately another
state of consciousness; in other words, how could it be
itself and a formei' state of consciousness at the same
time ? But whosoever will be at the pains to carry his
self-inspection patiently back from the present state of
consciousness to that state which went before it, and
from that again to its antecedent state, and so backwards
along the train of activity which has issued in the latest
mental outcome, lighting up in succession as well as he
can each link in an intricate chain of many-junctioned
associations, may easily assure himself that he would never
have present states of feeling were it not for past states of
feeling. Let the will be as free as any one chooses to sup
pose, it is certainly as impotent to will without previous
acts of will, as a child is to walk before it has learned to
step: the present volition contains the abstracts, so to
speak, of a multitude of former volitions: by them it is in
�The Physical Basis of Will.
15
formed. The most eager metaphysician, when he is not
thinking of his abstract dogma of freewill, or of an equally
abstract reason whose supreme dominion over will is sup
posed to constitute its singular freedom, will not deny
*
that an individual’s thinking, feeling, or acting as he does at
any moment of his life is the outcome of his nature and
training, the expression of his character; that his present
being is the organic development of his past being ; that
he is fast linked in a chain of causation which does not
suffer him ever to get out of himself. It is a chain, too,
which, if he reflects, he must perceive to reach a long
way farther back in an ancestral past than he can
estimate. We see plainly how a person inherits a father’s,
grandfather’s, or more remote ancestor’s tricks of speech,
of walk, of handwriting, and the like, without imitation
on his part, since the father or grandfather may have
died before he was born; and in the same way he inherits
moods of feeling, modes of thought, impulses of will, and
exhibits them in thoughts, feelings and acts which seem
essentially spontaneous, most his own. Has he done
well in some great and urgent emergency of life in which
he knew not what he did at the instant, he may justly
give thanks to the dead father or grandfather who en
dowed him with the actuating impulse or the happy
aptitude which served him so well on the critical occasion.
We little think, for the most part, how much we owe
to those who have gone before us. There is not a word
which I have used, or shall use, in this lecture which does
not attest by its origin and growth countless generations
of human culture extending from our far distant Aryan
forefathers of the Indian plains down to us ; in like
manner there is not a thought or feeling or volition
which any one in this room can have which he could have,
had not countless generations of human beings thought
and felt and willed before him, and had not he himself
been thinking, feeling, and willing ever since he left his
cradle. It is in vain we attempt by self-inspection to
make plain all the links of causation of any feeling or
* See note at the end of the lecture.
�16
The Physical Basis of Will.
volition; the impossibility is to seize and weigh each
minute and remote operative element—to bring all the
contributory factors into the light of consciousness. So
much is unconscious agency—temperament, character,
instinct, habit, potential thought and feeling, what you
will—something which lies deeper than direct self-obser
vation or even the utmost labours of self-analysis can
reach. Hence spring the illusions into which men often
times fall with regard to their motives on particular
occasions, the remarkable self-deceptions of which they
are capable. They think, perhaps, that they have acted
in their freedom from certain high motives of which
they were conscious when these were not the real
motives which actuated them.
*
From the unlit depths
of his being, the deep and silent stream of the indi
vidual’s nature, rise the forces which break on the sur
face in the currents and eddies of consciousness. One
may get a truer explanation • sometimes of a person’s
conduct on a particular occasion by a knowledge of the
characters of his near relations than by his own expla
nation of his motives or one’s own speculations about
them ; for in their traits we may see displayed in full
detail what is potential mainly and of occasional out
comein him. When acts appear to be quite incommen
surate with motives, or when the same motive appears to
produce different acts, the just conclusion is not that an
arbitrary freewill has capriciously meddled and upset
calculation, but that the motives which we discover are
only a part of the complex causation, and that the most
important part thereof lies in the dark. Self-conscious
ness is a very incompetent witness in that matter: you
might as well try to illuminate the interior of St. Paul’s
with a rushlight. A motiveless will may be compared,
* A desire or motive does not generally go the direct way to
its issue in action any more than a person necessarily goes the
direct way from London to Edinburgh. He may go two or three
ways, or he might go all round by Exeter, and still get there.
So with desire, which goes a roundabout and very intricate way
sometimes, carrying with it, so to speak, something from each
place at which it has stopped on its journey.
�The Physical Basis of Will.
17
perhaps, to a foundling baby; respecting which wise men
conclude, not that it had no parents and came by chance,
but that they do not know who its parents are.
The metaphysicians have yet another argument of
which they make much. They lay great stress upon
their assertion that there is nothing in the operations of
the body which is in the least like the energy we are
conscious of as will, and that we cannot put a finger on
anything in all the functions of the nervous system which
can conceivably serve as a physical basis of will. Let us
enquire then if that be so. The simplest nervous opera
tion, that which is the elemental type of which the more
complex functions are built up, as a great house is built
up of simple bricks, is what we call a reflex act: an
impression is made upon some part of the body, the
molecular change produced thereby is conducted along a
sensory nerve to a nerve-centre and arouses the energy
thereof, and that energy is thereupon transmitted or
reflected along a connected motor nerve and accomplishes
a particular movement, which may be purposive or not.
Tor example, a strong light falls upon the retina and the
pupil instantly contracts in order to exclude the excess of
light; a blow is threatened to the eye and the eyelids
wink involuntary to protect it : a lump of food gets to
the back of the throat and as soon as it is felt there the
muscles contract and push it on. These are operations
of the body in which, although they accomplish a purpose,
the will has no part whatever; they take place in spile of
the will, as everybody knows, and one of them even
when a person is completely unconscious.
A more
striking instance of an instructive reflex act is afforded
by a well-known experiment on the frog : if its right
thigh is irritated by a drop of acid it rubs it off with the
foot of that side, but if it is prevented from using that
foot for the purpose it makes use of the opposite leg.
Intelligent purpose and deliberate will, one would natur
ally say; but when the frog’s head is cut off and the
experiment made then the result is the same; it tries
first to use its right foot, and that being impossible bends
the other leg across and wipes off the acid with it. As
�18
The Physical Basis of Will.
its head has been cut off it is certain that it has not
conscious intelligence and will in any definite and proper
signification of those terms ; it does not know what it is
doing although it acts with admirable purpose, any more
than the pupil does when it contracts in a strong light or
than the steam engine does when it performs its useful
*
work.
The concluson which we must come to and
emphasize is that the nervous system has the power,
instinct in its constitution or acquired by training, to
execute mechanically acts which have the semblance
of being designed and voluntary, without there being
the least consciousness or will in them. Have we not
here then a pretty fair physical foundation of a rudi
mentary will ?
Let us now go a step further. The will, as we know,
has not the power to execute only, but it has the power
to prevent execution, to hold impulses in check; indeed,
its higher energies are most tasked, and its highest
qualities shown, in the exercise of this controlling function.
Our appetites and passions urge us to immediate gratifica
tions ; it is the noble function of will to curb these lowei
*
* A critic of my book on the “ Physiology of Mind,” in the
“Journal of Mental Science.” of January last, defines the theory
of. freewill thus: “ that in every determination to act which con
stitutes a volition the determinant is not a mere datum of nerves,
or seuse, or passion, but?s an idea actively taken up, formulated
as an adecpiate end, and stamped as an element of happiness by
that noubodily entity which we call self. . . . This is the
simple key to the whole problem of Responsibility.” The italics
are his. We may take notice here how admirably the acts of
the. decapitated frog fit this definiton. It evidently takes up
actively the idea of getting rid of the pain, formulates it as an
adequate end, and stamps it as an element of happiness by that
nonbodily entity (clearly very much, if not entirely, non-bodily
seeing that it is headless) which we call self! Thus it gives
us the key to the whole problem of Responsibility. It were
well, perhaps, if all those who write about mind would follow
Spinoza’s advice—first study sufficiently the functions of the
body, so as to “ learn by experience what the body can do and
what it cannot do by the simple laws of its corporeal nature and
without receiving any determination from the mind.” They
might then, perhaps, as Schopenhauer thought, “ leave many
German scribblers unread.”
�The Physical Basis of Will.
19.
impulses of our nature. Is there anything, then, in the
operations of the nervous system which can possibly be
the basis of this exalted governing function? Let us
take preliminary note here that there are reflex actions
going on in the body which are essential to life, but over
which this mighty despot of the mind, the will, has no
authority whatever—the movements of the heart and of
the intestines, for example; they go on regularly night
and day; if they did not we should die; bat we cannot
slacken or quicken or stop them by any exertion of will
which we can make. The movements of breathing, which
are also reflex, we can control partially; we can breathe
quickly or slowly as we please, or even stop breathing for
a time, but not for long, since no one can kill himself
by simply holding his breath. The physiologist, however,
can easily quicken or retard the beatings of an animal’s
heart at will, by stimulating directly the proper nerves.
By irritating a nerve which goes to it—the so-called vagus
nerve—he can retard them, and by irritating another
nerve connected with it—the so-called sympathetic—he
can quicken them. He can do with its pulsations as the
coachman can with his horses, pull them in to go slowly
or send them on quickly. But more—and this is the
point I wish to come to—he can affect them not only in
the direct way which I have mentioned, but also indirectly
by a sharp impression on some part of the body. Bor
example, if he suspends a frog by its legs and then taps
sharply on its belly, he instantly stops its heart for a
time. What happens is that the stimulus of the tap is
carried by a nerve to a nerve-centre in the brain near
that centre from which a controlling nerve of the heart
proceeds, and so acts upon it as in the result to prevent
or inhibit the action of the heart; in other words, what
we have to apprehend and perpend in the experiment is
that the physiological sympathy of nerve-centres in the
organization of the nervous system is such that one
centre, when stimulated to function, has the power to
inhibit physically the function of another centre, just as
the will inhibits the movements of breathing.
This
temporary arrest of the heart’s beats by an intercurrent
�20
The Physical Basis of Will.
stimulus somewhere into its reflex arc is after all not
very unlike to temporary arrest of respiration by an in
tercurrent volition into its reflex arc.
Did time permit, I might bring forward many more,
and more striking, instances of this kind of inhibitory
action, selecting them from the operations of the human
body both in health and in disease; but it must suffice
for the present to set down and emphasize the broad con
clusion which they warrant, namely, that one nervous
centre, when stimulated into activity, may so act upon
another centre as either to help, or to hinder, or to suspend
its function by pure physiological mechanism. Have we
not here, then, a physical basis of the inhibitory power of
will ? Place the fact by the side of the fact on which I
laid emphatic stress just now—namely, that the nervous
system has the power of executing purposive acts without
any intervention of consciousness or will; and it is plain
we have in the two physical functions something which
runs closely parallel with the rudiments of volition and
may well be their material equivalents—that is to say,
power to command execution of a purpose and power to
stop execution.
Metaphysicians * get their theories of will by considering
its highest displays in a much cultivated self-conscious
ness, where the difficulties of satisfactory analysis are
insuperable; but a complete and sincere study of it must
deal with its small beginnings as well as with its finest
displays—ought, in fact, to commence with them; for to
ignore the facts of its genesis and development is to make
an artificial philosophy which may serve well for intel
lectual gymnastics in scholastic exercises, but has no
practical bearing on the concerns of real life. Let us
then examine the simplest instances of primitive volition
in the animal and in the infant. When a dog, in obedi
ence to its natural instinct, seizes a piece of meat which
* They appear to be desirous of abandoning their old name of
metaphysicians in favour of the new name of idealists. But they
have no right to that term, which is properly applicable only to
one who upholds the Berkleian theory.
�The Physical Basis of Will.
21
lies near it and is punished for the theft, the memory of
what it was made to suffer intervenes on another occasion
between the impression on sight and the ensuing impulse,
and checks or inhibits it; in like manner when an infant
grasps something bright which attracts its gaze and is
burnt, its memory of the pain which it suffered checks
or inhibits a similar hasty movement on another occasion.
Here then we have the simplest instance of will; the
animal or infant voluntarily refrains from doing what its
first impulse is to do—of two courses chooses the best.
But what is the probable physical side of the process ?
In the first case, where the dog seized the meat, an im
pression upon the sense of sight, the conduction of the
molecular change to the nerve-centre, and the production
of a special sensation, as the ingoing process; after which,
as the outgoing process, the transmission of the energy
along a motor nerve to muscle and a consequent adaptive
movement—a sensorimotor process; in the second event,
when a punishment was inflicted, the association of this
sensorimotor process with the painful stimulation of
another nerve-centre : and in the third case, when the
dog seeing the meat refrained from touching it, instead
of the instant reflexion of the sensation into movement,
there was the stimulation by it of the associated centre in
which the memory of the pain was registered, the conse
quence of which was the inhibition of the movement.
One of two catenated physiological centres was in fact
excited to inhibit the other. If we multiply in an endless
complexity this simple scheme of nerves and nerve-centres
we get the constitution of the brain, indeed of the whole
nervous system, which contains an innumerable multitude
of interconnected nerve-centres ready to be awakened into
action by suitable stimulation to increase, to combine, to
modify, to restrain one another’s functions. As counter
part on the mental side to this exceeding complexity of
physical structure, we have very complex deliberation
going before the formation of will, which comes out at
last from the intricate interactions of so many hopes,
fears, inclinations, promptings, desires, reflections, and
the like, of so many constituent elements of character,
�22
The Physical Basis of Will.
that we are unable to analyze them and so to specify the
exact factors in its complex causation : it is the resultant
of a very intricate composition of forces. To me it seems
then a fair conclusion that in the inhibitory action of one
nerve-centre upon another, as disclosed by physiological
observation, and in the simplest instance of volition, as
known by consciousness, we have two processes which go
along together parallel, and not unfair therefore to main
tain that we have as good authority to believe in a physical
basis of will as in a physical basis of any mental state
whatever.
The plain truth is, when we look the facts fairly in the
face, that we never meet with will except in connection
with a certain organization of matter, varying with its
variations, and exhibiting every proof of being dependent
upon it. It is notably infantile in the child, imbecile in
the idiot, grows in power, range, and quality as the
mental powers grow by education, is mature in the adult,
falls sick with the body’s sicknesses, and becomes decrepit
in the decrepitude of age. However free and independent
in theory, it never shows its power in fact except from a
good physical basis. The aim, the use, and the result of
a sound moral training are to fashion a strong will; and
assuredly all training acts through the intimate develop
ment of the nervous system which it produces. Good
moral habits, like other habits, are formed by the structure
growing to the modes of its exercise. When the physical
basis is congenitally defective, as in the idiot, no excellence
of training will succeed in developing a normal will, any
more than much thought will add one cubit to the stature
of a dwarf. And when we make a survey of the various
forms of mental derangement, which we know to be the
deranged functions of disordered brain, we observe that
a first symptom of mischief is always a loss of power of
will over the thoughts and feelings : that is the sad sign
which portends the coming calamity. The person who is
about to fall into acute mania has ideas and feelings surge
up in his mind in the most irregular and tumultuous
fashion, and is impelled by them to strange and disorderly
acts. It is painfully interesting to watch the .struggle
�The Physical Basis of Will.
23
which goes on sometimes at the beginning of the attack
before the failing will undergoes complete dissolution :
the patient will succeed by a strong effort in controlling
himself for a few moments when he knows that some one
is looking at him, or when he is spoken to, and in acting
and answering calmly and coherently, but the enfeebled
will cannot hold on to the reins, and he relapses soon into
incoherent thought, speech and conduct, becoming, as the
disease makes progress, incapable of even an instant’s
real self-control. The person who is falling melancholic
is tormented with painful thoughts and feelings, blasphe
mous or otherwise afflicting, which come into his mind
against his most earnest wish, cause him unspeakable
distress, and cannot be repressed or expelled by all the
efforts of his agitated will; so hateful are they to him, so
independent do they seem of his true self, that he ends
perhaps by thinking them the direct inspiration of Satan
and himself given over to eternal damnation. The mono
maniac broods upon some idea of greatness or of suspicion,
rooted in its congenial feeling of exaltation or of distrust,
until the weakened will looses all hold of it and it grows
to the height of an insane delusion; then he imagines
himself to be emperor, prophet, or some other great per
sonage, or believes all the world to be in a conspiracy
against him. The sufferer who is afflicted with a frequently
upstarting impulse to do harm to himself or to others,
conscious all the while of the horrible nature of the im
pulse, which he fights against with frenzied energy, goes
through agonies of distress in the struggles to prevent his
true will being mastered by it. Everywhere we observe
impaired will to go along with the beginnings of physical
derangement. And if we look to the last term of the
mental degeneration, as we have it in the demented
person in whom all traces of mind are well-nigh extin
guished, who must be fed, clothed, cared for in every way,
whose existence is little more than vegetative, we find an
almost complete abolition of rational will accompanying
extreme disorganization of special structure.
The lessons of mental pathology admit of no misread
ing ; they make known everywhere an entire dependence
�24
The Physical Basis of Will.
of will on physical organization. Bnt there is an im
portant aspect of the matter which I ought not to pass
by altogether, although my allusion to it now must
necessarily be the briefest.
It is this converse and
weighty truth—that actual derangement of the structure
of an organ can be brought about by the continuance of
excessive or disordered function ; that the habitual indul
gence of evil passions, ill-regulated thoughts, and de
praved will does lead to corresponding physical changes
in the brain ; and that every person has thus in the patient
fashioning and timely exercise of will no mean power
over himself to prevent insanity. For the praises of such
a well-fashioned will, I cannot do better than borrow the
lines of Tennyson :—
Oh ! well for him whose will is strong !
He suffers, but he will not suffer long;
He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong:
For him nor moves the loud world’s random mock,
Nor all calamities hugest waves confound,
Who seems a promontory of rock
That, compassed round with turbulent sound,
In middle ocean meets the surging shock,
Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crowned.
But assuredly we shall not have a will of that kind
formed by treating it as a free, independent, arbitrary entity
which has no affinities, is not moved by motive, and owns no
law but self-caprice; it can be formed only by painful
degrees, in conformity with stern laws of moral develop
ment, by one who is solicitous uniformly to use motives
and make good use of them, patiently watchful to with
stand and check the earliest invasion of his mind by low
motives, earnest to cultivate good feelings and noble aspi
rations, steadfast always to strengthen the will by habitual
practice in right doing—who aims, indeed, to make it, as
it should be, the highest and fullest expression of a wellformed character.
The acknowledgment that human
will is included within the law of causation—the appre
hension of the universal reign of law in mind and in
matter—so far from tending to dishearten men and to
�The Physical Basis of Will,
25
paralyze their highest efforts by driving them into a dreary
fatalism, seems to me to be essential in ordei’ to infix and
develop in their minds a vital sense of responsibility to
search out intelligently and to pursue deliberately the right
path of human progress; a responsibility, be it said, which
the metaphysical dogma of free-will not merely weakens
but logically destroys. Men have not been paralyzed in
intelligence or effort, but have gained in both immeasur
ably, by perceiving and comprehending the law of gravita
tion ; and in like manner by apprehending the reign of law
in mind they will lose only the freedom to make ignorant
blunders and to waste their forces unintelligently : they
will obey the law whose service is their best freedom.
Knowing that their efforts rest securely upon eternal law,
they will know that their labours cannot be in vain: that
they have the power of the universe at their backs, “ the
everlasting arms ” beneath them.
It is unfortunate that people, scared by a horror of
materialism, the “uncreating word” before which freedom
of will and responsibility die, as a writer has described
it lately, cannot see that the application of a scientific
method of enquiry to human thoughts, feelings, and
doings in no way touches injuriously the supreme autho
rity of moral law and the power and wish to obey it.
Neither moral feeling nor responsibility would be taken
out of life were a purely materialistic evolution proved
doctrine ; on the contrary, the course of that evolution in
the past would remain the best guarantee and yield the
strongest assurance of a further moral and intellectual
progress in the future. If it be true that men have risen
by a gradual evolution from a pre-moral state of barbarism
to their present height of intelligence and moral feeling,
and if it be, as it certainly is, the essential principle of
evolution to pass upwards from more simple and general
to more complex and special organisation, it is surely a
rational inference and a sound expectation that intelli
gence and moral feeling will reach a still higher develop
ment in the future. Science is only organised knowledge
and does not pretend to do more than find out and set
forth how things are as they are, and by help of what it
�26
The Physical Basis of Will.
thus learns to forecast what they will be in the future; it
perceives clearly how inexorably its range is limited by
the limitations of our few and feeble senses, and how
impossible it is that it should ever discover anything about
the primal origin of things—about the why and whence, of
the mysterious universe of its observations. Evolution,
the modern name of that conception which the old Greek
philosophers, when they first formed it, called nature or
the becoming of things (</>v<ns), is only a more exact and
true exposition of how things have become, not in the
least an explanation of the mystery of their why. By
the help of knowledge slowly widening we can look back
in retrospective imagination to the time and manner in
which our planet and the other planets of our solar
system took form by nebular condensation and started
on their several orbits; we can trace with patient
thought the successive changes which have taken place on
the surface of the earth and have culminated in man and
his achievements ; we may foresee, perhaps, a time when
a few miserable human beings, living degraded lives in
snow huts near the equator, shall represent all that is
left of the vanished myriads of the human race, or a still
later period when the earth, fallen to the condition in
which the moon now is, rolls on its solitary way through
space, a frozen and barren globe, the tomb of a Dead
Humanity ;—we may, if we look far enough before and
after, do all that, but we can never tell what minute frac
tion our solar system may be—what a vortex-molecule,
so to speak—of countless other systems in the inconceiv
able immensities of space which lie beyond our utmost
ken, and what essential relations it may have to them;
we cannot tell why matter on earth has formed an ascend
ing series of more and more complex compounds, why
having reached a certain complexity of composition it
became living, why organic evolution have gone on to
higher and ever higher achievements until it reached the
complexity of human organization and gave birth to con
sciousness ; and we cannot tell in the least what will
happen in the long long time to come, when all the
operations of our solar system are ended, past as com
�The Physical Basis of Will.
27
pletely as the light of the first human eyes that gazed on
them in wonder. Science is confined to a finite space
between two infinities—the eternal past and eternity to
come; it measures only a single pulsation, so to speak,
in the working of a power whose source and end are
past finding out, which was and is, and is to come, from
everlasting to everlasting; beyond that range, narrow it
is true, but more than wide enough to give full scope to
all human affections and to occupy usefully all human
energies, there is absolute nescience—agnosticism if you
will. Organised as we are we can no more know about
it than the oyster in its narrow home and with its very
limited sentiency can know of the events of the human
world—of the noise and turmoil, say, of an English electior,
or of the interesting chronicles of the “ Court Circular.”
What science repudiates and condemns, I believe, is the
presumptuous pretence on the part of theology to know
and tell all about the inscrutable, to put forward as
truths, not ever to be questioned, childish explanations
which are an insult to the understanding and would be
its suicide if really accepted, to demand reverent assent
to doctrines which sometimes outrage moral feeling, and
to declare solemnly that whosoever believeth not the
fables which it proclaims “ shall without doubt perish
everlastingly.”
What it may furthermore well repudiate and condemn
is the evident want of sincerity of heart and veracity of
thought shown by those who proffer and accept these
explanations, by reason of which they do not honestly
sound their beliefs and pursue them rigidly to their
logical issues, but suffer themselves to use words habitu
ally in a non-natural sense, and to hold side by side
inconsistent and even directly contradictory doctrines,
without being troubled by their manifest inconsistencies.
The scientific spirit claims entire veracity of thought,
whatever the result, knows that truth does not depend
upon our sympathies and antipathies, is resolute to follow
it to the end even at the sacrifice of the most cherished
beliefs. It cannot but think it to be as demoralizing in
tendency as it is insincere in fact, to profess to hold a
�•28
The Physical Basis of Will.
faith in entire reverence after having given up most of
what is characteristic of it, and as certain in the end to lead
to grossly inconsistent conduct. Such disingenuous deal
ing with momentous matters marks indeed an unveracity
of thought which would be lamentable hypocrisy were it
not more often intellectual timidity and unconscious
self-deception. But whether the insincerity be conscious
or unconscious, it is incompatible with that rigid, hearty,
and entire devotion to truth in thought, feeling, and ex
pression which is the aim and at the same time the
strength of a good understanding.
Note to Page 15.—Kant's doctrine is that there is a determi
nation of the will by pure reason, that so reason gets practical
reality, and that in this absolute obedience the will has absolute
assurance of its freedom. The moral law is a law spontaneously
imposed on the will by pure reason: it stands high above all the
motives, sensuous and their like, which determine the empirical
will; it pays no respect to them, but with an inward, irresistible
necessity, orders us, in independence of them, to follow it abso
lutely and unconditionally—’tis a categorical imperative, universal,
and binding on every rational will. A happy thing, certainly, that
a will determined to unconditional obedience by so absolute an
authority retains nevertheless the absolute assurance of its free
dom. But then comes the not unimportant question—What is
it that practical reason categorically commands ? How are we
to know what the moral law dictates and forbids ? The easiest
thing in the world, thinks Kant: let only those maxims of con
duct derived from experience be adopted as motives which are
susceptible of being made of universal validity—which are fit to
be regarded as universal laws of reason to govern the actions of
all mankind. I do right when I do what all persons would
think right in similar circumstances. Very good, without doubt,
although very like the common-place maxim of every ethical
system ; but my difficulty has been to know in a particular case
what all intelligent beings would think right. How am I to get
at the universal standard or precept and apply it to my particu
lar occasion, so as to know absolutely what I ought then to do?
Kant helps me by means of two remarkable illustrations. Suicide
is one. Is suicide, under the strongest temptation conceivable,
ever right ? I must ask myself then, “ Is the principle of the
admission that suicide is ever right fit to become a universal
law ?” No, says Kant, it is not fit, since the universal practice
�fhe Physical Basis of Will.
29
of suicide would reduce the world to chaos. Very true, but it is
sadly disappointing to perceive that the sublime and supreme
reason has, in order to become practical reality, found it neces
sary to come down from its supersensuous heights and to be no
better than gross Utilitarianism. All that it can tell me, panting
for its supreme utterance, is that suicide is inexpedient as a
universal principle of conduct—in fact, it makes use of the
common motives of an experience which is nowise supersen
suous, and instead of helping me to an absolute precept or
standard to measure them by, actually comes to them for its
authority. Kant’s philosophy, of which the metaphysical mind
is getting re-enamoured in some quarters at the present day, has
its head high in the clouds and dreams there sublimely; but
it finds it necessary to have its feet on the ground when the time
comes for it to march.
The second instance is no more helpful. May a person in the
greatest need of a loan, which he knows he will not get unless
he makes a solemn promise to repay what he is perfectly certain
he never will be able to repay, make the promise? No, says
Kant, for if it were a universal law, all faith in promises would
be destroyed, and nobody would lend money. In other words,
in the long run it would be very bad for society that faith in
promises should be destroyed. An excellent truth, which no
body can deny, but it evidently smacks much of the earth
earthy; indeed, it would seem that those who discover the
basis of morality in the social sanction may claim Kant, when
he is not in the clouds, as an out-and-out supporter. It is dif
ferent when he is busy spinning empty supersensuous theories
which have no relation to actual life, and amusing his disciples
with the magnificent dissolving views of his metaphysical magic
lantern. First he presents a splendid view of supreme reason
to the spectator who, as he admires it, sees the picture dissolve
gradually and in its place appear the grand features of Moral
Law, which shared with the Starry Heaven Kant’s ever new
and rising admiration and reverence; as the gaze is fixed in ad
miration upon this view it melts into indistinctness, and. as it
does so, there comes by degrees into clear definition the mighty
figure of freewill. Thereupon, informing his enthusiastic audience
that there are not really three pictures, as they might suppose,
but one picture, the three being one and the one being three,
Reason being Will and Will Reason, and that they cannot fail
to perceive, when they reflect properly upon what they have
seen, that the belief in God and immortality have now been
made safe for ever, he retires amidst unbounded applause.
Meanwhile, the critic who has not been blinded by the magnificent
metaphysical display, and who feels that he does not live, move,
and have his being in an abstract land beyond physics, asks him
self with regard to the philosophy—Will it march ?—and is not
�30
The Physical Basis of Will.
much surprised to find that when it begins to march it can only
do so on well-worn Utilitarian tracks.
All theories of freewill seem to come to this—that the will
which is swayed by low motives is not free, that the will which
is swayed by the higher motives is more free, and that the will
which is swayed by the highest motives is most free; conse
quently, when a person is blamed for having done ill, he is not
blamed for not having acted without motives, but for not having
been actuated by the highest motives. Create an artificial world
of names apart from the real world of facts—a world which shall
simply be made up of negations of all qualities of which we have
actual experience—and let the highest motives be known in it
as the Will of God or abstract Supreme Reason, you will get
your service which you may please yourself to call perfect
freedom. And there does not appear to be any reason why you
may not create and take refuge in another still more ideal world
beyond that, if persons of a positive spirit should show any dis
position to invade ideal word No. 1 with inconvenient enquiries.
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The physical basis of will : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society on Sunday afternoon, February 15th, 1880
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Maudsley, Henry [1835-1918]
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Place of Publication: London
Collation: 30, [2] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Presented in Memory of Dr. Moncure D. Conway by his children, July Nineteen hundred & eight. Includes bibliographical references. List of the Society's Sunday Lectures on unnumbered pages at the end.
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Free Will
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Conway Tracts
Free Will and Determinism
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THE END OE THE EREE-WILL
CONTROVERSY.
BY
HENRY TRAVIS,
M. D.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
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�THE END OE THE EBEE-WILL
CONTROVERSY.
GENERAL REMARKS.
THE difficulty experienced by philosophers in reference to the two opposite ideas which have been
the subjects of the Free-will Controversy, has arisen
from the fact that both are partly true and partly
false, and that the advocates of each idea have imagined
and have endeavoured to prove that their idea is
wholly true, and that the idea which they have
opposed, is wholly false. And this difference of
opinion has arisen from the defective state of mental
science, and from the consequent inability of either
party to trace and explain the mental process, or the
series of mental facts, by which both truths are made
evident—a process inscrutable to those who cannot
trace it, but very obvious to those who are able to do
so. It was by being enabled to trace distinctly the
facts of this mental process, after obtaining correct and
clear ideas respecting them, that the solution of this
great controversy was obtained. While men continued
to think and speak of mental facts in the absurd
manner in which philosophers have hitherto thought
and spoken of them; thinking and speaking of
faculties, and eveD of thoughts and feelings, as entities
and agents; and of mental facts in which there is no
action, as acts, and even, in many cases, as acts of
these imaginary entities, it was utterly impossible that
A
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The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
they should, trace the mental processes which must be
known before the truths involved in the Free-Will
Controversy can be clearly ascertained, or that they
should understand even the most simple mental opera
tions.
THE TWO OPPOSITE IDEAS.
There is a truth of very great importance in the
idea of Free-will. And there is another truth, of very
great importance, in the idea of Philosophical Necessity.
But in each idea there is an error which is extremely
injurious. And the erroneous part of each idea is the
denial of the truth which is asserted in the other.
There is, therefore, in each idea, an affirmative part
which is true, and a negative part which is erroneous ;
and as long as philosophers contended for or against
the truth of either idea, they were, of course, defeated,
for neither idea could be established or refuted without
refuting a truth. To establish the idea of Free-will,
and to refute the idea of Philosophical Necessity, the
truth asserted in the idea of Philosophical Necessity
must be refuted. And to establish the idea of Philo
sophical Necessity, and to refute the idea of Free-will,
the truth asserted in the idea of Free-will must be
refuted. But no truth can be refuted. And therefore
the advocates and the opponents of each opinion have—
“ Found no end in wand’ring mazes lost.”
And many have imagined that there is no end to
be found, or that the solution of the mystery, if there
be any solution of it, is beyond human comprehension.
And it is so while men do not know the facts of the
subject. But when the facts are known it is found to
be extremely simple. It is merely to put together
the two truths, and by doing so, to put away the two
negations. Each idea has been, as it were, an entangle
ment of threads of white and threads of black. But
to each party in the controversy, its own entanglement
�The Two Truths.
3
has seemed to be entirely white, while that of its
opponents has appeared to be entirely black.
Each party could see error, but neither could see
truth in its opponent’s opinion. And most injurious
effects have been produced, and effects which will be
in the highest degree beneficial, and which have been
earnestly desired, have been prevented and made
impossible, in man’s social feelings and conduct, and
in the formation of his character, and through this
in human affairs generally, by these confused and
erroneous ideas in reference to two most important
truths. But the consideration of this part of the
subject must be deferred until the two truths have
been explained.
THE TWO TRUTHS.
The Eree-will party has imagined that man is him
self the primary cause of his determinations. But he
is not. The necessarian, or, to use the more recently
adopted designation, the “ Determinist ” party, has
imagined that man is not a cause at all of his deter
minations, or, in other words, that he is not an agent
in the forming of them. But he is. He is a cause,
he does act mentally, in the forming of his determina
tions. But he is not the primary cause of them; for
his agency in the forming of them is dependent upon
conditions or causation. These, then, are our two
truths— u
First. That man is an agent in the forming of his
determinations, and that he has a power of self-control.
Second. That his agency in the forming of his
determinations, or in the exercise of his power of self
control, is dependent upon conditions or causation.
But as the second truth includes the first, and as
the first is denied by the necessarians, it is not this
truth, it is the general truth, “ that man is in all
respects dependent upon causation,” which the
necessarians have maintained.
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The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
THE FACTS OF THE SUBJECT.
To ascertain the facts in which the two truths are
immediately manifested it was necessary to trace the
mental operation by which we form determinations.
And to be able to trace this mental operation it was
necessary to have correct and clear ideas of the
mental facts which occur in it. These truths therefore
could not be clearly known while the ideas of men in
reference to these mental facts were confused and
erroneous. If those who believed that man is an
agent in the forming of his determinations could have
pointed out the manner of his agency in forming them
to those who denied that he is so, if, in other words,
they could have pointed out the facts of the mental
process by which he forms them, they would have
established the true part of their idea. And the other
party would then have had no difficulty in pointing
out that man’s agency in the forming of his determina
tions is dependent upon conditions, by tracing cause and
effect through the successive mental facts which occur
in that process. And thus the two truths would have
been made evident. And then it would not have been
difficultto findthatthey are perfectly consistent with each
other. And instead of the want of knowledge and the
confused and erroneous ideas which have existed upon
this subject, and the highly injurious effects which have
been consequent upon them, men would have had en
lightenment and clear and correct ideas in reference to
these highly important truths, and would have obtained
the highly beneficial effects, in the formation of character
and in human affairs generally, which will result from the
application of these ideas in the regulation of their social
feelings and conduct—effects which they can only vaguely
conceive and cannot appreciate while they retain the
erroneous ideas and the ill-regulated social feelings which
they must have while they do not understand this subject.
Perhaps the simplest way to point out the facts by
�Preliminary Statement.
5
which the truth that man is an agent in the forming
of his determinations is demonstrated, will be to
describe the process by which definite and correct
ideas of these facts were obtained.
PRELIMINARY STATEMENT.
I was converted while a young man from the com
mon belief in the idea of free will to belief in the
idea of philosophical necessity—to the belief that man’s
determinations are the effects of causes, and that he is
not an agent in the forming of them, that they are
always produced by the strongest motive, and that our
motives and their relative strength are produced by
internal and external conditions ; by our character (our
ideas and habits of feeling) and our constitutional
state, internal conditions ; and by the persons and
things by whom and by which we are influenced at the
time of their formation, external conditions. I was
enabled to see that the idea that man is the primary
cause of his determinations is opposed to the idea of
the government of all things by Supreme Power and
according to unchanging Laws, or to the fact or truth that
there is always a Cause for whatever occurs. For to
be the cause of our determinations is to be a personal
agent in the forming of them ; and we cannot be agents,
in any way, independently of Causation or Law. But,
having no distinct knowledge of any such agency, I
was led to think that the fact that man’s determinations
are always in agreement with the strongest motive, is
proof that he is not an agent in the forming of them ;
believing, as stated above, that our motives and their
relative strength are dependent upon internal and exter
nal conditions, and not upon any agency of ours in form
ing them. And the denial of man’s agency in the form
ing of his determinations seemed to me to be involved in
the assertion of their dependence upon causes. If the
facts of the subject could then have been pointed out I
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The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
should have seen the error of these ideas, and should not
have remained for more than twenty years in ignorance of
a truth which man must know before he can be
enlightened upon subjects of the highest importance,
and instead of being caused to endeavour to lead others
into the same error, I should have endeavoured to
make known the truth.
And the thought and
perseverance which have been required to arrive at
the knowledge of this subject would have been given
to the advancement of the beneficial results to which
this knowledge will lead. But all has been Cause and
Effect. And a great result has been obtained. And
the good work may now be carried on which could not
advance until this preparation for it had been made.
I held this opinion, as stated, for more than twenty
years, and frequently advocated it in speaking and in
writing. But although I never met with any one who
could disprove it, either in conversation or in print,
I often felt disappointed by finding myself unsuccessful
in my endeavours to convince others of the truth of
it. It was said by believers in the free-will idea, that
they were conscious of a “ nisus,” or effort, that is, of
mental action, or agency, in the forming of their
determinations.
But I could never obtain any
explanation of this mental action. And I could not
convince my opponents that nothing of the kind
occurs. At length I began to examine what it could
be which caused them to have this idea of nisus or
effort in the forming of their determinations.
THE WILL-TO-ACT.
I first asked myself: “ What do we do when we
will ? ”
But I found, by observing what occurs
mentally when we will, that to will is not to do a
mental act, but it is to have a will to do an act. We have
a will to do an act; and what we do is the act which
we have a will to do. The will-to-act is the immediate
�The Will-to-Act.
7
mental antecedent of the act. It is an error, therefore,
to imagine that a determination, or a will-to-act, is a
mental act, or as it is commonly called, an “ Act of
Will.” These are facts, ascertained by observing our
mental experiences.
2. I next asked myself, “ What is this mental fact,
this will-to-act ? ” I found by observing, again, what
occurs within us when we have a will, that to have a
will to do an act we must have an idea of the act.
But I found that an idea of an act is not a will to do it.
We may think of an act without having a will to do
it. Still the thought is there. But in the will-to-act
we must have something more. What is this ? It
must be emotion. As when, for instance, we have a
wish, we must have an idea of that which we
desire combined with the emotion of desire; so when
we have a will to do an act, we have an idea of the act
combined with the emotional part of the will-to-act.
And as a will to do an act is a decisive impulse to do it
— an impulse which is immediately followed by the act—
we may call this emotion “ impulsive/’ A will to do
an act, then, is composed of an idea of the act combined
with impulsive emotion, and with sufficient of this
emotion to be decisive. These, again, are facts. And
they had not previously been pointed out—so far as my
knowledge of writings upon the subject extends. And
they could not be pointed out by any one who
imagined that a will-to-act is a mental act.
I substitute the words to “ determine,” and a “ deter
mination,” for to “ will,” and a “ will-to-act,” because to
“ determine ” is to do a complex mental act, to form a
determination; and to “ will ” is to have a will-to-act
—a complex mental affection; and in order to mark
this distinction, and to avoid the erroneous use of the
verb “ to will ” in the active sense. But a will-to-act
in the strict sense of the term—a decisive impulse to
do an act—is immediately followed by the contemplated
act; and a determination has reference to a con
templated act to be done at a future time—it is a
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The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
decision or resolution to do an act when the time for
having the decisive impulse arrives. I say, a “ will-toact, ’ instead of a “ will,” to mark the distinction
between the mental fact—a will-to-act—and the
mental faculty, a power of will; that is, a power to
form a will-to-act; an important distinction, which is
frequently overlooked, or not marked, when the same
word is used in both senses.
To understand this
subject, and to convey our ideas correctly to others, it
is necessary (1) to have correct ideas, and (2) to express
them with precision. While the ideas of men in
reference to “ the will,” have been confused and
erroneous, the terms which they have employed to
express them have necessarily been the same.
man’s agency in the forming of his will-to-/ct.
3. So far I had not found any mental action—for we
do not do our thoughts or our emotions. Where, then,
is mental action to be found? Do we act mentally
when we attend, observe, consider, reason, &c. ?
Evidently we do. But how do we act, or what do we
do mentally, when we attend, for instance ? When we
attend to. an idea we must have the idea. And in
attending to it we must do something. What is it that
we do ? We keep up the idea. As to look at an outward
object is to have a perception of sight and to keep it
up, so to attend to an idea is to have this idea and
to keep it up. This is evident when we observe what
occurs within us when we attend to an idea. What
psychologists have called the “ act of attention,” there
fore, is not purely a mental act. It is an active mental
operation, composed of mental affections and mental
acts. This is another fact, not described, so far as my
knowledge extends, by any writer on mental science.
4. But how does this apply to the forming of the
will-to-act ? When we have two opposing motives, say
a motive of inclination and a motive of duty or pru
dence, and when, after some hesitation, the motive of
�Man’s Agency in the Forming of his Will-to-Act. 9
duty prevails, and a will to act in accordance with this
motive is formed, have we been entirely passive during
the period of hesitation—has the predominance of the
good motive heen produced “without any effort of ours,”
or “for us, and not by us”? Or has it been produced
by means of mental action ? And, if it has been pro
duced by means of mental action, how has it been so
produced ? That we may be able to trace the mental
facts which occur in such a case we must substitute for
the indefinite term “ motive ”, and for the vague ideas
which are associated with it, another term, with ideas
which are definite and correct attached to it. When
we are said to have two opposing motives, we have in
fact two opposing indecisive impulses. And each
indecisive impulse is composed of the same elementary
mental facts as those of which a will (a decisive impulse)
to act is composed—of thought and impulsive emotion.
The difference between these impulses and a will-to-act,
is, that they have in them less of the impulsive emotion
than there is in the decisive impulse. An indecisive
impulse is an impulse which is not sufficiently strong
to be the immediate antecedent of the contemplated act.
A decisive impulse is sufficiently strong, and is inevit
ably followed by the act, when the power to do the act
exists, and when the exertion of this power is not
prevented by some external impediment—as when two
wrestlers are struggling with each other.
Now when we have resisted the temptation of an
impulse of inclination, and a decisive impulse in favour
of duty has been produced, what have we done? We
have kept up thoughts. And the effect of keeping up. a
thought is, that as we keep it up it becomes more plain
or clear, and the emotion connected with it is increased
in strength. When, for instance, we keep up a thought
which forms part of the impulse of duty, or which is
favourable to this impulse, we strengthen the emotion
which is connected with it. And while we keep up
this thought, we keep away, more or less, the thoughts
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The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
which form part of the impulse of inclination. And by
doing so we keep down or keep away, more or less, the
emotion connected with these thoughts. And we thus
weaken the impulse of inclination. It is evident, there
fore, when we observe the mental facts which occur in
us whenwe resist and overcome an impulse of inclination,
that we first have excited in us an indecisive impulse
opposed to it—say, an impulse of duty. That we then
keep up thoughts by which the emotional part of this
impulse is strengthened; and that by doing so we at
the same time weaken the impulse of inclination. And
that by continuing to do so we at last cause the impulse
of duty to become decisive. And it is thus that we
form a determination in favour of the impulse of duty
and resist effectually the impulse of inclination which
was opposed to it. And this is what occurs when we
are said to “ struggle” against a temptation and to over
come it. And it is in the mental action of keeping up
the thoughts by which the emotional part of the good
impulse is strengthened that the “ nisus ” occurs of
which the believer in the common idea of free-will has
been vaguely conscious—not in willing, which is having
a will to do an act, but in forming our will-to-act. The
effort which occurs in the act which we form a will to
do, is another effort. It follows the decisive impulse,
and cannot be that which occurs in the mental process
by which this decisive impulse is formed. It is evident,
therefore, beyond doubt, when we are able to trace the
facts of the subject, that we are agents in the forming
of our determinations, and that necessarians, or determinists, have been in error when they have imagined
that we are not so. And we thus obtain an intelligent
knowledge of this truth, and the ability to explain it to
others, instead of the merely instinctive knowledge of it,
without the ability to explain it, which alone we can
have while we are ignorant of this mental process.
The mental acts which occur in this process are at
first instinctive and involuntary, but they presently
�Man's Agency in the Forming of his Will-to-Act. 11
"become in a manner voluntary, when we “struggle”
intentionally to overcome a temptation. But they
cannot be intelligently voluntary while we do not know
the nature of the mental process. They must be
entirely instinctive while we are ignorant and deny
that we are agents in the forming of our determinations.
But by the knowledge of this mental process our power
of self-control is elevated or advanced from the con
dition of a power which we can only exert with a vague
consciousness, to that of a power which we may exert
with intelligent perception of what we do in exerting
it. And by this knowledge the educator will acquire
a power to promote the development of this extremely
important faculty in the young, which he cannot have
while he is ignorant of the mental process by which we
exercise self-control.
There are three stages of the growth of this power.
In early childhood it does not exist—as the power , to
walk, or to speak, or to reason, &c, does not exist.
As we advance in age it becomes developed, by exercise,
as other powers are developed—“ not for us and not
by us.”
But the exercise of this power, or the
agency upon which its development depends, is very
much dependent upon outward influences, especially
upon the character and conduct of the persons by
whom the young are influenced from their birth. At
length, when good habits, of thought, and feeling, and
action, have been formed, there is little need for the
exercise of this power, but when it is needed its
influence is decisive. The determination in favour of
the good impulse is then produced at once. And finally
the triumph of education will take place when no bad
impulse shall be excited. But to attain this result a
very much better system of education will be required
than any which can exist, or can be imagined, while
men are ignorant of either of the two truths, and while
therefore they must be ignorant of their application in the
regulation of our social feelings and conduct. It is the
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The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
necessity for the knowledge of the two truths, and of
their , application, as the basis upon which alone an
effective system of the formation of character can be con
structed, which constitutes the very great importance
of the solution of the free-will controversy.
THE CAUSES OF MAN’S AGENCY.
When we know the mental process by which we
form determinations, we may easily trace cause and
effect through every step of this mental operation.
When we resist a temptation and overcome it, we may
trace the cause of the first indecisive impulse, in
character and constitutional state and in outward in
fluences. And in like manner we may trace the cause
of the second indecisive impulse; and of the keeping
up of the thoughts which are kept up; and the
effects of keeping them up; until we arrive at the
final effect, in the forming of the decisive impulse which
we form. But while the nature of this mental operation
was unknown—and while the ideas of men in reference
to mental facts were so confused and erroneous as they
have been it could not be known,—these successions of
cause and effect could not be traced. And as the
believer in the idea of free-will could not point out or
explain the agency or exercise of power which occurs
in the forming of our determination, so the believer in
necessity could not point out the continuance of causa
tion in the mental process.
It has been said that all cannot properly be believed
to be cause and effect, because there must have been a
beginning of causation, and if all were cause and effect
we could not have any cause except as an effect of
antecedent causation, and a beginning of causation
would therefore be impossible. But there is no more
necessity, for our present purpose, to ascertain the
beginning of things, than there is to discover whether the
first hen came from an egg, or the first egg was laid by
�The Cause of Man’s Agency.
13
a hen. As it is enough for us, in reference to this
subject, to know that now we cannot have an egg without
a hen, and we cannot have a hen without an egg; so it is
enough to know that we cannot have any event or
result without a cause, and we cannot have any cause
except as an effect of antecedent causes. It is only
ignorant evasion of the difficulty to suppose that the
man is the primary cause of his agency in the forming
of his determinations, and thus to imagine that a case
of first causation occurs whenever a man forms a
determination, and that there is not one First Cause, but
that there have been, and are, and will be, millions and
millions of First Causes. To say that man is the cause
of his agency is to say that he is an agent in the producing
of it; that is, that his agency is the cause of his agency.
And in fact, his agency in the forming of his determina
tion is in part the cause of his subsequent agency in doing
what he determines to do. And after the commencement
of his agency in the forming of his determination his sub
sequent agency in this mental process is caused in part by
the agency (the mental acts) which preceded it. But for
the beginning of this agency there must be a cause. And
this cause is not his agency. It is in the internal and
external conditions of which the beginning of this
agency is the effect, the internal conditions being in
part the effects of his antecedent agency in the forming
of his character. The first mental act or movement of
his agency in the forming of a determination is the
effect of internal states of excitement which exist
before, or when, this act takes place. And these are
the effects of internal conditions of character and
constitution, and of outward influences. The second act
is the effect of the modified internal excitements which
exist after the first act, and which are, in part, the
effects of the first act. And so on. Aiid the decisive
impulse, and the bodily act which follows it, are the
effects of the internal states of excitement which exist
when it is produced.
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The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
GENERAL PROOFS OF THE TWO TRUTHS.
Two truths which have been very puzzling to philo
sophers, although they have been known instinctively
by every one, are thus made so plain that they may be
known intelligently by all who are able to trace the
simplest mental facts. And they may be taken by
mankind in general as decisively ascertained.
In
future generations they will be clearly known by every
one.. The instinctive knowledge of both these truths
is indicated by terms which have been adopted
instinctively by mankind in general, and which are in
common use by both parties in the free will contro
versy. Persons who deny that we are agents in the
forming of our determinations speak of “ electing ” to
do so and so; “ determining ” to perform an act;
“ forming.” a wish; “ making ” a choice ; “ resisting ”
a temptation ; &c ; asserting by the use of these terms
that we are agents in the forming of our determinations,
and confounding them with the terms to “ prefer,” to
‘‘ will,” to “desire,” &c., which indicate to have a
preference, a will-to-act, a desire, etc. And persons who
imagine that we are the primary causes of our deter
minations speak of the influences by which we are
caused to determine as we do ; and ask why we have
determined as we have, that is to say, by what internal
or external cause or circumstance we have been
influenced to form the determination which we have
formed. And they employ means to cause others to
determine as they wish. They do so whenever they
request, or advise, or exhort, or in any way endeavour
to persuade others to do or not to do an act of any
kind. For their request or advice, &c., is a cause or
circumstance to influence the individual to determine
to act or to refrain from action as they desire. It has
been remarked that no one can be a consistent fatalist.
And in like manner no one can be a consistent believer
.in the common idea of free-will, or in the idea of
5
�Confused Ideas in Reference to the Two Truths. 15
philosophical necessity. Both parties know instinc
tively and state in words, and apply in practice in
stinctively, in a lame manner, the truth which they deny
in theory. But what has been needed is that both truths
should be known intelligently, and that their appli
cation should be known, and that they should be intelli
gently applied in the regulation of our social feelings and
conduct and in the formation of character. .And this
could not be while men’s knowledge of them was so
imperfect that the two opposite opinions, or either of
them, could be maintained.
CONFUSED IDEAS IN REFERENCE TO THE TWO TRUTHS.
I have met with persons who had assented to the idea
of philosophical necessity, who, when the facts of the
mental process by which we form determinations were
pointed out to them, have said that they never denied
that man is an agent in the forming of his determina
tions, and who have been surprised when passages have
been shown to them in the writings of Hobbes, Edwards,
Priestley, Mill, -Spencer, and others, in which it is
distinctly denied. One of these persons had evidently
forgotten what he thought before; for the denial had
been made and repeated in his own writings as distinctly
and forcibly as it could be made. How far there was
the same forgetfulness or confusion of thought in others,
of whose ideas upon this point there was no written or
printed record, cannot be ascertained. But the fact is
interesting, as indicating the readiness of believers in
the idea of philosophical necessity to accept the true
part of the idea of free-will, when it is plainly pointed
out and is separated from the denial of man’s dependence
upon causation. And I have met with the same readi
ness in believers in the idea of free will, to accept the
true part of the idea of philosophical necessity, when
it is plainly pointed out and is separated from the denial
of man’s agency in the forming of his determinations.
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The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
Some necessarians have said, when they could no
longer deny man’s agency in the forming of his deter
minations, that this point is unimportant, if the truth
that his agency in forming them is dependent upon
causation is admitted. But it cannot be unimportant,
or of little importance, whether we are right or wrong in
our opinion in reference to a truth of very great importance—whether we believe and understand, or are
ignorant and deny, or only know instinctively, that we
have a power of self-control. And in reference to the
application of the true part of the necessarian idea we
shall see that it is extremely important.
The analysis of the mental process by which we
form determinations is not necessary to convince the
believer in the common idea of free-will that we are
agents in the forming of our determinations. But it
is necessary to refute those who maintain that we are
not agents in the forming of our determinations. And
it is necessary to enable those who believe that we are
so to understand what they believe upon this point, and
to be able to make this truth evident, and to explain
it, to others, who question the correctness of the belief.
We have ample proof in the experience of the past that
those who have believed this truth have not been able
to make it evident to those who have denied it.
It is argued in opposition to the idea that our agency
in the forming of our determinations is dependent upon
causation, that “if we admit that there is always a
cause for our determining as we determine, we must
admit that we can never help determining and acting
as we do, and the admission that we are agents in the
forming of our determinations is therefore unimportant.”
But when we form a good determination, instead of a
bad one which we were tempted to form, we do “ help ”
the forming of the bad determination. And it is this
which we are required to “ help,” and not the forming
of the good one which we form. The person who
excuses his wrong-doing by saying that he “ could not
�Confused Ideas in Reference to the Two Truths. 17
help it,” asserts, in other words, that he has no power
of self-control—a state of mental impotence of which
no one would wish to be accused. And as the develop
ment of this power by education is of very great
importance, the knowledge of the fact that there is such
a power in man to be exercised and developed cannot
be unimportant, or of little importance. The “ determinist ” negation is quite correct when applied to the
miserable man of whom it may be said with truth,
when he does a foolish or an unworthy act, that he
“ cannot help it.” But it is nonsense when applied to
the man who can and does help the doing of such acts.
For to help doing them is to form a determination not
to do them. It is to the credit of a man to say that he
cannot help determining and acting wisely and honour
ably, or that he has no need to exert his power of self
control in the forming of the determination to do so,
and that he could not form a determination to act
foolishly or unworthily. But to say of any one that
he “ cannot help ” determining and acting foolishly or
meanly, and that he cannot even acquire the power to
“ help ” doing so, is to assert that he is morally insane
or imbecile. And who would try, or how could any
one consistently try, to resist a temptation of any kind,
or to correct any bad habit, if he were convinced that he
is not an agent in the forming of his determinations
and therefore he cannot “help” yielding to tempta
tion, and that he cannot acquire the power to help
doing so ? But even those who deny that we are
agents in the forming of our determinations, do try to
resist temptations, and do resist them successfully.
They exert instinctively the power of which in theory
they deny the existence. But they cannot exert it
intelligently while they deny its existence, or while, in
other words, they imagine that man’s determinations
are formed “ for him and not by him.”
But again it is said that “ if the course of events is
determined by a Power which governs man in all that
B
�18
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
he does, or by Causation, it is not man who decides
what shall he done, in any case, but that every event
which occurs, including every determination and act of
every individual, is decided by this power.” But this
is nothing more than saying that there is in the universe
a Supreme Power, and that all things are overruled by
this Power, according to unchanging laws. And man’s
agency_ in the forming of his determinations, and his
possession of a power of self-control, are no more in
consistent with the dependence of this agency upon
Causation, or with the government of all things by
Supreme Power, according to unchanging Laws, than
his agency in the forming of anything else which he
forms, or his power to form or produce any other result,,
is inconsistent with his dependence upon Causation or
Supreme Power. And, in fact, dependence upon
Causation is necessary for self-control. For the power
to determine this way or that independently of Causa
tion, or without a cause or reason for determining as we
do, would not be a power of self-control. It would be
an attribute of insanity, or of an impossible state of
things worse than insanity. For even the movements
of an insane person, though not the results of self-control,
do not occur without a cause. If a man makes a piece
of mechanism, there is a cause for his making it, and
it was to be that he should make it; but nevertheless
he does make it. There is no inconsistency between
the fact that he makes it and the fact that he is caused
to make it, and that it was to be that he should make
it. And, in like manner, when a man forms a deter
mination, there is a cause for his forming it, and it was
to be that he should form it. And it is nonsense to
argue from this that he does not form it, and that he
has no power of self-control. It only follows that he
cannot form a determination, or do anything else, in
dependently of Causation, or of the Power by which all
things are over-ruled.
But again it may be said that if every event which
�Confused Ideas in Reference to the Two Truths. 19
happens was to happen, no event which occurs could
have been prevented, and no event which does not
occur could have been made to occur, and man must be
powerless in reference to the course of events. This is
the fatalist theory. But in the first place we know
that the conclusion, that man is powerless in reference
to the course of events, is not in agreement with
facts. He is continually causing events to happen
which he wishes to occur, and preventing events,
or rather imaginary events, which he wishes not to
happen. And the fact that there is always a Cause for
his doing what he does, and that it was to be that he
should do it, does not alter this, or deprive him of
power to do what he does. And secondly the logic is
defective. It is not the event which happens which
was the object of man’s preventive efforts, when these
efforts have been successful; it is the imaginary event
which does not happen, and which he prevents. And
to argue that he cannot cause an event to occur which
he does not cause to occur, is merely to argue that he
cannot at the same time cause an event to happen and
cause it not to happen, or not cause it to happen; or
that he cannot at the same time do an act and not do it.
Say to a man before he has done some act of no great
importance—“you cannot help doing that act”—and
he may show you by not doing the act that he can help
doing it. But your assertion would be a new element
of causation, added to those which existed before. Say
to him after he has done the act, that he could not help
doing it, because there was a sufficient cause for his
doing it, and it was to be that he should do it; and in
this sense you are right. Because in this you merely
assert his dependence upon Causation. You were wrong
in the first case because you denied his Power to do
what he had power to do. If in the second case you
had told him before he did the act that he could not
help doing it, he might have helped doing it. But
again, your assertion would have been a new element
�20
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
of causation. And other new antecedents would have
been required to produce your assertion, different from
those which existed. And those would have required
new antecedents to produce them. And so on ad infini
tum. To “help” doing an act, or to resist a temptation,
is not to form a determination or to exert our ptower of
self-control without a Cause. It is not to break through
“the everlasting to be”—theologically, the “divine
plan.” But it & to exert our Power of self-controL And
this fact, the exercise of self-control, is not altered by the
other fact that there was a sufficient Cause for it, and
that it “ was to be.” When a man finds that he has
determined and acted unwisely, and asserts that he
would act differently in the same circumstances upon
another occasion, he does not see that the circumstances
never can be the same—that his experience of the effects
of acting as he did would be a new circumstance, a new
element of causation—upon another occasion.
This “ can’t help it,” or fatalist, fallacy arises from
confounding the assertion of man’s dependence upon
Causation with the denial of his Power, and the assertion
of his Power with the denial of his dependence upon
Causation. There are acts which we have power to do,
and events which we have power to prevent, or which
we can “ help,” and there are acts which we have not
power to do, and events which we have not power to
prevent, or which we “ can’t help.” In this statement
we assert or deny our power. But no event can ever
occur, and no act can be done, independently of Causa
tion—our Power being of necessity subordinate to the
Supreme Power of the Universe. But to confound the
assertion of this limitation of our power—inevitable in
the nature of things—with the denial of power which
is made in the assertion that we “ can’t help it,” is to
allow ourselves to be misled by a logical fallacy into a
conclusion which is opposed to most obvious facts. To
say of an event which we have allowed to occur that
we could not help it, is to say that it is one of the class
�Confused Ideas in Reference to the Two Truths. 21
of events over which we have no Power, or to deny our
Power in reference to it. To say of an act which we
have done that there was a Cause for our doing it, and
that it “was to be ” that we should do it, is merely to
assert the truth that we are subject to causation. To
assert that man is the primary cause of his determina
tions, or, in other words, to deny that he is dependent
upon Causation in the forming of them, is to deny the
supremacy, and, in denying that, to deny the existence,
of the Supreme Power of the Universe. Freedom in
the sense of independence of causation, cannot exist, in
the nature of things. Freedom in the sense of having
power to control our wrong impulses—moral freedom—
can exist, and does exist, more or less, in all who are
not insane or imbecile.
There are cases in which it is difficult to trace the
cause of our determining as we do. In fact the believer
in the common idea of free-will, imagining that man is
himself the primary cause of his determinations, cannot
even try intelligently to trace the cause of his determin
ing as he does. But in most cases we may trace the
cause, and may find the reply to the question “ why did
you determine as you did 1 ” And in many cases even
the believer in the idea of free-will is able to trace it,
and does trace it—thus showing his instinctive know
ledge of the truth which in theory he denies. But it
is a mistake to say, as Mr Mill says in his logic, that
our determination “ comes to us from external causes, or
not at all.” And indeed Mr Mill himself speaks of
other causes. (See the chapter on “Liberty and Necessity”
“ in his work on “ Logic.”) Although our determinaation is always in part dependent upon external causes,
it is often much more dependent upon internal causes.
A wise man and a silly man will determine and act
very differently in similar external conditions. And of
course the difference is owing to (internal) differences
of character. And if in any case in which our choice
is unimportant we are unable to trace the cause of our
determining as we have determined, we may safely infer
�22
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
that there was some cause, because we know from ex
perience that in all cases of importance there is a cause.
We have thus seen that the arguments, or the logical
processes, by which men have been led to imagine that
our two truths are inconsistent with each other, are
deceptive ; and that each truth is admitted, and to some
extent applied, instinctively, even by those who deny
it. But to know a truth distinctly or intelligently, and
to be able to explain it, is very different from merely
knowing it instinctively and being unable to explain
it—the only knowledge of either truth which the
parties who believe it can have while they are unable
to point out the facts by which it is made evident.
And the intelligent application of the two truths is very
different, as we shall see, from the vague instinctive
application of them which alone can be made while the
truths are not distinctly known, and from the imperfect
and distorted application which alone can be made
when the assertion of one of them is combined with the
denial of the other.
IMPORTANCE OF THIS ANALYSIS.
The discovery of the analysis of the mental process
by which we form determinations is therefore of the
highest importance. For by ascertaining this analysis
we acquire the distinct knowledge of the two truths,
which must be known distinctly, and must be combined
with each other, in order that the foundation may be
laid of the only system of education by which the
character of man can be well-formed. And it is only
by means of this system of education, and by the
intelligent application of both these truths in the
regulation of our social feelings and conduct, or by the
character (or the ideas and habits of feeling) which this
education and application will enable man to acquire,
that a well ordered and happy state of society can be
realised. All systems of educational or social reform,
�The Application of the Two Truths.
23
therefore, which are not based upon the distinct know
ledge and the practical application of our two truths,
must fail to produce satisfactory results.
THE APPLICATION OF THE TWO TRUTHS.
It has already been stated that effects which are ex
tremely injurious in the formation of character, and
through this in human affairs generally, are produced
by the denial of man’s dependence upon Causation, in
the common idea of free-will, and by the want of
knowledge which is the cause of this denial; and that
effects which will be in the highest degree beneficial
will be produced by the distinct knowledge of this
truth, and of its application, and by the application of
it. But the beneficial effects can only be very im
perfectly obtained while the assertion of this truth is
combined with the denial of man’s agency in the
forming of his determinations, and while therefore the
injurious effects of this denial must be experienced.
A very injurious exaggeration of the inferences which
follow from each truth is produced when the denial
of either of them is combined with the assertion of the
other, or when the assertion of either truth is not
combined with the assertion of the other. From the
truth that man is an agent in the forming of his
determinations, and that he has a power of self-control,
it follows that he is a morally responsible being. But
when this truth is combined with the denial of the
truth that man’s agency in the exercise of his power is
dependent upon Causation, or is not combined with
the distinct knowledge of this truth, the idea of man’s
moral responsibility is very injuriously exaggerated;
and anger, unkindness, and vindictiveness, are excited
and justified. But when the truth that man is an
agent in the forming of his determinations is combined
with the truth that his agency in the forming of
them is dependent upon conditions or causes, our idea
�24
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
of his moral responsibility is very beneficially qualified.
And instead of the excitement and justification of
anger, unkindness, and vindictiveness, consequent
upon the exaggerated idea of man’s moral responsi
bility, we are caused, by the thought of the circum
stances by which what is displeasing to us in others
has been produced, when we keep up this thought, and
apply it in the regulation of our social feelings and
conduct, to be considerate and kind, and our ideas of
what is just to them are very beneficially modified. In
the former case we are led to imagine that it is right
that we should be unkind, and, in many cases, that we
should act with great unkindness, to those who dis
please us ; or to think it kind to be unkind. In the
latter case we know that, however we may with justice
blame and attribute demerit, and however, in the
present state of society, we may find it necessary to
punish, it is not just to be unkind ; because the object
of our displeasure must have been very injuriously
influenced in his education and by present circumstances.
And we shall discover that when society shall be
sufficiently enlightened, by the knowledge of this
subject, and shall be guided in its proceedings by
enlightened benevolence, the causes will be removed
by which what is injurious in man is produced, and
the effects will of course be prevented, and the
necessity for punishments will then be removed. And
we shall discover that punishments, although they are
indispensable in the present state of society, and are
therefore permissible, are not just, and are in many re
spects very injurious in their effects upon the character of
those who punish and of those who are punished. They
violate justice and kindness for the sake of expediency
or utility, or from necessity, created by the present
unwisely constituted state of society. But the be
ginning of the evil is in the want of knowledge and
the erroneous ideas by which the necessity for
punishments, and the spirit of unkindness, are pro
duced.
�Confused Ideas in Reference to Responsibility. 25
If with the idea that man is in all respects dependent
upon causation we combine the denial of his agency in
the forming of his determinations, we take away the basis
of the idea of his moral responsibility. And although
in the truth which we assert we have the justification
of considerate and kind feelings for all, it is the
consideration and kindness which are due to the insane
which are justified, it is not the considerate and kind
feelings due to a rational being, whose character has
been injuriously formed by means of injurious influences,
and who may still be enabled to acquire an effective
power of self-control if beneficially influenced to a
sufficient extent.
CONFUSED IDEAS IN REFERENCE TO REPONSIBILITY.
Some necessarians, or determinists, have endeavoured
to reconcile the idea of man’s moral responsibility with
their denial of his agency in the forming of his deter
minations. But to do so they have confounded the
responsibility which consists in being liable to exper
ience the consequences of our acts, which is legal or
practical responsibility, with that which is consequent
upon our ability to exercise self-control, which is moral,
responsibility.
It must be evident upon a little
consideration that the responsibility which depends
upon the possession of the power of self-control
cannot be supposed to exist when the existence of the
power upon which it depends is denied. In this
endeavour they confound the fact that punishment is
often indispensable, in the present state of things, and is
legal, and is “justified ” in this sense, and that we must
experience the consequences of our acts, that we are
practically and legally responsible; which is dependent
upon the truth that man is dependent upon causation ;
with the fact that we may be blamed, or are culpable,
when we omit to exercise our power of self-control
according to the dictates of duty, when no insuperable
obstacle prevents our doing so; which is moral
�26
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
responsibility, and is dependent upon the truth that
we have a Power of self-control, and which could not
exist if we had no such power ; but which must be
qualified, as stated, by the knowledge that our agency
in the exercise of our power of self-control is dependent
upon Causation. We have a remarkable example of this
endeavour to substitute man’s practical for his moral
responsibility, and of the confusion of ideas upon this
subject which is produced by the denial of man’s agency
in the forming of his determinations, in the chapter of
Mr Mill’s “Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s
Philosophy ” in which responsibility is considered.
“ Reponsibility means punishment,” Mr Mill says.
But it“ means punishment ” in two senses. It “ means
punishment” as deserved; which it could not be, as
we have seen, if Mr Mill were right in his denial of
man’s agency in the forming of his determinations—
moral responsibility. And it “ means punishment ”
as expedient or useful, in harmony with man’s de
pendence upon causation, a kind of responsibility which
could not exist if the negative part of the idea of
free-will were correct—practical responsibility. And
Mr Mill confounds the second kind of responsibility
with the first. In the chapter referred to, and in the
chapter on “Liberty and Necessity” in Mr Mill’s
work on “ Logic,” there are many examples of the use
of terms which are not admissible on the supposition
that man is not an agent in the forming of his
determinations, or which involve the admission, and
indicate the instinctive knowledge, of the truth which
Mr Mill denies. And those chapters are extremely
interesting studies for those to whom both our truths
are known. But they are very unsatisfactory and very
misleading to those who are in search of the truth
upon these points, and the more so on account of the
influence of the writer with many thoughtful persons.
But this influence, so far as it is injurious, will pass
away, with the progress of knowledge, leaving only
�Importance of the Application.
27
that which is beneficial—which is of great value. And
when both our truths are known men will no longer
think or write inconsistently or injuriously upon this
great subject.
IMPORTANCE OF THE KNOWLEDGE AND THE APPLICATION
OF THE TWO TRUTHS.
The influence of the intelligent application of the
two truths, as described above, in the regulation of
man’s social feelings and conduct, and in the formation
of his character, will be of the highest importance—
of importance which, to many, will be incredible and
inconceivable until the results can be seen in practical
realisation. By this application man’s benevolent feel
ings will be enlightened and developed, instead of being
to a great extent stultified and repressed, as they have
been, by the idea in which man’s dependence upon
Causation is denied, or while men, although they have
known man’s dependence upon Causation, have not
understood the application of this truth, or have not
applied it. And the ignorant feelings of unkindness
which have been excited and developed in men by the
exaggerated idea of man’s moral responsibility, and by
the erroneous ideas and the want of knowledge from
which this exaggerated idea has proceeded, will be
repressed, or will not be produced, instead of being
continually excited, as they have hitherto been. Man
will, thus, become intelligently benevolent, or kindly
disposed towards his fellow-men, instead of being
caused, as hitherto, to become ignorantly unkind, to a
great extent—a most important moral effect. And,
knowing and distinctly perceiving man’s dependence
upon Causation, he will be enabled to trace intelligently
the causes by which evil effects in man’s feelings and
conduct and in the formation of his character have
been produced, and those from which good effects in
these respects will proceed, and thus to realise a most
�28
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
important intellectual result. He will thus be enabled
to ascertain the causes and the processes of Causation by
which selfishness, untruthfulness, injustice, unkindness
in every form (including religious intolerance and per
secution), vice and crime of every description, poverty
and the fear of poverty, murders, wars (or wholesale
murders), injurious surroundings of every kind, and all
the miseries which have resulted from this combination
of satanic influences have been produced. And he
will find that they have all followed, as naturally
caused effects, from the want of distinct knowledge of the
two truths, and of their application, and from the
erroneous ideas which have been consequent upon this
want of knowledge, and from the unintelligent or
instinctive application of these erroneous ideas, in the
mis-regulation of man’s social feelings and conduct.
And, on the other hand, he will find that a series of
causes and effects the reverse of this will follow from
the distinct knowledge and the intelligent application
of our two truths. Benevolence will take the place of
selfishness, and men will become disposed to be truth
ful and just. And they will learn what will be just,
and will become disposed to fulfil the requirements
of justice, to the utmost, in the spirit of enlightened
good-will to all, or with the earnest and intelligent
desire that the happiness of every individual should
be promoted to the utmost possible extent, by the right
formation of character and by favourable outward influ
ences. And they will find that in adopting the practical
measures which are necessary to promote the highest
happiness of all, men will promote their own highest
interests or happiness in the most effectual manner,
while they fulfil their most sacred social duties, which
have hitherto been so wofully disregarded and violated
and to a great extent misunderstood. And they will form
new social arrangements, in harmony with this new
character, which will be most beneficial for all; instead
of the old social arrangements, in harmony with the
defectively formed character hitherto universal, which
�Effects of the Application.
29
are extremely injurious to all—not only to those who
are the most injured by them in their character and
surroundings, but also to those whose selfish interests
and tastes they are intended to promote and gratify.
For all are deeply injured in character and in surround
ings by the present system. It is a deep injury to be
surrounded by such characters as are formed in con
sequence of the ideas and the system which now exists,
instead of being surrounded by the characters of true
enlightenment and enlightened goodness which men
will be caused and enabled to acquire in a well-ordered
state of society. And it is a deep injury to be caused to
acquire some variety of the general character of the
present system, instead of being caused and enabled to
acquire the character of the system of true enlighten
ment and enlightened goodness. And the material
surroundings of even the highest classes—their mansions, and palaces, and the pleasure-grounds and parks
attached to them, are in many respects very inferior
combinations of circumstances, when compared with
the domestic and social arrangements, and their sur
roundings, which will he formed when the scientific
knowledge and the manual and mechanical powers of
society shall be applied under the guidance of
enlightened benevolence.
And the employments
and amusements of the wealthy are inevitably, in the
present state of things, to a great extent useless and
unsatisfactory.
The tree of evil will thus be caused to die away, from
its roots, and will disappear entirely, in due time ; and
the tree of good will be planted in the place of it. And
men will live in the midst of scenery beautified by its
presence, in an atmosphere of goodness, in the light of
intelligence, and in the midst of abundance of all
things necessary for their rational happiness. And
poverty will be known no more. For it is only as the
effect of selfishness, and unkindness, and disunion, and
gross injustice between man and man, and of the want
�30
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
of knowledge and the erroneous ideas by which this
irrational state of things is produced, that poverty and
the fear of it can exist, in a world overflowing as this is
with the material means for the production of every
kind of wealth which man can reasonably desire. And
when the various employments which are necessary for
the satisfaction of man’s wants, and of his reasonable
desires, shall be regulated by enlightened benevolence,
they will all be made attractive, as well as highly
effective; and the duties of life will be fulfilled with
willingness and pleasure. For the object of them all
will be to promote human happiness; not the selfish
mercenary object of gaining a wage, or a fee, by doing
something which we would not do if we were not paid
for doing it. It is thus, and only thus, that men will
learn how to fulfil, and will be enabled and caused to
fulfil, their social duties, according to the great rule
that we should “ do to others in all things, as we would
have others do to us,” and that they can realise the
happiness which is only to be realised by doing so.
And, before they could enter upon this course, it was
necessary, as we have seen, that the two truths which
have been the subjects of the free-will controversy, and
their application, should be distinctly known.
THE
CAUSES
OF
EVIL
AND
OF
GOOD
TO
MAN.
The discovery of the process of Causation by which
our social evils have been produced, and of that by
which they will be remedied, was opened to the world
by a necessarian. It could never have been ascertained
by a believer in the idea in which man’s dependence
upon Causation in the forming of his determinations
is denied. But when first made it was too incomplete
for general practical application, and too incomplete
to be explained, and to be received as real by the
public in general. And it was caused to be so by the
negation which in the necessarian idea is combined
�The Causes of Evil and of Good to Man. 31
with the truth upon which depends the knowledge of
the causes by which man is influenced in his determina
tions and conduct, and therefore in his agency in
producing evil or good results in his social affairs.
If man were himself the primary or independent cause
of his determinations, then, as our social evils depend
upon his conduct, and his conduct upon his deter
minations, he would be the primary or independent
cause of our social evils, and it would be useless to
look in any other direction for the cause of them.
And it would be folly to expect that he could be
influenced for good or evil by causes of any kind.
But as his agency in the forming of his determinations
is dependent upon Causation, it might be hoped that
the causes of evil and of good, in his feelings and
conduct, and in the formation of his character, and
through these in his social affairs generally, may be
ascertained, and that the causes of good may be sub
stituted for the causes of evil. It is quite certain that
until now these causes have not been1 known, even to
the believers in the truth upon which the knowledge
of them depends.
But while in ascertaining the
application of the truth upon which the knowledge
of these causes depends, the truth which should be
combined with it, and applied with it, remained
unknown, and was denied, and the denial of this
truth was combined with the assertion of the other,
the new knowledge was vitiated at its source. The
belief of the truth which was denied, which is highly
important as a cause of good, was supposed to be a
cause of evil; and the denial of this truth, which is
a powerful cause of evil, was supposed to be a power
ful cause of good. The discoverer, to a great extent,
of the causes of evil and of good to man, the late MrOwen of New Lanark, maintained that man’s character,
and his opinions, and his determinations, are formed
“for him, and not by him.” And he, therefore,
logically, and with characteristic moral courage, and
�32
The End of the Free-Will Controversy.
with the best intentions, but with intellectual blind
ness and want of judgment, upon this point, con
sequent upon this erroneous idea, or rather upon the
want of knowledge by which alone this idea is
permitted to exist, maintained that man is not a
morally responsible being, that he cannot have merit
or demerit, or deserve praise or blame, in the true
sense of those terms.
Punishments and rewards he
ascertained to be extremely injurious, or powerful
causes of evil, in many respects, although indjspensable while men are so unwisely educated and placed
as they have hitherto been. It was by the application
of the truth that man is dependent upon Causation
that he was enabled to make this invaluable discovery,
so far as he made it. It was, as stated, by the denial
of the truth that man is an agent in the forming of
his determinations, &c., and by the false inferences
which follow from this denial, that the discovery was
made so incomplete, and was so far falsified, that he
could not explain it, and it could not be practically
applied on an extended scale. It was by the applica
tion of the truth that man is dependent upon
Causation—by applying it in the regulation of his
social feelings and conduct, while he was yet a boy,
that he was enabled to acquire the character of
enlightened benevolence, so far as, with his partially
erroneous ideas, he could acquire it. And, havingdone so, it was by the application of this truth, to
some extent, under the guidance of his enlightened
benevolence, in a great educational experiment, during
the first quarter of the present centruy, that results
were obtained in an adult population of from two to
three thousand of the working classes, and in many
hundreds of children, which excited the admiration
and astonishment of thousands of visitors, of all classes,
from the highest to the lowest. And he thus verified
practically his great discovery, so far as his views were
correct. But owing to the erroneous part of his
�The Causes of Evil and of Good to Man. 33
fundamental idea, all his endeavours to explain his
discovery were in vain. He did not even succeed in
enabling his disciples to understand the change of
character which he contemplated, and the means to
effect it, and the importance of it, so far as to know
that it is only by the character which will result from
the application of the truth that man is dependent
upon Causation—it is only from the intelligent applica
tion of this truth in the regulation of their social
feelings and conduct, and in the formation of their
character, and in human affairs generally—that men
can be enabled to realise a well-ordered and happy
state of society. But of course he could not know that
his own views were so far erroneous, in consequence
of a fundamental mistake, that no one could obtain
correct ideas from any explanations which he could
give. But all other systems of social reform-—all the
ideas and plans to which the name Communism or
Socialism are given, and all other schemes of reform—
are still more defective fundamentally. They are
altogether defective fundamentally. They do not
contain any indications of the knowledge by means
of which alone the character can be formed which
is indispensable for the construction of a well-ordered
and happy state of society. On the contrary they
all exhibit the want of this knowledge, and contain
conspicuous evidence, to those who understand the
subject, of having emanated from characters in which
the knowledge and the enlightened benevolence did
not exist by which alone men can be enabled to devise
and construct a well-ordered state of society, and can
be enabled to co-operate intelligently for the most
effectual promotion of the happiness of all. And
although in Mr Owen’s ideas there is much to be
corrected, which follows from the denial of man’s
agency in the forming of his determinations, and
which is very injuriously misleading, and which must
be corrected before the true parts of his ideas can be
�34
'Fhe End of the Free-Will Controversy.
understood, and accepted, and practically applied by
society, we have in the true parts of them the inspirations of the spirit of enlightened benevolence, so far
as this spirit could be obtained by the application of
the truth that man is dependent upon Causation,
while this truth was combined with the denial of man’s
agency in the forming of his determinations, and with
the consequent denial of his power of self-control and
of his moral responsibility. But neither the man nor
the system has been understood. And he did not
understand either himself or his system. Neither of
them could be understood while the two truths which
have been the subjects of the Free-will Controversy
were supposed to be inconsistent with each other, and
while, therefore, they could not be applied together
in the regulation of man’s social feelings, &c. I will
endeavour to explain this subject in another pamphlet.
But it will be well to observe in concluding, that the
statements which have been made in reference to the
effect of the application of the two truths, in the
reformation of the adult character, in those who are
sufficiently pre-disposed to acquire the new character,
and in reference to the education of the young which
will result from this application, are not speculative.
They have been practically verified so far that they
cannot be disbelieved by any one who is acquainted
with the facts of the subject.
TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.
�
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The end of the free-will controversy
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Travis, Henry
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Free Will
Determinism
Conway Tracts
Free Will and Determinism
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THE
PHYSICAL BASIS OF W
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DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, FEBRUARY 15th, 1880,
BY
HENRY MAUDSLEY, M.D.
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PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1880.
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�THE
PHYSICAL BASIS OF WILL.
N a lecture which I gave here last year, and published
afterwards in the Fortnightly Review, I pointed out
*
that moral feeling is just as closely dependent upon
organization as is the meanest function of mind, and
asserted broadly “ that there was not an argument to
prove the so-called materialism of one part of mind which
did not apply with equal force to the whole mind.” For
this statement I was taken to task in an article in the
Spectator, the critic in that journal summoning up to
confront and confound me the alleged self-determining
power of human will—the freedom of the wiH. I pro
pose, then, to make this lecture supplementary to the
former one in some respects, by considering now whether
we are entitled to assume, as I hold, a Physical Basis of
WiH, or whether, as my critic thinks, we have in the Will
a self-sustained spiritual entity, which owns no cause,
obeys not law, and has no sort of affinity with matter.
’Tis not a discussion of much lively or fruitful promise,
but inasmuch as those who engage in the Freewill con
troversy, while repeating the old and trite arguments, for
the most part leave out of sight the physical aspect of the
subject, it may be instructive to bring that more into
notice, and to show that those who uphold a material
basis of will have some plain facts to go upon.
They who maintain that the wiH is not determined
I
* “ Materialism and its Lessons,’
�6
The Physical Basis of Will.
by motives, but is self-determined, free, do not for the
most part go so far as to imply that motives are not at
work in the mind, and that the will takes no account of
them; they affirm that there is not the uniform, in
separable connection between motive and will which
there is between cause and effect in physical nature. The
will is not the unconditionally necessary consequent of
its antecedent motives. It, or some other mysterious
entity in the individual which, having virtually abstracted
from the actual individual, they call his non-bodily self, has,
they allege, an independent, perfectly spontaneous, arbi
trary power to make this or that motive predominate as
it pleases ; to chose this or that one among motives and
make it the motive; in doing which this self-determining
principle is presumed by some, I believe, to act without
motive, of its own pure motion, without cause or reason;
by others to act from motives so high and fine, that they
constrain it instantly, without weighing at all upon its
*
freedom.
Clearly then we have here a very singular
power in nature, which we might call supernatural were
* “The noumenon, ding-an-sich, real self,” “is unknowable,
inscrutable,” “ exists outside Time, Space, and Causality, is ab
solutely free,” “ in itself, per se, is unchangeable; ” “ and, as it is
my only real being, my primitive and inborn self, it must be
present as a factor in every change and every action of which
my phenomenal Self, my empirical character, is capable.” That
is to say, itself outside Time, Space, and Causality, it is the
moving principle of every change in Time, Space, and Causality
which takes place through me. Of a truth a wonderful power
which can thus be actually and not be theoretically at the same
time in and outside Time, Space, and Causality! But more.
Why does a truthful man who has told a falsehood feel a remorse ?
Because “his conscience tells him that he is responsible, not indeed
for this particular act- since this he could not help—but for not
being a better man.” “ Blame not the action, then, but the man
for being capable of such an action. Whip him, not for telling
this particular lie, but for being a liar at heart, in his inmost
nature. For this inmost nature, his real Self, his ding-an-sich,
which, as a noumenon, is in some inscrutable manner emanci
pated from the laws of Time and Causality, from the operation
of motives, is absolutely free.” But surely it will be, on the
one hand, a singularly hard matter to lay hold of and whip the
inmost nature, the real self, the noumenon, when “ it exists out-
�, 'The Physical Basis of Will.
'.7
it not that it is allowed to be a part of nature acting in
and upon it, although coming from a mysterious source
outside it; but being thus an important agent in nature,
without being of the same kind or having anything in
common with anything else there—any sympathy, affinity,
or relationship whatever with the things which it works
in and upon—-we may fairly call it unnatural.
If there be a power of this kind in the Universe, the
reflection which occurs instantly is that causation is not
universal, as people are in the habit of assuming, but that
there is a large region of human events which is exempt
from the otherwise uniform law of cause and effect, the
region, that is to say, of man’s higher mental operations.
A great deal of the force which works in them and by
which they work on the external world obeys not the
law of conservation of energy. Now this is a rather
startling reflection, seeing that the great natural argu
ment for the existence of God is that everything must
have a cause, and that for cause of all things, therefore,
there must be a cause of causes, a great First Cause. At
the outset, then, we come to a perplexing dilemma—to
the obligation of concluding either that the will, like
other things, must have a cause, or that a great- first cause
is not a necessity of human thought.
side of Time, Space, and Causality,” and, on the other hand,
rather unfair to whip vicariously the empirical character which
cannot help itself, when the real culprit escapes. How whip it,
too, in any case, seeing that it is a thing-in-itself, incorporeal,
spiritual, “as the air invulnerable”? The foregoing extracts are
taken from an account of Kant’s Philosophy, by Professor Bowen,
of Harvard College, U.S., in his work on Modern Philosophy.
At the end of his exposition and comments, he says: “And thus
the deep and dark problem of fixed fate and freewill is solved,
the two contradictories being reconciled with each other.” No
doubt they are reconciled in the minds of those who, like Pro
*
fessor Bowen, can believe at the same instant two contradictories.
Sir W. Hamilton laid it down that one of two inconceivable con
tradictories must be true, and it passed for a long time for high
philosophy that a man should be able so to conceive inconceivables as to know them to be contradictory. Here we have
a step farther in philosophy, since we have two conceivable con.tradictories which are both true.
�8
The Physical Basis of Will.
But this is only a first difficulty. We are taught by
those who uphold the freedom of the will that although it
is not governed by motives, but is a self-determining
principle in us, it is wrought upon continually and most
powerfully by supernatural agency. A Divine grace is
ever near to help it in time of need, strengthening it to
do well, weakening it to do ill. It is God’s good purpose
to “ master our will,” and to make us “ surrender and
resign it to his just, wise, and gracious will; ” and to
make good his right, says that eloquent divine, Dr. I.
Barrow, “ God bendeth all his forces and applieth all his
means both of sweetness and severity, persuading us by
arguments, soliciting us by entreaties, alluring us by fair
promises, scaring us by fierce menaces, indulging ample
benefits to us, inflicting sore corrections on us, working
in and upon us by secret influences of grace, by visible
dispensations of providence.” A stupendous array of
motives this, which it is a wonder any one ever withstands,
especially when it is borne in mind that they are worked
by the unlimited power of Omnipotence, which has fore
known and fore-ordained the result from all eternity I
However, we are not to suppose that these mighty agencies
are anywise incompatible with the freedom of will; indeed,
when it has surrendered itself to entire obedience it is
enjoying the most perfect freedom; when it is in the
grasp of Omnipotence it is most free. Hard sayings no
doubt for reason, but not at all hard to faith seemingly,
since many persons persuade themselves that they have
intelligent apprehension of them.
The will is assailed very powerfully in a second super
natural way—namely, by the Devil, if the Devil, that is
to say, be not defunct. For it seems to be an open
question now whether he has not undergone by evolution
such a transformation of kind as to have lost all his per
sonality and much of his power. At the time when he
paid Luther a memorable visit he was a distinct being
enough, with great horns and a tail and cloven hoofs;
later on, when Milton described him, he had lost these
appendages, and become the great Archfiend, above his
fellows “ in shape and gesture proudly eminent,” who
�9
The Physical Basis of Will.
amid the torments of a new-found Hell still flung defiance
at the Omnipotent, with unconquered will declaring it
better to “ reign in Hell than serve in Heaven; ” still
later he underwent philosophic transformation into the
polished, cultivated, intellectually subtile, but mocking,
doubting, cynical, Mephistopheles of Faust. What form
and substance has he now, if form and substance he has
any ? Those whose professional work it is to do battle
with him, and to frustrate his ever active wiles and malice,
and who ought therefore to know him best, do not tell us
clearly what their exact ideas on the subject are, if they
have clear and exact ideas; they apparently like to believe
in him as much in a vague and cloudy way as they dislike
to believe in him in any precise and definite way, or at
any rate dislike to be asked to define precisely their belief;
but although they may not be very sure of his present
form and dwelling-place, they have no doubt in a general
way of the evil desires and passions with which he inspires
poor human hearts, and of his open and insidious assaults
on the higher aspirations of human will, which he, un
tiring enemy, besets, besieges, beleaguers, bombards con
tinually. Again then we have a large region of human
events—a region the limits of which it is impossible to
define or to get defined—which is outside the natural
law of causation, and cannot ever be made matter of
scientific study. For as it is plain that we have no means
by which we can measure and register the quantity and
kind of energy which the Devil thus exerts continually
upon the will—no Satanometer or Diabolometer so to
speak—human events, so far as they are effects of his
counsels and instigations, must lie outside the range of
positive knowledge. But once more we are not to suppose
that these supernatural workings upon the will abridge in
the least degree its perfect freedom.
These are difficulties one might suppose great enough
to make even the theologico-metaphysical theorist pause,
but they have no effect to shake his faith in his dogma,
or to lessen his scorn of the profane persons who
doubt and dispute the freedom of the will. He is bold
enough in the last resort to affirm that man’s thoughts,
B
�10
The Physical Basis of Will.
feelings, and doings on earth are not proper subjects of
enquiry by a scientific method, and to avow that true
knowledge of them must come either by an extraordinary
metaphysical intuition or by revelation and faith. The
last key to the problem for him is indeed not “ Search and
know,” but “God spake these words and said:” not know
ledge by the well-tried paths of observation and reason,
but “ He that believeth not shall be damned.” Of which
text I hope it is not irreverent to say here that whosoever
believeth, whether it be on the authority of Holy Church
or of Holy Scripture, that which contradicts reason abso
lutely needs no further damnation: he has done himself
damage enough already as a rational being.
Meanwhile mankind has lived always and still lives in
conformity with quite an opposite theory of human will—
namely, that it is governed by natural motives. The
problem of freewill is a problem of the study, it never
has been a problem of practical life; a theoretical dogma
of faith, not a working belief, the doctrine has flourished
in an atmosphere of vague and cloudy phrases, and all
discussions about it have been in the air; it has shifted
its ground too and changed its form so often that it is
not possible to know where and how to seize and hold it.
Laws have been systematically made and punishments
inflicted upon those who broke them under a very definite
conviction that the will is not an uncaused power, but
does move in obedience to motive, and may be fashioned
to act in this way or that. The execution of a murderer
does not fail to influence his likeminded fellow, who cer
tainly has not the freedom of will to be unaffected thereby;
the aim and use of the punishment are to determine his
will, and it could not be of the least use if the will were
self-determined. We observe historically the past actions
of men in different situations and circumstances in order
to gain a knowledge of the springs of human action which
shall be of use to us in our present and future dealings.
The person who has had much experience, whether in
politics, business, or any other special department of
human labour, is esteemed a wiser guide than a new
comer, because of the certainty that the thoughts and
�The Physical Basis of Will.
11
acts of men are not in any respect chance-events, but
that what they have done before, that they will do again
when actuated by similar motives.
Prudence and forethought in the conduct of affairs, the
provisions made for education, social institutions and
usages, all the operations of daily life in the intercourse
of sane men are based upon the tacit implication that acts
of will are never motiveless, but conform to law and may
be counted upon. There is not a single department of
practical life which is not an implicit denial of a free self
determining power in each individual, and an implicit
recognition of a common nature in men affected by common
influences, and taking a common development in conse
quence. The only person who answers at all to the
metaphysical definition of a self-determining will is the
madman, since he exults in the most vivid consciousness
of freedom and power, sets reason at naught, and often
does things which no one can predict, because he acts
without motives, or at any rate from motives which no
one can penetrate. Did sane men possess freewill they,
like the madman, would be free from responsibility, since
their wills would act independently of their characters,
just as they listed, not otherwise than as men used to
declare, before they knew better, that “ the wind bloweth
where it listeth,” and no one would have much, if any,
motive left to try to improve his character.
We may take it then to be true that the expEcit setting
forth, in formal knowledge, of what is implicit in the
course of human life would be a system of philosophy in
which a self-determining principle had no part nor place,
in which freewill would be a word void of meaning—
nonsense. But true knowledge has its foundation in
experience, and is really the conscious exposition of what
is implicit in human progress; it is implicit in action
before it is explicit in thought. Men do not divine
truth and then work to it consciously; it is instinct in
them before it is understanding; and when in mature
time the unconscious breaks forth into consciousness, it
is the man of genius who is the organ through which the
expansion takes place; he is the interpreter of its blind
�12
The Physical Basis of Will.
impulses to the age, and gives them thenceforth clear
utterance and definite aim. The truth then, as testified
practically by the experience of the whole world from the
beginning until now, is that will is a power which does
not stand outside the range of natural causation, but one
which is moved habitually by motive in every man from
his cradle to his grave. The freewill problem might be
compared well to that great logical puzzle which so long
and so much perplexed the philosophers: I mean the
race between Achilles and the tortoise, where the tortoise
being allowed a certain start, and Achilles supposed to
run ten times as fast, it was proved that he never could
logically overtake it. For if we suppose the tortoise to
have a thousand yards’ start, it would have run a hundred
yards when Achilles had run the thousand yards; when
Achilles again had run the hundred yards, the tortoise
would be ten yards ahead; when Achilles had run the
ten yards, the tortoise would have gone one yard ; when
Achilles had done the one yard, the tortoise would lead it
by the tenth of a yard; when Achilles had got over the
tenth of a yard, he would still be the hundredth of a yard
behind; and so on by successive subdivisions of the
diminishing space for ever. Clearly then Achilles never
could logically overtake the tortoise, whatever he might
do actually. So it has been with the freewill puzzle: the
philosophers, confusing themselves and others with a
juggling statement of the problem, have applied the word
free to the will instead of to the man, who has always
known himself to be free, not to will, but to do what he
willed when not hindered from doing it by internal or
external causes, just as they proved that Achilles would
not overtake the tortoise, by treating a finite space which
was infinitely divisible as if it were infinite.
*
Put the
race problem in a plain way, without ambiguous use of
words, and the result is plain enough: when Achilles had
run one thousand yards, the tortoise would have run one
* One is required to go on subdividing a unit indefinitely, and
to be surprised that the sum of the diminishing fractions never
can reach 1.
�The Physical Basis of Will.
13
hundred, but when Achilles had run two thousand yards,
where would the tortoise be ? Why, it would have run
two hundred yards altogether, and would of course be
eight hundred yards behind.
So much then for the facts in their relation to freewill.
Now what are the grounds of the metaphysician’s clear
conviction that he has a will and that it is free ? His
consciousness tells him so, he says, and all the arguments
in the world will not invalidate its direct and positive
testimony. But does it really tell him so ? One may
meet that statement truly by affirming that his conscious
ness does not tell him anything like that which he is in
the easy habit of supposing and declaring it to do.
Certainly it is not true that we know immediately by
consciousness that we have such a power as the metarphysician means by will. One-tenth only of that con
fident dogma is the direct deliverance of consciousness,
the other nine-tenths are pure and gratuitous hypothesis.
Consciousness tells us nothing whatever of an abstract
will-entity; it makes known a particular volition when
we have it and no more; the creation of an abstract will
which is supposed to execute the particular volition on
each occasion, and its further fashioning into a spiritual
entity, is an assumption as unwarranted as any that has
ever been made by the crudest materialism. It would be
no whit more absurd to make a spiritual entity of sensa
tion and to maintain that this abstract entity was
necessary to produce each sensation; or to postulate a
special emotional entity which operates in each emotion;
or to create a spirit of greenness and to detect it at work
in each green thing; or to discover the spirit of stoneness
in every stone by the roadside. What the metaphysician
has done has been to convert into an entity the abstract
word which embraces the multitude of particular volitions,
varying infinitely in degree and quality, just as at an
earlier period of thought, when the metaphysical spirit
had more life and sway than it has now, he explained the
sleep-producing properties of opium by a soporific essence
in it, and the difficulty of getting a vacuum by Nature’s
abhorrence of a vacuum; or as at a still earlier period of
�14
The Physical Basis of Will.
thought he put a Naiad in the fountain, a Dryad in the
tree, a Sun-god in the sun.
But, in the second place, while consciousness does not
tell him that he has a will such as he supposes, no more
has it the authority to tell him that his will is free.
Consciousness only illumines directly the mental state of
the moment; it reveals nothing of the long train of
antecedent states of which that state is the outcome—all
is dark beyond where its light directly falls; and it
cannot testify anything as an eyewitness concerning what
is happening there, any more than a person in the light
can testify of what is taking place in the dark. Let
there be a solitary gas-lamp lit in a large square on a
pitchdark night, it enables you to see immediately around
it, but it does not show what is going on in any other
part of the square; and if any one standing near it
chanced to get a severe blow on the head from a stone
coming out of the darkness, he would think it small
satisfaction to be told that the blow was by a selfdetermined stone. So it is with consciousness; it makes
known the present volition, it does not make known its
causes; and that, as Spinoza pointed out long ago, is the
origin of the illusion of Freewill. How, indeed, could a
present state of consciousness reveal immediately another
state of consciousness; in other words, how could it be
itself and a former state of consciousness at the same
time ? But whosoever will be at the pains to carry his
self-inspection patiently back from the present state of
consciousness to that state which went before it, and
from that again to its antecedent state, and so backwards
along the train of activity which has issued in the latest
mental outcome, lighting up in succession as well as he
can each link in an intricate chain of many-junctioned
associations, may easily assure himself that he would never
have present states of feeling were it not for past states of
feeling. Let the will be as free as any one chooses to sup
pose, it is certainly as impotent to will without previous
acts of will, as a child is to walk before it has learned to
step: the present volition contains the abstracts,, so to
speak, of a multitude of former volitions t by them it is in
�The Physical Basis of Will.
15
formed. The most eager metaphysician, when he is not
thinking of his abstract dogma of freewill, or of an equally
abstract reason whose supreme dominion over will is sup
posed to constitute its singular freedom, will not deny
*
that an individual’s thinking, feeling,or acting as he does at
any moment of his life is the outcome of his nature and
training, the expression of his character; that his present
being is the organic development of his past being ; that
he is fast linked in a chain of causation which does not
suffer him ever to get out of himself. It is a chain, too,
which, if he reflects, he must perceive to reach a long
way farther back in an ancestral past than he can
estimate. We see plainly how a person inherits a father’s,
grandfather’s, or more remote ancestor’s tricks of speech,
of walk, of handwriting, and the like, without imitation
on his part, since the father or grandfather may have
died before he was born; and in the same way he inherits
moods of feeling, modes of thought, impulses of will, and
exhibits them in thoughts, feelings and acts which seem
essentially spontaneous, most his own. Has he done
well in some great and urgent emergency of life in which
he knew not what he did at the instant, he may justly
give thanks to the dead father or grandfather who en
dowed him with the actuating impulse or the happy
aptitude which served him so well on the critical occasion.
We little think, for the most part, how much we owe
to those who have gone before us. There is not a word
which I have used, or shall use, in this lecture which does
not attest by its origin and growth countless generations
of human culture extending from our far distant Aryan
forefathers of the Indian plains down to us ; in like
manner there is not a thought or feeling or volition
which any one in this room can have which he could have,
had not countless generations of human beings thought
and felt and willed before him, and had not he himself
been thinking, feeling, and willing ever since he left his
cradle. It is in vain we attempt by self-inspection to
make plain all the links of causation of any feeling or
* See note at the end of the lecture.
�16
The Physical Basis of Will.
volition; the impossibility is to seize and weigh each
minute and remote operative element—to bring all the
contributory factors into the light of consciousness. So
much is unconscious agency—temperament, character,
instinct, habit, potential thought and feeling, what you
will—something which lies deeper than direct self-obser
vation or even the utmost labours of self-analysis can
reach. Hence spring the illusions into which men often
times fall with regard to their motives on particular
occasions, the remarkable self-deceptions of which they
are capable. They think, perhaps, that they have acted
in their freedom from certain high motives of which
they were conscious when these were not the real
motives which actuated them.
*
From the unlit depths
of his being, the deep and silent stream of the indi
vidual’s nature, rise the forces which break on the sur
face in the currents and eddies of consciousness. One
may get a truer explanation sometimes of a person’s
conduct on a particular occasion by a knowledge of the
characters of his near relations than by his own expla
nation of his motives or one’s own speculations about
them ; for in their traits we may see displayed in full
detail what is potential mainly and of occasional out
come in him. When acts appear to be quite incommen
surate with motives, or when the same motive appears to
produce different acts, the just conclusion is not that an
arbitrary freewill has capriciously meddled and upset
calculation, but that the motives which we discover are
only a part of the complex causation, and that the most
important part thereof lies in the dark. Self-conscious
ness is a very incompetent witness in that matter : you
might as well try to illuminate the interior of St. Paul’s
with a rushlight. A motiveless will may be compared,
* A desire or motive does not generally go the direct way to
its issue in action any more than a person necessarily goes the
direct way from London to Edinburgh. He may go two or three
ways, or he might go all round by Exeter, and still get there.
So with desire, which goes a roundabout and very intricate way
sometimes, carrying with it, so to speak, something from each
place at which it has stopped on its journey.
�The Physical Basis of Will.
17
•perhaps, to a foundling baby; respecting which wise men
conclude, not that it had no parents and came by chance,
but that they do not know who its parents are.
The metaphysicians have yet another argument of
which they make much. They lay great stress upon
their assertion that there is nothing in the operations of
the body which is in the least like the energy we are
conscious of as will, and that we cannot put a finger on
anything in all the functions of the nervous system which
can conceivably serve as a physical basis of will. Let us
enquire then if that be so. The simplest nervous opera
tion, that which is the elemental type of which the more
complex functions are built up, as a great house is built
up of simple bricks, is what we call a reflex act: an
impression is made upon some part of the body, the
molecular change produced thereby is conducted along a
sensory nerve to a nerve-centre and arouses the energy
thereof, and that energy is thereupon transmitted or
reflected along a connected motor nerve and accomplishes
a particular movement, which may be purposive or not.
For example, a strong light falls upon the retina and the
pupil instantly contracts in order to exclude the excess of
light; a blow is threatened to the eye and the eyelids
wink involuntary to protect it; a lump of food gets to
the back of the throat and as soon as it is felt there the
muscles contract and push it on. These are operations
of the body in which, although they accomplish a purpose,
the will has no part whatever; they take place in spite of
the will, as everybody knows, and one of them even
when a person is completely unconscious.
A more
striking instance of an instructive reflex act is afforded
by a well-known experiment on the frog: if its right
thigh is irritated by a drop of acid it rubs it off with the
foot of that side, but if it is prevented from using that
foot for the purpose it makes use of the opposite leg.
Intelligent purpose and deliberate will, one would natur
ally say; but when the frog’s head is cut off and the
experiment made then the result is the same; it tries
first to use its right foot, and that being impossible bends
the other leg across and wipes off the acid with it. As
�18
The Physical Basis of Will.
its head has been, cut off it is certain that it has not
conscious intelligence and will in any definite and proper
signification of those terms ; it does not know what it is
doing although it acts with admirable purpose, any more
than the pupil does when it contracts in a strong light or
than the steam engine does when it performs its useful
*
work.
The concluson which we must come to and
emphasize is that the nervous system has the power,
instinct in its constitution or acquired by training, to
execute mechanically acts which have the semblance
of being designed and voluntary, without there being
the least consciousness or will in them. Have we not
here then a pretty fair physical foundation of a rudi
mentary will ?
Let us now go a step further. The will, as we know,
has not the power to execute only, but it has the power
to prevent execution, to hold impulses in check; indeed,
its higher energies are most tasked, and its highest
qualities shown, in the exercise of this controlling function.
Our appetites and passions urge us to immediate gratifica
tions ; it is the noble function of will to curb these lower
* A critic of my book, on the “ Physiology of Mind,” in the
“ Journal of Mental Science,” of January last, defines the theory
of freewill thus: “ that in every determination to act which con
stitutes a volition the determinant is not a mere datum of nerves,
or sense, or passion, but is an idea actively taken up, formulated
as an adequate end, and stamped as an element of happiness by
that nonbodily entity which we call self. . . . This is the
simple key to the whole problem of Responsibility.” The italics
are his. We may take notice here how admirably the acts of
the decapitated frog fit this definiton. It evidently takes up
actively the idea of getting rid of the pain, formulates it as an
adequate end, and stamps it as an element of happiness by that
nonbodily entity (clearly very much, if not entirely, non-bodily
seeing that it is headless) which we call self! Thus it gives
us the key to the whole problem of Responsibility. It were
well, perhaps, if all those who write about mind would follow
Spinoza’s advice—first study sufficiently the functions of the
body, so as to “ learn by experience what the body can do and
what it cannot do by the simple laws of its corporeal nature and
without receiving any determination from the mind.” They
might then, perhaps, as Schopenhauer thought, “ leave many
German scribblers unread.”
�The Physical Basis of Will.
19
impulses of our nature. Is there anything, then, in the
operations of the nervous system which can possibly be
the basis of this exalted governing function? Let us
take preliminary note here that there are reflex actions
going on in the body which are essential to life, but over
which this mighty despot of the mind, the will, has no
authority whatever—the movements of the heart and of
the intestines, for example; they go on regularly night
and day; if they did not we should die; but we cannot
slacken or quicken or stop them by any exertion of will
which we can make. The movements of breathing, which
are also reflex, we can control partially; we can breathe
quickly or slowly as we please, or even stop breathing for
a time, but not for long, since no one can kill himself
by simply holding his breath. The physiologist, however,
can easily quicken or retard the beatings of an animal’s
heart at will, by stimulating directly the proper nerves.
By irritating a nerve which goes to it—the so-called vagus
nerve—he can retard them, and by irritating another
nerve connected with it—the so-called sympathetic—he
can quicken them. He can do with its pulsations as the
coachman can with his horses, pull them in to go slowly
or send them on quickly. But more—and this is the
point I wish to come to—he can affect them not only in
the direct way which I have mentioned, but also indirectly
by a sharp impression on some part of the body. For
example, if he suspends a frog by its legs and then taps
sharply on its belly, he instantly stops its heart for a
time. What happens is that the stimulus of the tap is
carried by a nerve to a nerve-centre in the brain near
that centre from which a controlling nerve of the heart
proceeds, and so acts upon it as in the result to prevent
or inhibit the action of the heart; in other words, what
we have to apprehend and perpend in the experiment is
that the physiological sympathy of nerve-centres in the
organization of the nervous system is such that one
centre, when stimulated to function, has the power to
inhibit physically the function of another centre, just as
the will inhibits the movements of breathing.
This
temporary arrest of the heart’s beats by an intercurrent
�20
The Physical Basis of TFi'ZZ.
stimulus somewhere into its reflex arc is after all not
very unlike to temporary arrest of respiration by an in
tercurrent volition into its reflex arc.
Did time permit, I might bring forward many more,
and more striking, instances of this kind of inhibitory
action, selecting them from the operations of the human
body both in health and in disease; but it must suffice
for the present to set down and emphasize the broad con
clusion which they warrant, namely, that one nervous
centre, when stimulated into activity, may so act upon
another centre as either to help, or to hinder, or to suspend
its function by pure physiological mechanism. Have we
not here, then, a physical basis of the inhibitory power of
will ? Place the fact by the side of the fact on which I
laid emphatic stress just now—namely, that the nervous
system has the power of executing purposive acts without
any intervention of consciousness or will; and it is plain
we have in the two physical functions something which
runs closely parallel with the rudiments of volition and
may well be their material equivalents—that is to say,
power to command execution of a purpose and power to
stop execution.
Metaphysicians * get their theories of will by considering
its highest displays in a much cultivated self-conscious
ness, where the difficulties of satisfactory analysis are
insuperable; but a complete and sincere study of it must
deal with its small beginnings as well as with its finest
displays—ought, in fact, to commence with them; for to
ignore the facts of its genesis and development is to make
an artificial philosophy which may serve well for intel
lectual gymnastics in scholastic exercises, but has no
practical bearing on the concerns of real life. Let us
then examine the simplest instances of primitive volition
in the animal and in the infant. When a dog, in obedi
ence to its natural instinct, seizes a piece of meat which
* They appear to be desirous of abandoning their old name of
metaphysicians in favour of the new name of idealists. But they
have no right to that term, which is properly applicable only to
one who upholds the Berkleian theory.
�The Physical Basis of Will.
21
lies near it and is punished for the theft, the memory of
what it was made to suffer intervenes on another occasion
between the impression on sight and the ensuing impulse,
and checks or inhibits it; in like manner when an infant
grasps something bright which attracts its gaze and is
burnt, its memory of the pain which it suffered checks
or inhibits a similar hasty movement on another occasion.
Here then we have the simplest instance of will; the
animal or infant voluntarily refrains from doing what its
first impulse is to do—of two courses chooses the best.
But what is the probable physical side of the process ?
In the first case, where the dog seized the meat, an im
pression upon the sense of sight, the conduction of the
molecular change to the nerve-centre, and the production
of a special sensation, as the ingoing process; after which,
as the outgoing process, the transmission of the energy
along a motor nerve to muscle and a consequent adaptive
movement—a sensorimotor process; in the second event,
when a punishment was inflicted, the association of this
sensorimotor process with the painful stimulation of
another nerve-centre; and in the third case, when the
dog seeing the meat refrained from touching it, instead
of the instant reflexion of the sensation into movement,
there was the stimulation by it of the associated centre in
which the memory of the pain was registered, the conse
quence of which was the inhibition of the movement.
One of two catenated physiological centres was in fact
excited to inhibit the other. If we multiply in an endless
complexity this simple scheme of nerves and nerve-centres
we get the constitution of the brain, indeed of the whole
nervous system, which contains an innumerable multitude
of interconnected nerve-centres ready to be awakened into
action by suitable stimulation to increase, to combine, to
modify, to restrain one another’s functions. As counter
part on the mental side to this exceeding complexity of
physical structure, we have very complex deliberation
going before the formation of will, which comes out at
last from the intricate interactions of so many hopes,
fears, inclinations, promptings, desires, reflections, and
the like, of so many constituent elements of character,.
�22
The Physical Basis of Will.
that we are unable to analyze them and so to specify the
exact factors in its complex causation: it is the resultant
of a very intricate composition of forces. To me it seems
then a fair conclusion that in the inhibitory action of one
nerve-centre upon another, as disclosed by physiological
observation, and in the simplest instance of volition, as
known by consciousness, we have two processes which go
along together parallel, and not unfair therefore to main
tain that we have as good authority to believe in a physical
basis of will as in a physical basis of any mental state
whatever.
The plain truth is, when we look the facts fairly in the
face, that we never meet with will except in connection
with a certain organization of matter, varying with its
variations, and exhibiting every proof of being dependent
upon it. It is notably infantile in the child, imbecile in
the idiot, grows in power, range, and quality as the
mental powers grow by education, is mature in the adult,
falls sick with the body’s sicknesses, and becomes decrepit
in the decrepitude of age. However free and independent
in theory, it never shows its power in fact except from a
good physical basis. The aim, the use, and the result of
a sound moral training are to fashion a strong will; and
assuredly all training acts through the intimate develop
ment of the nervous system which it produces. Good
moral habits, like other habits, are formed by the structure
growing to the modes of its exercise. When the physical
basis is congenitally defective, as in the idiot, no excellence
of training will succeed in developing a normal will, any
more than much thought will add one cubit to the stature
of a dwarf. And when we make a survey of the various
forms of mental derangement, which we know to be the
deranged functions of disordered brain, we observe that
a first symptom of mischief is always a loss of power of
will over the thoughts and feelings : that is the sad sign
which portends the coming calamity. The person who is
about to fall into acute mania has ideas and feelings surge
up in his mind in the most irregular and tumultuous
fashion, and is impelled by them to strange and disorderly
acts. It is painfully interesting to watch the struggle
�The Physical Basis of Will.
23
which goes on sometimes at the beginning of the attack
before the failing will undergoes complete dissolution:
the patient will succeed by a strong effort in controlling
himself for a few moments when he knows that some one
is looking at him, or when he is spoken to, and in acting
and answering calmly and coherently, but the enfeebled
will cannot hold on to the reins, and he relapses soon into
incoherent thought, speech and conduct, becoming, as the
disease makes progress, incapable of even an instant’s
real self-control. The person who is falling melancholic
is tormented with painful thoughts and feelings, blasphe
mous or otherwise afflicting, which come into his mind
against his most earnest wish, cause him unspeakable
distress, and cannot be repressed or expelled by all the
efforts of his agitated will; so hateful are they to him, so
independent do they seem of his true self, that he ends
perhaps by thinking them the direct inspiration of Satan
and himself given over to eternal damnation. The mono
maniac broods upon some idea of greatness or of suspicion,
rooted in its congenial feeling of exaltation or of distrust,
until the weakened will looses all hold of it and it grows
to the height of an insane delusion; then he imagines
himself to be emperor, prophet, or some other great per
sonage, or believes all the world to be in a conspiracy
against him. The sufferer who is afflicted with a frequently
upstarting impulse to do harm to himself or to others,
conscious all the while of the horrible nature of the im
pulse, which he fights against with frenzied energy, goes
through agonies of distress in the struggles to prevent his
true will being mastered by it. Everywhere we observe
impaired will to go along with the beginnings of physical
derangement. And if we look to the last term of the
mental degeneration, as we have it in the demented
person in whom all traces of mind are well-nigh extin
guished, who must be fed, clothed, cared for in every way,
whose existence is little more than vegetative, we find an
almost complete abolition of rational will accompanying
extreme disorganization of special structure.
The lessons of mental pathology admit of no misread
ing ; they make known everywhere an entire dependence
�24
The Physical Basis of Will.
of will on physical organization. But there is an im
portant aspect of the matter which I ought not to pass
by altogether, although my allusion to it now must
necessarily be the briefest. It is this converse and
weighty truth—that actual derangement of the structure
of an organ can be brought about by the continuance of
excessive or disordered function ; that the habitual indul
gence of evil passions, ill-regulated thoughts, and de
praved will does lead to corresponding physical changes
in the brain; and that every person has thus in the patient
fashioning and timely exercise of will no mean power
over himself to prevent insanity. For the praises of such
a well-fashioned will, I cannot do better than borrow the
lines of Tennyson :—
Oh! well for him whose will is strong!
He suffers, but he will not suffer long;
He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong:
For him nor moves the loud world’s random mock,
Nor all calamities hugest waves confound,
Who seems a promontory of rock
That, compassed round with turbulent sound,
In middle ocean meets the surging shock,
Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crowned.
But assuredly we shall not have a will of that kind
formed by treating it as a free, independent, arbitrary entity
which has no affinities, is not moved by motive, and owns no
law but self-caprice; it can be formed only by painful
degrees, in conformity with stern laws of moral develop
ment, by one who is solicitous uniformly to use motives
and make good use of them, patiently watchful to with
stand and check the earliest invasion of his mind by low
motives, earnest to cultivate good feelings and noble aspi
rations, steadfast always to strengthen the will by habitual
practice in right doing—who aims, indeed, to make it, as
it should be, the highest and fullest expression of a wellformed character.
The acknowledgment that human
will is included within the law of causation—the appre
hension of the universal reign of law in mind and in
matter—so far from tending to dishearten men and to
�The Physical Basis of Will.
25
paralyze their highest efforts by driving them into a dreary
fatalism, seems to me to be essential in order to infix and
develop in their minds a vital sense of responsibility to
search out intelligently and to pursue deliberately the right
path of human progress; a responsibility, be it said, which
the metaphysical dogma of free-will not merely weakens
but logically destroys. Men have not been paralyzed in
intelligence or effort, but have gained in both immeasur
ably, by perceiving and comprehending the law of gravita
tion; and in like manner by apprehending the reign of law
in mind they will lose only the freedom to make ignorant
blunders and to waste their forces unintelligently : they
will obey the law whose service is their best freedom.
Knowing that their efforts rest securely upon eternal law,
they will know that their labours cannot be in vain: that
they have the power of the universe at their backs, “ the
everlasting arms ” beneath them.
It is unfortunate that people, scared by a horror of
materialism, the “uncreating word” before which freedom
of will and responsibility die, as a writer has described
it lately, cannot see that the application of a scientific
method of enquiry to human thoughts, feelings, and
doings in no way touches injuriously the supreme autho
rity of moral law and the power and wish to. obey it.
Neither moral feeling nor responsibility would be taken
out of life were a purely materialistic evolution proved
doctrine ; on the contrary, the course of that evolution in
the past would remain the best guarantee and yield the
strongest assurance of a further moral and intellectual
progress in the future. If it be true that men have risen
by a gradual evolution from a pre-moral state of barbarism
to their present height of intelligence and moral feeling,
and if it be, as it certainly is, the essential principle of
evolution to pass upwards from more simple and general
to more complex and special organisation, it is surely a
rational inference and a sound expectation that intelli
gence and moral feeling will reach a still higher develop
ment in the future. Science is only organised knowledge
and does not pretend to do more than find out and set
forth how things are as they are, and by help of what it
�26
The Physical Basis of Will.
thus learns to forecast what they will be in the future; it
perceives clearly how inexorably its range is limited by
the limitations of our few and feeble senses, and how
impossible it is that it should ever discover anything about
the primal origin of things—about the why and whence of
the mysterious universe of its observations. Evolution,
the modern name of that conception which the old Greek
philosophers, when they first formed it, called nature or
the becoming of things
is only a more exact and
true exposition of how things have become, not in the
least an explanation of the mystery of their why. By
the help of knowledge slowly widening we can look back
in retrospective imagination to the time and manner in
which our planet and the other planets of our solar
system took form by nebular condensation and started
on their several orbits; we can trace with patient
thought the successive changes which have taken place on
the surface of the earth and have culminated in man and
his achievements ; we may foresee, perhaps, a time when
a few miserable human beings, living degraded lives in
snow huts near the equator, shall represent all that is
left of the vanished myriads of the human race, or a still
later period when the earth, fallen to the condition in
which the moon now is, rolls on its solitary way through
space, a frozen and barren globe, the tomb of a Dead
Humanity;—we may, if we look far enough before and
after, do all that, but we can never tell what minute frac
tion our solar system may be—what a vortex-molecule,
so to speak—of countless other systems in the inconceiv
able immensities of space which lie beyond our utmost
ken, and what essential relations it may have to them;
we cannot tell why matter on earth has formed an ascend
ing series of more and more complex compounds, why
having reached a certain complexity of composition it
became living, why organic evolution have gone on to
higher and ever higher achievements until it reached the
complexity of human organization and gave birth to con
sciousness ; and we cannot tell in the least what will
happen in the long long time to come, when all the
operations of our solar system are ended, past as com-
�.The Physical Basis of Will.
27
" pletely as the light of the first human eyes that gazed on
them in wonder. Science is confined to a finite space
• between two infinities—the eternal past and eternity to
come; it measures only a single pulsation, so to speak,
in the working of a power whose source and end are
past finding out, which was and is, and is to come, from
everlasting to everlasting ; beyond that range, narrow it
is true, but more than wide enough to give full scope to
all human affections and to occupy usefully all human
energies, there is absolute nescience—agnosticism if you
will. Organised as we are we can no more know about
it than the oyster in its narrow home and with its very
limited sentiency can know of the events of the human
world—of the noise and turmoil, say, of an English electior,
or of the interesting chronicles of the “ Court Circular.”
-What science repudiates and condemns, I believe, is the
presumptuous pretence on the part of theology to know
and tell all about the inscrutable, to put forward as
truths, not ever to be questioned, childish explanations
which are an insult to the understanding and would be
its suicide if really accepted, to demand reverent assent
to doctrines which sometimes outrage moral feeling, and
to declare solemnly that whosoever believeth not the
fables which it proclaims “ shall without doubt perish
everlastingly.”
What it may furthermore well repudiate and condemn
is the evident want of sincerity of heart and veracity of
thought shown by those who proffer and accept these
explanations, by reason of which they do not honestly
sound their beliefs and pursue them rigidly to their
logical issues, but suffer themselves to use words habitu
ally in a non-natural sense, and to hold side by side
inconsistent and even directly contradictory doctrines,
without being troubled by their manifest inconsistencies.
The scientific spirit claims entire veracity of thought,
whatever the result, knows that truth does not depend
upon our sympathies and antipathies, is resolute to follow
it to the end even at the sacrifice of the most cherished
beliefs. It cannot but think it to be as demoralizing in
tendency as it is insincere in fact, to profess to hold a
�28
The Physical Basis of Will.
faith in entire reverence after having given up most of
what is characteristic of it, and as certain in the end to lead
to grossly inconsistent conduct. Such disingenuous deal
ing with momentous matters marks indeed an unveracity
of thought which would be lamentable hypocrisy were it
not more often intellectual timidity and unconscious
self-deception. But whether the insincerity be conscious
or unconscious, it is incompatible with that rigid, hearty,
and entire devotion to truth in thought, feeling, and ex
pression which is the aim and at the same time the
strength of a good understanding.
Note to Page 15.—Kant’s doctrine is that there is a determi
nation of the will by pure reason, that so reason gets practical
reality, and that in this absolute obedience the will has absolute
assurance of its freedom. The moral law is a law spontaneously
imposed on the will by pure reason: it stands high above all the
motives, sensuous and their like, which determine the empirical
will; it pays no respect to them, but with an inward, irresistible
necessity, orders us, in independence of them, to follow it abso
lutely and unconditionally—'tis a categorical imperative, universal,
and binding on every rational will. A happy thing, certainly, that
a will determined to unconditional obedience by so absolute an
authority retains nevertheless the absolute assurance of its free
dom. But then comes the not unimportant question—What is
it that practical reason categorically commands ? How are we
to know what the moral law dictates and forbids ? The easiest
thing in the world, thinks Kant: let only those maxims of con
duct derived from experience be adopted as motives which are
susceptible of being made of universal validity—which are fit to
be regarded as universal laws of reason to govern the actions of
all mankind. I do right when I do what all persons would
think right in similar circumstances. Very good, without doubt,
although very like the common-place maxim of every ethical
system; but my difficulty has been to know in a particular case
what all intelligent beings would think right. How am I to get
at the universal standard or precept and apply it to my particu
lar occasion, so as to know absolutely what I ought then to do ?
Kant helps me by means of two remarkable illustrations. Suicide
is one. Is suicide, under the strongest temptation conceivable,
ever right ? I must ask myself then, “ Is the principle of the
admission that suicide is ever right fit to become a universal
law ?” No, says Kant, it is not fit, since the universal practice
�The Physical Basis of Will.
29
sary to come down from its supersensuous heights and to be no
better than gross Utilitarianism. All that it can tell me, panting
for its supreme utterance, is that suicide is inexpedient as a
universal principle of conduct—in fact, it makes use of the
common motives of an experience which is nowise supersen
suous, and instead of helping me to an absolute precept or
standard to measure them by, actually comes to them for its
authority. Kant’s philosophy, of which the metaphysical mind
is getting re-enamoured in some quarters at the present day, has
its head high in the clouds and dreams there sublimely; but
it finds it necessary to have its feet on the ground when the time
comes for it to march.
The second instance is no more helpful. May a person in the
greatest need of a loan, which he knows he will not get unless
he makes a solemn promise to repay what he is perfectly certain
he never will be able to repay, make the promise ? No, says
Kant, for if it were a universal law, all faith in promises would
be destroyed, and nobody would lend money. In other words,
in the long run it would be very bad for society that faith in
promises should be destroyed. An excellent truth, which no
body can deny, but it evidently smacks much of the earth
earthy; indeed, it would seem that those who discover the
basis of morality in the social sanction may claim Kant, when
he is not in the clouds, as an out-and-out supporter. It is dif
ferent when he is busy spinning empty supersensuous theories
which have no relation to actual life, and amusing his disciples
with the magnificent dissolving views of his metaphysical magic
lantern. First he presents a splendid view of supreme reason
to the spectator who, as he admires it, sees the picture dissolve
gradually and in its place appear the grand features of Moral
Law, which shared with the Starry Heaven Kant’s ever new
and rising admiration and reverence; as the gaze is fixed in ad
miration upon this view it melts into indistinctness, and, as it
does so, there comes by degrees into clear definition the mighty
figure of freewill. Thereupon, informing his enthusiastic audience
that there are not really three pictures, as they might suppose,
but one picture, the three being one and the one being three,
Reason being Will and Will Reason, and that they cannot fail
to perceive, when they reflect properly upon what they have
seen, that the belief in God and immortality have now been
made safe for ever, he retires amidst unbounded applause.
Meanwhile, the critic who has not been blinded by the magnificent
metaphysical display, and who feels that he does not live, move,
and have his being in an abstract land beyond physics, asks him
self with regard to the philosophy—Will it march ?—and is not
much surprised to find that when it begins to march it can only
do so on well-worn Utilitarian tracks.
All theories of freewill seem to come to this—that the will
which is swayed by low motives is not free, that the will which
�30
The Physical Basis of Will.
of suicide would reduce the world to chaos. Very true, but it is
sadly disappointing to perceive that the sublime and supreme
reason has, in order to become practical reality, found it necesis swayed by the higher motives is more free, and that the will
which is swayed by the highest motives is most free; conse
quently, when a person is blamed for having done ill, he is not
blamed for not having acted without motives, but for not having
been actuated by the highest motives. Create an artificial world
of names apart from the real world of facts—a world which shall
simply be made up of negations of all qualities of which we have
actual experience—and let the highest motives be known in it
as the Will of God or abstract Supreme Reason, you will get
your service which you may please yourself to call perfect
freedom. And there does not appear to be any reason why you
may not create and take refuge in another still more ideal world
beyond that, if persons of a positive spirit should show any dis
position to invade ideal word No. 1 with inconvenient enquiries.
�
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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The physical basis of will: a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, on Sunday afternoon, February 15th, 1890
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Maudsley, Henry
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 30, [2] p. ; 18 cm
Notes: Series list on preliminary pages unnumbered pages at the end.
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The Sunday Lecture Society
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1890
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G4844
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br />This work (The physical basis of will: a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, on Sunday afternoon, February 15th, 1890), identified by Humanist Library and Archives, is free of known copyright restrictions.
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English
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Free will
Determinism
Free Will and Determinism
-
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Text
rJtÎs
national sectile society
THE
|
INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY
i ,*■
ON FREE WILL.
»■
BY
PROFESSOR LUDWIG BUCHNER,
Author
of
“ Force and Matter,” “ Man : his Past, Present,
and Future,” etc., etc.
. [Translated, Inj permission, l>y Annie Besantd\
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28, STONEGUTTER STREET, E.C.
1 880.
PRICE
TWOPENCE,
�LONDON:
PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGH,
28, STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
�THE
INFLUENCE OF HEREDITY ON
FREE WILL.
“ How naive is the empty conceit of the freedom of the
human will when Nature completely rules it by those instincts
of self-preservation which she has implanted in man!”—G. H.
Schneider.
Two diametrically opposed views, or philosophical opinions,
have always been maintained on the important and much
•debated question of the freedom of the human will. The one
•declares that its absolute freedom, the freedom of the Ego,
is proved by the facts of consciousness, or by the knowledge
that in a given case we can do one thing as well as another,
and that it is therefore raised above all doubt and above all
•discussion. The other maintains the exact contrary, and
says that the human will is absolutely determined, and
since it is dependent upon influences from without and from
within it is in reality unreasonable to speak of a free choic^
•or decision between two possible courses. The notion that
a man can of his own free choice do this or that, arises, say
the upholders of this view, from a delusive appearance
or from self-deception. The will follows the relatively
strongest motive or the relatively pleasantest idea, since it
is impossible that the contrary should prevail. Also the
interdependence of phenomena, the so-called laws of
causality—urge the defenders of this opinion—prove the
�4
The Influence of Heredity on Free Will.
impossibility of free will, for each action, according to theselaws, is necessary and is unavoidable by the actor.
It is not, indeed, a satisfactory proof of the depth or
the certainty of human knowledge that in a question so
theoretically and practically important, opinions so es
sentially different and opposed, so mutually exclusive,,
should have faced each other unreconciled during long
centuries, and should remain in like fashion facing each
other to-day. There is, however, one circumstance to be
taken into account as a partial explanation of this long
controversy, which is a fault of man’s heart rather than his
head; so-called ethical motives have been mixed up with
the handling of this question, and the freedom of the will
has been defended as a postulate of morality without 'which
the groundwork of our whole moral system would be in the
gravest peril. In a scientific consideration of the matter
such a side question is manifestly irrelevant, and if science
were able to demonstrate the absolute determination of the
human will, then must its determination be admitted, even
though the whole of human society were thereupon to fall
to pieces. Fortunately, this danger is purely imaginary.
It is, on the contrary, to be hoped that morality itself will
rise in the same measure as we learn the inner and outer
influences which determine the actions of men, and thereby
become able to work definitely upon these influences.
Further, this proof of the absolute determination of the
will is hardly to be made, without logical artifices or unfaii
arguments. The statistical facts which are often brought
forward to support that determination, prove nothing as to
the individual will, but only show that the actions of men,
or their volitions, are determined on a large scale, and on
the whole, by certain influences, which under otherwise
�The Influence of Heredity on Free Will.
5
■similar circumstances cannot fail to show, or at least permit
to be seen, a certain regularity. For instance, the condition
■of a nation has the greatest influence over the actions of an
individual, and these actions change when the condition
■changes. Thus, according to experience, famine, want of
work, commercial crises, wars, etc., raise to the highest
point the number of crimes against life and property or the
number of suicides, while, on the other hand, they lessen the
¡number of marriages. It is also proved that the number of
the last, for example, rises and falls with the relative price
of corn. But although all these and many similar influences
are among the causes which help to determine the will of
■the individual, they are yet not the only ones. A far more
.powerful and more important factor in this determination is
the personality of the actor himself; statistics can only
■disclose to us the outer, and not the inner, motives of
■a single action, while this personal factor naturally with
draws itself from all statistical calculations. Yet this will
•of the individual decides whether or not he will yield to those
influences of the environment which can be reached by
■observation.
Further, motives from without and from within are to be
■distinguished also in the individual will itself ; among the
¡first the special and personal conditions amid which an action
takes place must be understood, while the inner motives
■arise from the inner nature, or disposition of the individual
person, from his personality itself, his character. The
■character must be regarded as the real immediate cause of
all voluntary actions, while the determining outside motives
appear more as indirect causes. The worth of a man is al
ways to be measured as greater or less accordingly as his
•character is proved or maintained amid the influences
�6
The Influence of Heredity on Free Will.
brought to bear upon it by circumstances. Here then is the.
important point upon which modern investigation of nature
brings to bear its mighty lever, so as to let in a hitherto
unknown light on the freedom of the human will, and to
conclude by actual proofs the hitherto unfruitful speculations
of theoretical philosophy. No one should now be ignorant
of the dazzling light thrown by the great natural investi
gator, Darwin, on the evolution of the individual characters
of men and beasts, of his enthralling researches on the in
fluence of physical and psychical inheritance, and on thegradual evolution of the whole organism. So long as people
did homage to the now fortunately exploded theory of
separate creative acts, and regarded each species of animalsas the special production of a creative will they naturally
had no need to examine into the evolution of the individual
character; it was plainly, just like the bodily organism, the
production of the creative will, and no further explanation’
was needful. But when the unscientific nature of such a
doctrine was recognised people began to understand that
each individual was or might be the last product orevolution of a long series of preceding species and of past
centuries ; then they demanded also some further explanation
of the individual character, the mental personality, and this
naturally was only to be had where the physical evolution
had been found, that is to say in the incidents of descent
and development. In fact, there cannot now-a-days be thesmallest doubt, scientifically, that the individual character,
the whole mental personality of an individual, must beregarded as the last result or production of an interwoven
series of developments, a long succession of earlier species, and
as moulded also by the conditions environing the act of gene
ration. In other words : character, or that which determines-
�The Influence of Heredity on Free Will.
7
by preference the actions of men (and of beasts) is, as to by far
its greatest part, inherited from parents and ancestors, and
arises by natural necessity out of the constitution of the
procreator and his partly inherited, partly acquired cha
racteristics, as well as out of the conditions of the pro
creation itself. “ Man,” says Vibot, in his excellent book
on inheritance (p. 374, etc.), “who has inherited the thought
tendencies of his ancestors, is driven to will, and therefore
to act, like them. This heritage of impulses and propen
sities forms a circle of inner influences in the midst of
which he lives, and the power to judge these and, if need
be, to overcome resides ever in himself. . . . But in
this unceasing conflict between individual and generic
qualities between the person and his inheritance, or
speaking generally, between freedom and destiny, freedom is
conquered more often than is thought.” Or, as the famous
physiologist, Burdach, put it j more than fifty years ago:
“ Descent has more influence on our physical and psychical
character than all outward material and spiritual cir
cumstances.” (Physiology as an Experimental Science,
vol. i., p. 571.) We must not, indeed, omit to say that the
truth here enunciated is a very old one, and that unpre
judiced philosophers and practical physiologists well knew
the powerful influence exercised over human will and action
by inherited character; perhaps no one knew this better
than the great dramatist Shakspere, whose dramatic characters
are all men of flesh and blood, and not the poor puppets
which other dramatists dance between heaven and earth,
marionette-fashion, on their self-constructed psychological
wires. Those who have read my “ Force and Matter” will
know that in the chapter on freewill, I myself, five years
before Darwin, laid great stress on this fact, and brought into
�8
The, Influence of Heredity on Free Will.
prominence the vast influence of the inherited propensities
of character on human will and action, prompting to this or
that course. But the great rôle played by the origin of the
individual character, the physical inheritance going hand in
hand with the mental or spiritual inheritance, could not then
be so emphasised as it deserved to be, and as is now possible,
thanks to Darwin and the light thrown upon it by his
famous theory.
It must not, however, be forgotten that the individual
character is not formed only and exclusively by hereditary
transmission, but that the environment, experience, train
ing, education, example, etc., also powerfully co-operate in
moulding and changing it. But I think I shall not be
wrong in maintaining that the inborn and inherited ten
dencies of the character, or the inherited propensities, in
stincts, and appetites, are so strong both in men and beasts
that, in comparison with them, all other influences and
motives fall more or less into the background, and that it
is consequently only possible for an individual man to
struggle against this perpetual compulsion under very ex
ceptional circumstances. He who brings into the world with
him an innate tendency to goodwill, sympathy, conscientious
ness, love of right-doing, etc., will, with few exceptions, and
under all circumstances, be a genuine moralist, even though
he have learned few moral laws ; while, on the contrary, an
innate propensity to melancholy, or to deceit, or to frivolity,
or to folly, or to pride, or to avarice, or to sensuality, or to
drunkennesss, or to gambling, or to violence, and so on, is,
as a rule, not to be controlled or held back by any kind of
will or argument. Daily experience most plainly teaches
that each person, as a rule, acts in the manner most in ac- ,
cordance with his nature and inner propensities, and that
�The Influence of Heredity on Free Will.
9
these innate tendencies and inclinations of our nature
generally exercise an influence on our decisions and on
our actions, in comparison with which other motives, es
pecially those due to reflection, fall more or less into the
background. The youth or the sensualist sacrifices every
thing to his bodily desires; the old man or the miser and the
covetous man sacrifices everything to the desire of gain, to
the struggle for possessions ; the lazy to the longing for rest
or the shunning of work ; the ambitious to the striving for
honor and distinction; the mother to the love of her children,
and so on. The miser, who already has heaped up millions,
and who, perhaps, has no children to whom he can bequeath
his treasures, aye, and who perhaps has reached the evening
of life and knows that he must soon divide his goods among
strangers, yet does not cease to gather together wealth.
The voluptuous King Henry VIII. of England broke
through every bond of decency and morality, and separated
himself and his country from the then all-powerful Papacy,
simply that he might satisfy his longing for sexual pleasure.
The tendency to shame or modesty, which amongst civilised
nations has been gradually developed and has been more
-and more strengthened by inheritance, can transform
our maidens and women into veritable heroines in de
fence of their purity, while among many savage tribes
who go perfectly naked, no trace of shame nor of sexual
modesty is to be found. Or again, even the civilised
nations of antiquity thought and felt quite differently
from ourselves on this matter. Innate passion con
quers all representations, listens to no reason, and forgets
all prudence and all danger. No man can by his simple
' will thoroughly master innate timidity, and he who has once
.given way to the demon of drunkenness or gambling, will in
�10
The Influence of Heredity on Free Will.
very few cases be able to set himself free again by his owns
determination. The passionate man perpetrates in anger deeds
of which in more quiet moods he would think himself quite'
incapable ; the compassionate or the generous sacrifices him
self for others, while the hardhearted does not permit such,
feelings to have the smallest influence over his conduct..
Beasts, when they are under the control of certain propen
sities, such as sexual desire, hunger, maternal love, etc., arewont to forget utterly all danger and all prudence, and
blindly to sacrifice themselves, even although of the most
shy or the most timid species. Notwithstanding, we seethat also among beasts prudence and consideration may oc
casionally overcome a propensity or a desire. For example,,
if young animals have been attracted by a bait and have
fallen a sacrifice, the older ones, wise by experience, know
how to resist the temptation, and either leave the bait un
touched or manage to snatch it in some cunning fashion,
without being caught at the same time. Among men,,
whose reasoning and reflective powers are so far raised above
those of beasts, this is naturally the case to a far greater
extent, so that man is able to speak of a choice or the
expression of a free will, in which reason and thought win
the victory over desires aroused by sensation or perception
this is a temporary victory of a more rational idea over a
less rational. But, as a rule, the individual upon every
occasion follows that idea which is the pleasantest to himEven suicides or religious martyrs are determined on their
course by the idea that the condition which awaits them isa more agreeable one than the present.
So, as Gr. H. Schneider (“ On the Animal Will,” p. 145,.
etc.) very well says, all voluntary decisions, both of men
and of beasts, are determined partly by objective conscious-
�The Influence of Heredity on Free Will.
11
Hess, and partly without it; that is, they depend partly
on inherited organisation and partly on an act of the under
standing. In each single circumstance both factors are
concerned. The will, as such, depends, according to'
him, on the so-called intellectual tendencies, which have
been gradually developed from sensations and perceptions.
The further we descend in the animal kingdom—according toSchneider—the more weight have these tendencies of feeling
and thought, that is the innate and inherited instincts or
natural propensities ; while, on the contrary, imagination,
and reason, or acts of the will arising from conscious
ness, increase in the same measure as the animal gradationsapproach their highest point, or man. Therefore also, no
decided line can be drawn between instinct and will, and the
old theological doctrine that animals only act from instinct,
from an implanted impulse to purposeful action, without
consciousness of the purpose, but man, on the contrary, only
from free will, has quite faded. Man is led both by will
and by instinct, but there is in him more will and less
instinct than in beasts. From this point of view the
childish, the childlike, or thoughtless human being, in whom
sensational and perceptive impulses more easily master
prudence and reason, comes nearer to the animals than the
older man, grown wise by experience and by the cultivation
of his mental powers. The will is, therefore, never abso
lutely free, since the inherited organisation traces for it
very decided limits, and since outside this organisation a
great number of other circumstances—the full investigation
of which does not come within the scope of this paper—in
fluence it, narrowing and hemming it in. But in each case
the chief limits set to free will appear to lie in the laws of
inheritance, and an accurate knowledge of these is therefore
�12
The Influence of Heredity on Free Will.
imperative in order to judge riglitly in this weighty matter.
Unfortunately our knowledge of these laws is still very im
perfect ; yet we at least know this much with certainty,
that psychical heredity displays the same—if not a greater—
power and influence, as does physical, and that the abilities
■acquired during life possess the same transmissibility as those
inherited. Hence follows this result—immeasurably im
portant for progress and for the future of the human
race—that this transmission, although made without in
tention and unconsciously, tends towards a continual
improvement of the human race, and—result even yet more
solemn—that we ourselves have a share in making this
improvement. Then in the same measure as each single gene
ration works for its own training, moulding and improve
ment, inner and outer, in that same measure also it works
for the good and for the improvement of all following
generations ; so that each thus improved race hands on to the
following race not only the mental and material treasures
which it has gained and heaped together, but also a higher
and increased ability for improvement and further progress.
Heredity—however slowly and with often great breaks
due to popular commotions—raises us step by step to an
ever higher grade of moral, mental, and material develop
ment, and we shall make the attainment of this object the
easier just in so far as we work for our own moral, intel
lectual, and material perfection, and as in this fashion we
enrich the heritage which we bequeath to the next genera
tion. In any case such a prospect and such a call to labor
for our further improvement is worth more than all the
quackery and nonsense of antiquated dogmas and supersti
tious fancies, with which the ruling religious systems have
sought and still seek to satisfy the mental and emotional
�The Influence of Heredity on Free Will.
13
needs of man. For of what use can be all those imagina
tions of man as to eternity if they miss scientific truth, and
if they hinder instead of furthering the progress of know
ledge, or lead it into false paths? I consider it wholly im
possible that man, already so far advanced, can allow
himself to be guided any longer by these leading strings,
and the time cannot be very far off when he shall tread the
paths of reason and science instead of those of lies and
hypocrisy!
Ere I conclude, I would ask you not to regard this paper
as one which even half solves the important and scarcely
wholly soluble problem of the freedom of the human will. For
that task there is not now the necessary time, nor are my
weak powers sufficient. I have only aimed to show you—
or rather to call to your attention—how great an influence
the inherited mental organisation or character exercises over
our decisions, and therefore over our actions, over our will
—over' that will which appears to be bound in so many other
ways as well as in the most essential. But since this
organisation is not rigid, unchangeable, fixed for all time,
but can be changed and improved partly by our own exer
tions, I have ventured to impress on you the important
duty which is binding upon us of striving after that perfec
tion in which all good men agree.
Lastly, for the sake of greater clearness both for myself
and for my hearers, I will endeavor to define the results of
my enquiry and my opinions in a few brief sentences of
summary and review.
1. The will is neither absolutely free nor absolutely
determined.
2. It is determined or bound by a large number of inner
and outer influences, among which the inherited organisa-
�14
The Influence of Heredity on Free Will.
lion, the inborn nature of the mind and character, plays
■the chief part.
3. It is relatively free in so far as purposeful reason or
»reflection masters in any particular case thoughtless or in
nate or instinctive propensities and desires.
4. Innate propensities or instincts yield gradually more
.and more to reason and thought as we rise in the animal
kingdom, as well as in the development of the individual
man ; whence the will becomes freer step by step, and
(becomes more defined by the subordination of the former.
5. That since the will is not rigid nor unchangeable, it is
-therefore in the power of man himself by progressive traindno-, moulding, and improvement to free himself from these
.animal instincts more and more, and thereby to make him
self better, happier, and more contented than he has hitherto
been.
6. Freethouglit is above all called to work for the accom
plishment of this great end.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
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The influence of heredity on free will
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Buchner, Ludwig [1824-1899]
Besant, Annie Wood [1847-1933] (tr)
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 14 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Freethought Publishing Company
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1880
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N113
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Free will
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The influence of heredity on free will), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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English
Annie Besant
Free Thought
Free Will and Determinism
Heredity
NSS
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ci
.
THE FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY.
BY
THOMAS DANCER HUTCHISON, Ex-Siz. T.C.D.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11, THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD,
UPPER NORWOOD, LONDON, S.E.
Price Sixpence.
��ON THE FREE-WILL CONTROVERSY.
HATEVER may be thought of the interest and
importance hitherto attaching to the Problem of
the Human Will, whether regarded as the subject of
religious or of metaphysical disputation, it is certain
that at no period in its history has it come forward
with such weighty and urgent claims to the serious
attention of all thinking men, as in our own immediate
times. Emerging into notoriety some fourteen hun
dred years ago, in the celebrated Pelagian controversy
concerning human freedom, it was not until the middle
of the seventeenth century that it escaped from the
dark and bewildering mists of theological discussion,
into the higher and serener atmosphere of purely
philosophical enquiry. Eor our own time was reserved
the further step which it was destined to take, and
whereby it has descended from the remoteness of
abstract speculation, to take its place among the
importunate problems of practical life, challenging
with an ever increasing emphasis the exertion of our
highest efforts in its solution.
Tremendous as were the issues that hung upon the
decision of the theological phase of the Free-Will
controversy, it must not be supposed that these issues
were any of them of a distinctively practical character.
Terrible and repugnant as it might well seem to be
forced to regard man “ as incurably wicked—wicked
by the constitution of his flesh, and wicked by eternal
decree—as doomed, unless exempted by special grace
W
�4
On the Free-Will Controversy.
which he cannot merit, or by any effort of his own
obtain, to live in sin while he remains on earth, and to
be eternally miserable when he leaves it,—to regard
him as born unable to keep the commandments, yet
as justly liable to everlasting punishment for break
ing them,” *—nevertheless these, and all other such
conclusions of theology, left the men by whom they
were entertained, for all practical purposes pretty much
in the same position as that in which they found them.
We do not observe that the possession of a fatalist
creed exercised any blighting or paralysing influence on
the active nature of the great leaders ou the Calvinistic
side: indeed, if we are to believe Mr Froude, “they
were men possessed of all the qualities which give
nobility and grandeur to human nature,—unalterably
just when duty required them to be stern, but with the
tenderness of a woman in their hearts ; frank, true,
cheerful, humorous, as unlike sour fanatics as it is pos
sible to imagine any one.”
However stupendous, then, the questions involved in
the Arminian controversy concerning Human Freedom,
this much is certain, that these questions had, one and
all' of them, little or no bearing upon the conduct of
men in this present life. As far as external behaviour
went, you would have had no grounds for distinguish
ing between Libertarian and Calvinist,—between the
man who believed himself to be the arbiter of his own
destiny, and the man who regarded himself as a mere
puppet in the hands of an irresistible and unyielding
external Power.
In a word, the differences which
separated the Calvinist from the Arminian were
theological, not moral,—points of belief, and not of
practice. In matters involving considerations purely
ethical,—good or evil, virtue, responsibility, wrong
doing—the two antagonistic parties met on common
ground.
While it is thus manifest that the theological phase
* Froude, “ Short Studies,” vol. ii. p. 3.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
5
of this great controversy is open to the charge of a
want of practical interest, it must at the same time be
allowed that the Problem of the Will, when viewed in
the aspect which it presents to us of the present day,
comes home to men’s business and bosoms with a
cogency and force which are unquestionable. The
main controversy now-a-days lies between those who
uphold the Principle of Determinism, or the uniformity
of Sequence between motive and action, on the one
hand, and the defenders of the metaphysical theory
*
of Pree-Will, on the other. The Determinists maintain
(to use the words of one of the ablest of their number)!
that “ an invariable sequence exists between the sum
of motives present in the mind of a given individual,
and the action (or attempted action) which follows ; ”
and that consequently the phenomena of human voli
tion constitute a legitimate subject for scientific
explanation, calculation and prediction.
Thus the
great department of human action is brought under the
sway of the law of causation ; and as a necessary result
following the recognition of the correlation between
mental and cerebral changes, the vast principle of the
transformation and equivalence of forces is seen to
embrace and pervade, not only the action, organic and
inorganic, of the external world, but also the widelyextended field of volitional agency, whether individual
or in the aggregate.| It may readily be imagined how
numerous and how momentous are the results of the
application of this Determinist principle or doctrine to
the subjects of morality and education; but its import
ance does not rest on this alone.
It is made the basis
of a science of politics or sociology, which, applying
the laws of mind to the scientific explanation of the
* We say metaphysical theory, as opposed to the practical feeling
of freedom, which, as J. Stuart Mill points out, (Logic, Bk. vi. ch.
ii.) is in no wise inconsistent with the Determinist, or (as it is
often improperly called), the Necessitarian theory.
+ See
Review for October 1873.
t Cf. Herbert Spencer’s work “ On the Study of Sociology,” p. 6.
�6
On the Free-Will Controversy.
actions of mankind in the aggregate, seeks thereby to
arrive at a system of general principles for the guidance
of the politician. Nay more,—-this principle is at the
very root of the science of Psychology itself; for if we
refuse to acknowledge uniformity of succession in the
phenomena of volition,—if we believe that the normal
action of motives is liable to be at any time neutralised
and superseded, in a manner wholly irregular and un
foreseeable by us,—then indeed the attempt to establish
any even approximate general principles or laws of the
association and reproduction of ideas becomes as absurd
as it would be to set about developing a science of
mechanics “ on a planet where gravitation was liable to
fits of intermission.” Annihilate the principle of
Determinism, and Mental Science becomes the baseless
fabric of a vision.
Thus it is quite clear that the principle of Determinism,
if admitted to be true, carries with it practical results
of wide and deep importance. To the Determinist, the
ordinary notions of responsibility and punishment will
appear to be merely the vague and unreal products of
the imagination; virtue will be simply good luck, and
vice misfortune, while punishment will be regarded
simply as a means to an end—the end being the refor
mation of the criminal and the protection of society.
For him, the science of education opens a prospect of
unlimited advancement in the condition of the indi
vidual ; while Sociology, through the long vista of
future years, gives glimpses of a coming golden age.
He is possessed with the idea “ of the gradual develop
ment of the human mind—of the spiritual unity of the
human race; ” and throughout the troubles and
anxieties that attend the fluctuating and often appar
ently retrogressive movement of his day, he is sustained
and cheered by a firm belief in the mighty “ human
organism, fraught with the vast results of ages, and big
with a life which stretched over myriads of years,” *
* WWwi winter Review for October 1860, p. 308.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
7
ever slowly growing more and more unto the light of
perfect day.
It need hardly be said that all this is absolutely
incompatible with the Libertarian’s creed. He believes
that the phenomena of volition are marked out in the
strongest manner from all other phenomena whatever ;
that whereas by reason of the uniformity of sequence
which is permitted to prevail in the material world, the
whole of the vast department of physical phenomena
forms a legitimate subject for scientific explanation and
prediction, the individual and collective action of man
kind, on the contrary, admits neither “ scientific calcu
lations before the fact,” nor “scientific explanations
after the fact.” His theory maintains that there is
inherent in man a mysterious power, completely inde
pendent of motives, and capable of acting against the
preponderance of them—“ as if ” (to quote the words of
Dr Carpenter), “ when one scale of a balance is inclining
downwards, a hand placed on the beam from which the
ocher scale is suspended, were to cause that lighter
scale to go down.” It arrogates for man a faculty of
■undetermined Choice, called forth indeed into active
operation on the presentation of some motive or
motives to the mind, but in no wise conditioned or
coerced by their influence. This notion of an undeter
mined power of choice is regarded by those who hold
the doctrine of Dree Will as a necessary factor in our
common emotions of admiration, disapprobation, and
contrition. “ If there is no free choice ” (says Mr
Froude), “ the praise or blame with which we regard
one another are impertinent and out of place.”
Of course, those who maintain this theory ipso facto
deny the possibility of the sciences of Psychology and
Sociology, together with the fair hopes which they
hold out to us. Mr Froude talks of the time 11 when
the speculative formulas into which we have mapped
out the mysterious continents of the spiritual world
shall have been consigned to the place already thronged
�8
On the Free-Will Controversy.
with the ghosts of like delusions which have had their
day and perished ”—thus contemplating the possible
collapse of Psychology at some future day. He scouts
at the notion of a science of History (i.e., a social
science developed after the Deductive or Historic
method) so long as “ natural causes are liable to be set
aside and neutralised by what is called volition.” True,
men are “ at least half animals, and are subject in this
aspect of them to the conditions of animals. So far as
those parts of man’s doings are concerned, which
neither have, nor have had, anything moral about
them, so far the laws of him are calculable. . . . But
pass beyond them, and where are we 1 In a world
where it would be as easy to calculate man’s actions by
laws like those of positive philosophy as to measure
the orbit of Neptune with a foot-rule, or weigh Sirius
in a grocer’s scale.”
After what has been already said, it will be readily
admitted that the decision of the Pree Will question
at the present day, carries with it results of no small
practical importance, and that it is manifestly incuim
bent on us to put forth our best efforts in the attempt
to solve it. In some quarters, indeed, our endeavours
would meet with small encouragement. Many persons
—notably, Professor Huxley—believe that the battle
between Libertarian and Necessitarian is destined for
ever to remain a drawn one. But it is only right that
before we acquiesce in so disheartening an opinion, we
should ourselves review with some carefulness the con
troversy as it stands at present, and try to find out
whether after all the battle does not afford us indica
tions, however faint, of a definite issue.
“The advocate of Eree Will appeals to conscience
and instinct—to an b priori sense of what ought in
equity to be. The Necessitarian falls back upon the
experienced reality of facts.” * It is admitted on all
hands that the testimony of experience is in favour of
* Froude, “Short Studies,” vol. i. p. 4.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
9
necessity. Thus even Mr Mansel writes :—“ Were it
not for the direct testimony of my own consciousness
to my own freedom, I could regard human actions only
as necessary links in the endless chain of phenomenal
cause and effect/ * This fact, when taken in connec
tion with the extremely unique and exceptional nature
of the Free Will theory (according to which there is,
as Herbert Spencer says, “ one law for the rest of the
universe, and another law for mankind ”), seems fully
to justify the enquiry whether in thus denying the
universality of the law of uniform Succession, men may
not be under the influence of some bias which misleads
their judgment. Now, it is a well known fact that
the universality of this law has often been denied, both
in ancient and in modern times, the supposed excep
tions to it being always some one or other of the more
mysterious and apparently unpredictable phenomena of
nature. Thus Sokrates denied that Astronomy or
Physical Philosophy in general were fit subjects for
human study, maintaining that these two departments
were under the immediate and special control of the
gods. We are all familiar with that type of the pietist
which sees the handiwork of an all-wise and doubt
less retributory Providence in each of the petty acci
dents of life —so long as these be advantageous to
himself or calamitous merely to his neighbour.t This
attitude of mind is well illustrated by the following
story, which Dean Stanley relates as having been told
of a late dignitary of the Church by himself :—“ A
friend,” he used to relate, “ invited me to go out with
him on the water. The sky was threatening, and I
declined. At length he succeeded in persuading me,
and we embarked. A squall came on, the boat
lurched, and my friend fell overboard. Twice he sank,
* “ Metaphysics,” p. 168.
t “ Think ye that those eighteen upon the tower of Siloam fell,”
is the characteristic lesson of the Gospel on the occasion of any
sudden visitation. Yet it is another reading of such calamities
which is commonly insisted upon.”—“ Essays and Reviews,” p. 365.
�IO
On the Free-Will Controversy.
and twice he rose to the surface. He placed his hands
on the prow, and endeavoured to climb in. There was
great _ apprehension lest he should upset the boat.
Pt ovidentially I had brought my umbrella with me.
I had the presence of mind to strike him two or three
hard blows over the knuckles. He let go his hand,
and sank. The boat righted itself, and we were saved.”
Mr Huxley reminds us of the vast difference between
our mode of accounting for the Great Plague and the
Great Fire which devastated London in the 17th cen
tury, and that which recommended itself to our ances
*
tors.
It can hardly be asserted even of the most
cultivated classes of this country, that there prevails
amongst them a unanimous belief in the uniformity of
physical phenomena. The Prayer Book of the Estab
lished Church of England still contains prayers for
rain and for fair weather ; and a public Thanksgiving
was celebrated not long since on the recovery of the
heir to the Throne from a dangerous illness ; though
in this latter case (as Herbert Spencer points out) a
different interpretation of the issue would seem to be
indicated by the conferring of a baronetcy upon the
attendant physician. The doctrine of a particular
providence, as it is preached from our pulpits, while
conceding the prevalence of law in all those phenomena
which are familiar and thoroughly understood, main
tains that in the as yet unexplained mysteries of nature
(such as the changes of the weather, the process of
deliberative thought, &c.), the Deity may and does
direct the course of nature according to his pleasure.
We see then that there is, and always has been, in the
human mind a tendency to refer all the apparently
irregular and unforeseeable phenomena of nature to the
agency of some free and unconditioned power. Viewed
in the light of this fact, the undoubtedly complex and
(to all appearance) variable nature of volitional action
“ Lay Sermons: Essay pn the Advisableness of Improving'
Natural Knowledge.”
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
11
assumes at once a deep significance in the explanation of
the origin of the Free Will hypothesis.
Another influence modifying our conceptions of the
will is to he found in the conservative power which
language exercises over our thoughts and beliefs. It
is notorious that the Libertarian theory can claim a far
higher antiquity than its rival; indeed, even during
the period in which speech was in process of formation,
some conception more or less crude of Indeterminism
must have prevailed amongst mankind. This concep
tion has by means of language become fixed and
crystallised in the general mind, to such a degree that
it is only by means of a considerable effort, and after
some practice, that we can entertain the notion of an
unbroken sequence of antecedent and consequent in the
world of human action. Thus it is seen that a potent
influence on the side of the Free-Will theory is con
stantly at work in the language of every-day life.
Here too we must call attention to the unfortunate
complication which has been introduced into the Pro
blem of the Will by the general adoption of the figure
embodied in the terms “ Freedom of the Will,”
“ NecessityI’ and others of like nature. This metaphor
originated with the Stoics, who declared the virtuous
man to be free, the vicious man to be a slave. It was
subsequently adopted, and applied in a similar sense,
by Philo Judaeus and the early Christian Fathers. It
need hardly be said that this figure was addressed to
the heart rather than to the understanding; “as
regards appropriateness in everything but the associa
tions of dignity and indignity” says Professor Bain,
“ no metaphor could have been more unhappy. So far
as the idea of subjection is concerned, the virtuous man
is the greater slave of the two.” * The epithet “ free ”
was subsequently adopted by those who controverted
the Predestinarian theories of Augustine.
This
theologian taught that all men were the slaves of some
* Bain, “Mental and Moral Science,”p. 398.';
�12
Qn the Free-Will Controversy.
external constraining power—the elect being subject
to irresistible grace, and the reprobate to original sin.
As opposed to this notion of external compulsion, the
term Free-Will had a definite intelligible meaning.
Augustine maintained that for every man there existed
a certain class of motives, the due operation of which
in arousing him to volitional action was hindered by
some external force—that the elect were restrained
from sinning, and the reprobate from doing what was
good. This was evidently to suspend volitional action,
quite as much as it is suspended when men are thrown
into prison; and in opposition to this notion, any
conscious being “under a motive to act, and not
interfered with by any other being, is to all intents
free ; ” * and this moreover is the only meaning which
can possibly be attached to the word Freedom. But,
most unhappily, after the emergence of the theory of
determinism in the writings of Hobbes and his followers,
this term “ Freedom of the Will ” was borrowed from the
ancient theological controversy by the opponents of the
new philosophical system, and, carrying with it all the
inveterate and potent associations of dignity which had
belonged to it in its former employment, thus intro
duced an emotional bias of immense force into the
question now at issue. The Determinists were called
Necessitarians, and their antagonists were men who
upheld the Freedom of the Human Will. In conse
quence of the associations attaching to these words,
necessity and freedom, it came to pass that “ the
doctrine of causation, when considered as obtaining
between our volitions and their antecedents, was almost,
universally conceived as involving more than uniform
sequence.................Even if the reason repudiated, the
imagination retained, the feeling of some more intimate
connection, of some peculiar tie, or mysterious con
straint exercised by the antecedent over the consequent.
Now this it was which, considered as applying to
the human will, conflicted with men’s consciousness
* Bain, “ Mental and Moral Science,” p. 398.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
13
and revolted their feelings. They were certain that, in
the case of their volitions, there was not this mysterious
constraint. They felt, that if they wished to prove
that they had the power of resisting the motive, they
could do so (that wish being, it needs scarcely he
observed, a new antecedent;) and it would have been
humiliating to their pride, and (what is of more import
ance) paralysing to their desire of excellence, had they
thought otherwise. But neither is any such mysterious
compulsion now supposed, by the best philosophical
authorities, to be exercised by any other cause over its
effect. Those who think that causes draw their effects
after them by a mystical tie, are right in believing that
the relation between volitions and their antecedents is
of another nature. But they should go further, and
admit that this is also true of all other effects and their
antecedents. If such a tie is considered to be involved
in the word necessity, the doctrine is not true of human
actions ; but neither is it then true of inanimate objects.
It would be more correct to say that matter is not
bound by necessity, than that mind is so.” *
There is a further emotional influence tending to
foster the belief in Free-Will which must be briefly
noticed here. It is manifest that when men claim to
have a direct consciousness of liberty, they are thinking,
not so much of their past conduct as of their future and
yet unrealised volitions. With regard to the past, as has
already been remarked, most persons are ready to admit
that experience proves their actions to have uniformly
followed some preponderating motive. Now the con
templation of a man’s past history does not, in the
majority of cases, bring with it any keen emotions of
pride or satisfaction ; too often it is but the record of
the conquest of temporary fleeting solicitations of the
present over the permanent interests embodied in our
more comprehensive and ideal motives. Hence the
belief that our course of action will be pretty much the
* J. S. Mill, “ Logic,” Bk. vi., Chap, ii., § 2.
>
�14
On the Free-Will Controversy.
same in the future as it has been in the past is one
which administers a heavy blow to our feelings of self
satisfaction and of power ; and we are apt under the
influence of these feelings to imagine that in our future
course of life the higher and more permanent aims will,
through the operation of our hitherto inactive power of
Free Choice, predominate over the more sensual and
transient motives,—“the fleeting actualities of pleasure
and pain.” Here also, then, it is evident that the
notion of an undetermined Will finds strong support in
the natural instincts of emotion.
In concluding this portion of our subject, it will be
necessary to call attention to a well-known infirmity of
thought, which plainly operates in favour of the per
sistence of Libertarianism. We allude to the strong
tendency existing in the mind to objectify, or ascribe
separate existence to, its abstractions. “ Mankind in
all ages have had a strong propensity to conclude that
wherever there is a name, there must be a distinguish
able separate entity corresponding to the name ; and
every complex idea which the mind has- formed for
itself by operating upon its conceptions of individual
things, was considered to have an outward objective
reality answering to it. Fate, Chance, Nature, Time,
Space, were real beings, nay, even gods. In ancient
times to the vulgar and to the scientific alike, whiteness
was an entity, inhering or sticking in the white sub
stance : and so of all other qualities.” * Language
favours this fallacious tendency of the mind; the
abstract name (“alike the facility and the snare of
general expression,” as it has been aptly described), is
generally understood to denote something more than
the bare fact of similarity between a number of objects,
some mysterious entity wherebij they resemble each
other as they do, and which resides in each and all
of them. We are inclined to believe that for every
name there must be a corresponding thing. In this
* Mill, “ Logic,” Bk. v., Chap, iii., § 4.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
*5
manner, after that men had fonnd it convenient to
frame a general term which should embrace all volitional
phenomena, the constant employment of this term
(velle “to will,”) easily generated a belief in some
mysterious entity or power, underlying all volitional
action, and originating within itself all those effects of
“deliberating, weighing, and choosing,” which con
stituted the most obvious common element originally
embodied in the abstract idea of Will. Just as the
Eleatic Philosophy taught that a peculiar entity or sub
stance, to sv or Oneness, inhered in all things which are
said to be one, so did men frame for themselves
“ the conception of an underlying substantive power,
the will, from which all single acts of volition were
supposed to emanate.”*
Having now enumerated some of the principal
psychological causes for the wide and early prevalence,
and the long continuance of the doctrine of Free-Will,
we will now proceed to pass in review some of the de
finitions of freedom which have been advanced by the
upholders of this doctrine. In doing so, we shall pass
over without comment the theological phase of the
controversy, as conducted on principles, and proceed
ing by a method wholly alien to the spirit of scientific
enquiry, and we shall commence with a notice of
Descartes, who may be said to be the first of the purely
philosophical libertarians.
Descartes was a cotemporary of Hobbes, the first
philosopher who consistently taught and believed the
doctrine of Determinism. It would be a mistake, how
ever, to suppose that in writing on the subject of the
Will, Descartes had any conception of this doctrine in
his mind; for the pamphlet in which Hobbes made
known his system to the world was not published until
* Westminster Review, July 1871. Whoever desires to attain to an
adequate conception of the various causes of the genesis and per
sistence of Libertarianism, cannot do better than read the masterly
article on the subject contained in this number of the Review.
�16
On the Free-Will Controversy.
after the year 1655, while the writings in which
Descartes’ opinions concerning the Will are chiefly
found, appeared at Paris in the year 1641. As might
have been expected, then, Descartes’ doctrine of FreeWill was set up in opposition, not to Determinism, but
to that system of Necessitarianism or Fatalism with
which Bishop Butler deals in his Analogy, and which,
it need hardly be said, is altogether distinct from and
incompatible with the Determinist theory. Accord
ingly, Descartes’ definition of Freedom is such as might
be conscientiously adopted by the most scrupulous of
Determinists. “ The power of will,” he says, “ consists
in this alone, that in pursuing or shunning what is
proposed to us by the understanding, we so act that
we are not conscious of being determined to a particular
action by any external force.
*
This is a perfectly
truthful, though inadequate, definition of the Will,
and it is with strict justice that Descartes replies to
Hobbes (who had remarked on the passage quoted
above, that it assumed, without proving, the doctrine
of Free-Will) • “ I have assumed or advanced nothing
concerning Freedom, save that which we experience to
be true every day of our lives, and which the light of
nature plainly teaches us.” * That Descartes was not
far off from Determinism in his views is seen from his
remarks on Indifference. “ In order to be free,” he
says, “ it is not necessary that I should be indifferent
as to the choice of one or other of two contrary things.
Nay, rather, the more I incline towards one .thing
(whether because I see clearly that right and truth agree
in it, or because God has so ordered the course of my
feelings), with so much the greater freedom do I make
my choice and adhere to that thing. And assuredly the
grace of God and my natural understanding, far from
diminishing my freedom, augment it and strengthen it
ratherj so that the indifference which I feel when I
am not led away on one side more than on the other by
♦ Q.uatrieme Meditation.
+ Troisieme Response.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
17
the influence of any motive, is the lowest kind of
liberty, and indicates rather a defect in knowledge than
a perfection of the will. For if I always knew clearly
what was true and what was good, I would never have
to go to the trouble of deliberating what decision and
what choice I should make; and so I should be per
fectly free without ever being indifferent.
*
Accord
ing to Descartes, then, “ every sentient being, under a
motive to act, and not interfered with by any other
being, is to all intents freef’t and thus “the fox
impelled by hunger, and proceeding unmolested to the
poultry yard, would be a free agent.But this, it
needs hardly be said, is precisely the teaching of De
terminism. Indeed Descartes has fallen short of that
system merely in so far as he has admitted the con
ception of a liberty of indifference. This is, of course,
to give a double sense to the word liberty, and so to
confuse the question not a little. But we have already
seen that on this point Descartes speaks with hesitation,
and we may safely agree with Professor Bain in regard
ing him as “ willing to give up the liberty of in
difference,” while anxious to establish the internal feel
ing of freedom.
While Descartes is thus to be regarded merely as the
exponent of the popular practical feeling of liberty
protesting against the paralysing creed of fatalism, or
of an overruling and irresistible external power which
guides men’s actions irrespective of their will; Clarke,
Price, and Reid, on the other hand, have each framed
definitions of Freedom, having special reference to, and
combating, the doctrine of Determinism. Clarke and
Price agree in making freedom to consist in a power of
self-motion or self-determination, -which in all animate
agents, is spontaneity, in moral agents, is liberty. How,
they asked, can it be supposed that motives are the
immediate cause of action ? It is true that our faculty
* Quatrifeme Meditation.
I Bain, “Mental and Moral Science,” page 398.
t Bain, “Mental and Moral Science,” p. 398.
B
�18
On the Free-Will Controversy.
of self-determination is never called forth into action
save on the presentation of some end or design to the
mind. But it is unmeaning to make such ends or
motives the physical causes of action. “ Our ideas may
be the occasion of our acting, but are certainly
not mechanical efficients.” “ If,” says Clarke, “ every
action of man is to be regarded as determined by some
motive, then either abstracted notions (t.e. motives)
have a real subsistence (which would be Realism),
or else what is not a substance can put a body in
motion.”* According to Leibnitz, the will is to be
compared to a balance, whose motion one way or an
other is determined by the weights in the scales (the
motives). In the opinion of Clarke and his followers,
however, the true comparison would be to a hand
placed on either side of the beam, and determining the
motion of the scales irrespective of, and possibly in
opposition to, the preponderance of weights.
In thus assimilating Spontaneity and Freedom,
Clarke and Price laid themselves open to the severe
criticism of Sir W. Hamilton, who writes (note to
Reid on “The Active Powers”):—“The Liberty from
Co-action or Violence—the Liberty of Spontaneity—is
admitted by all parties; is common equally to brutes
and men; is not a peculiar quality of the Will; and
is, in fact, essential to it, for the will cannot possibly
be forced.
The greatest spontaneity is the greatest
necessity. Thus a hungry horse, who turns of necessity
to food, is said, on this definition of liberty, to do so
with freedom, because he does so spontaneously; and,
in general, the desire of happiness, which is the most
necessary tendency, will, on this application of the
term, be the most free. The definition of liberty
given by the celebrated advocate of moral freedom,
Dr Samuel Clarke, is in reality only that of the liberty
of spontaneity.”
But while Clarke and Price, by incautiously identi* For an explanation of the misconception involved here, see
Bain “ Mind and Body,” pp. 76, 132.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
i9
fying spontaneity and liberty, were guilty of confusing
together the freedom of self-determination with the
freedom which is opposed to external constraint (i.e.,
the “ liberty from co-action” of Hamilton, Reid is
careful to withhold from the brute creation the posses
sion of any faculty analogous to our volitional power.
Reid, Clarke, and Price, however, unite in regarding
this power as a faculty of self-determination. “ By the
liberty of a Moral Agent,” says Reid, “I understand
a power over the determinations of his own will.” “A
free agent,” says Clarke, “when there is more than one
perfectly reasonable way of acting (i.e., when there is
a perfect equilibrium of motives), has still within itself,
by virtue of its self-motive principle, a power of acting.”
This notion of a self-determining agent has been criti
cally examined both by Edwards and Hamilton, a brief
outline of whose remarks on the subject will next he given.
Edwards starts by proclaiming the inconceivability
of such a notion as that of self-determination. The
Will, he says, is said to determine its own acts. Now, /
it is manifest that it can do this solely by means of an
act of volition ; for (to quote Hamilton’s words) “ it is
only through a rational determination or volition that
we can freely exert power.” But if this be so, then it
follows that every free volitional act requires a preceding
volition to constitute it free; and so on ad infinihtm.
This evidently is to bring the matter to an absurdity.
If it be answered that the act of determining the
volitional action, and the act of willing, are one and
the same, then the obvious rejoinder is, that a free
action is determined by nothing, and is entirely un
caused. Self-determinism, therefore, is a misnomer,
and the correct name for such a creed is Indeterminism.
Now Indeterminism teaches that the actions of our will
do not originate in any causes. It therefore contradicts
the law of causality. But if this law be made void,
then the foundation of all reasoning—nay, the only
possible proof for the existence of God—will have
vanished; and there will remain nothing save the
�20
On the Free-Will Controversy.
fleeting thoughts present to our consciousness, of the
existence of which we can be certain.
*
Nor is Sir William Hamilton less emphatic when he
exposes the inconsistent and inconceivable character of
Heid’s definition of Freedom. “According to Reid,” he
writes, “ Moral Liberty does not merely consist in
doing wliat we will, but in the power of willing what
we will. For a power over the determinations of our
will supposes an act of will that our will should deter
mine so and so. . . . But here question upon question
remains (and this ad infinitum)—Have we a power (a
will) over such anterior will ? And until this question
shall be distinctively answered, we must be unable to
conceive the possibility of the fact of Liberty I’
To those Libertarians who endeavoured to evade the
charge of denying causality by affirming that the per
son was the cause of his volitions, Hamilton puts the
question :—“ Is the person an original undetermined
cause of the determination of his will ? If he be not,
then he is not a free agent, and the scheme of Necessity
is admitted. If he be, in the first place, it is imposs
ible to concewe the possibility of this; and, in the
second, if the fact, though inconceivable, be allowed, it
is impossible to see how a cause, undetermined by any
motive, can be a rational, moral, and accountable cause.”
But while Sir William Hamilton insisted so unspar
ingly on the inconceivability of the liberty of a moral
agent as defined by Reid, and on the fact that, if
conceived, it could only be conceived as morally worth
less, it is nevertheless notorious that he regarded this
* “To show that any doctrine contradicted the law of cause and
effect was, Edwards conceived, a perfect reductio ad absurdum. He
did not anticipate that anyone would impugn the universality of
cause and effect.” Some Libertarians, endeavouring to save the
law of causation by a verbal quibble, asserted that the soul was the
cause of its volitions. “Edwards answers, that this may explain
why the soul acts at all, but not why it acts in a particular manner.
And unless the soul produce diverse acts, it cannot produce diverse
effects, otherwise the same cause, in the same circumstances, would
produce different effects at different times.”—Bain, Mental and
Moral Science, page 417.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
21
definition as correct, and that he was a strenuous
upholder of the doctrine of self-determination. Hamil
ton adopts a peculiar attitude towards the controversy
of the Will, and his positions on this subject cannot be
understood without a reference to his general philo
sophical system. In this system a very prominent
place is assigned to what he calls the Law of the
Conditioned, which is expressed thus :—“ All that is
conceivable in thought lies between two extremes,
which, as contradictory of each other, cannot both be
true, but of which, as mutual contradictories (by the
Law of Excluded Middle), one must.’" This law
Hamilton illustrates by adducing our conceptions of
Space and Time. “ Space must be bounded or not
bounded, but we are unable to conceive either alter
native. We cannot conceive space as a whole, beyond
which there is no further space.
Neither can we
conceive space as without limits. Let us imagine space
never so large, we yet fall infinitely short of infinite
space. But finite and infinite space are contradictories ;
therefore, although we are unable to conceive either
alternative, one must be true and the other false. The
conception of Time illustrates the same law. Starting
from the present, we cannot think past time as
bounded, as beginning to be. On the other hand, we
cannot conceive time going backwards without end ;
eternity is too big for our imaginations. Yet time had
either a beginning or it had not. Thus ‘ the con
ditioned or the thinkable lies between two extremes or
poles ; and these extremes or poles are each of them
unconditioned, each of them inconceivable, each of
them exclusive or contradictory of the other.’ ” *
To apply this doctrine to the subject of the Will;
the two unconditioned extremes or poles are here
represented by the contradictory doctrines of Deter
minism and Casualism (or the self-determinist theory
of Liberty). These two contradictory schemes are
* Bain’s Compendium of Mental and Moral Science, Appendix
B, p. 68.
�22
On the Free-Will Controversy.
equally inconceivable. “ For, as we cannot compass
in thought an undetermined cause, an absolute com
mencement—the fundamental hypothesis of the one ;
so we can as little think an infinite series of determined
causes—of relative commencements,-—the fundamental
hypothesis of the other. The champions of the opposite
doctrines are thus at once resistless in assault and
impotent in defence. The doctrine of Moral Liberty
cannot be made conceivable, for we can only conceive
the determined and the relative.
*
All that can be
done is to show, (1.) That, for the fact of Liberty, we
have immediately or mediately, the evidence of con
sciousness ; and (2.) that there are, among the
phenomena of mind, many facts which we must admit
as actual, but of whose possibility we are wholly unable
to form any notion.” Thus according to Hamilton,
the inconceivability of the self-determinist scheme is
counterbalanced by a co-equal inconceivability in the
doctrine of determinism, and the scale is turned in
favour of self-determinism by the testimony, mediate
or immediate, of consciousness.
If Sir William Hamilton has displayed no small
stringency in his destructive criticisms upon the defini
tions of Freedom coming from Clarke and Reid, and
has thus saved his adversaries a considerable amount
of trouble by vigorously demolishing his friends, his
own peculiar doctrines, on the other hand, have been
subjected to an examination no less searching and no
less destructive, by the illustrious philosopher recently
gone from among us, John Stuart Mill. In one of the
concluding chapters of his masterly work, the
“ Examination of Sir W. Hamilton’s Philosophy,”
Mill enters upon a minute and exhaustive discussion
on the subject of the Will, and of the Libertarian
theories of it. After severely censuring Hamilton for
his attempt to give a fictitious importance to his
doctrine of Freedom by representing it as affording the
* It has already been pointed out that Hamilton rejects the
evasive quibble that the soul is the cause of our volitions.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
23
only valid argument in support of the existence of God,
he proceeds :—“ Let us concede to Hamilton the co
equal inconceivability of the conflicting hypothesis, an
uncaused commencement and an infinite regress. But
this choice of inconceivabilities is not offered to us in
the case of volitions only. We are held, as he not only
admits but contends, to the same alternative in all
cases of causation whatever. But we find our way out
of the difficulty, in other cases, in quite a different
manner. In the case of every other kind of fact, we
do not elect the hypothesis that the event took place
without a cause : we accept the other supposition, that
of a regress, not indeed to infinity, but either generally
into the region of the unknowable, or back to a
universal cause, regarding which, as we are only con
cerned with it in relation to what it preceded, and not
as itself preceded by anything, we can afford to make
a plain avowal of our ignorance.” Now why do we
thus, in all cases save only our volitions, accept the
alternative of regress ? “ Apparently it is because the
causation hypothesis, inconceivable as he ” (Hamilton)
“ may think it, possesses the advantage of having
experience on its side. And how or by what evidence
does experience testify to it? Not by disclosing any
nexus between the cause and the effect, any sufficient
reason in the cause itself why the effect should follow
it. ■ No philosopher now makes this supposition, and
Sir W. Hamilton positively disclaims it. What
experience makes known, is the fact of an invariable
sequence between every event and some special com
bination of antecedent conditions, in such sort that
wherever and whenever that union of antecedents
exists, the event does not fail to occur. Any 'must in
the case, any necessity, other than the unconditional
universality of the fact, we know nothing of. Still
this a posteriori “does,” though' not confirmed by an
a priori “ must,” decides our choice between the two
inconceivables, and leads us to the belief that every
event within the phenomenal universe, except human
�24
On the Free-Will Controversy.
volitions, is determined to take place by a cause. Now
the so-called Necessitarians demand the application of
the same rule of judgment to our volitions. They
maintain that there is the same evidence for it. They
affirm as a truth of experience that volitions do, in
point of fact, follow determinate moral antecedents with
the same uniformity and . . . with the same certainty
as physical effects follow their physical causes. . . .
Whether they must do so, I acknowledge myself to be
entirely ignorant, be the phenomenon moral or
physical; and I condemn accordingly the word
necessity as applied to either case. All I know is that
they do.”*
The testimony of experience, then, which is admitted
on all hands to be in favour of (so called) Necessity, is
that on which the Determinists ground their system.
The Libertarians, on the other hand, agree in claiming
the evidence of consciousness as making for their side.
“We have by our constitution,” says Reid, “a natural
conviction or belief that we act freely.” In his notes
to Reid’s essay on the Active Powers, Hamilton
hesitates between regarding the sense of freedom as an
ultimate datum of consciousness, and treating it as
involved in our consciousness of the law of moral
obligation or responsibility; in his lectures on Meta
physics, however, he speaks of it more plainly as a fact
of which we are directly conscious. Is it really the
case, then, asks Mill, that the admitted testimony of
man’s universal experience, is hopelessly at variance
with the testimony of his consciousness 1 If this b.e so,
then is the mental philosopher in an unenviable plight
indeed. But let us examine more nearly what is meant
by the testimony of consciousness. “ To be conscious
of free-will, must mean, to be conscious before I have
decided that I am able to decide either way. Exception
may be taken, in limine, to the use of the word
consciousness in such an application. Consciousness
tells me what I do or feel. But what I am able to do,
* “ Examination of Sir W. Hamilton's Philosophy,” p. 500.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
25
is not a subject of consciousness. Consciousness is
not prophetic; we are conscious of what is, not of
what will or can be. We never know that we are able
to do a thing except from having done it or something
equal or similar to it. . . . If our so-called conscious
ness of what we are able to do is not borne out by
experience, it is a delusion. It has no title to credence
but as an interpretation of experience, and if it is a
false interpretation it must give way.” Our so-called
consciousness of, or belief in, freedom, therefore, must
be an interpretation of our past experience, i.e., with
regard to foregone acts of deliberation and choice, we
must be conscious that we could have decided the
other way; “ but, the truth is, not unless we preferred
that way. When we imagine ourselves acting differ
ently from what we did, we think of a change in the
antecedents, as by knowing something that we did not
know. Mill therefore altogether disputes the assertion
that we are conscious of being able to act in opposition
to the strongest present desire or aversion.”*
Having in this manner pointed out the error of those
who claim the testimony of consciousness in support of
the Freedom or Indeterminatensss of the will, Mill
proceeds to consider the other position assumed by
Hamilton, viz., that the fact of freedom is involved in
our consciousness of moral obligation or responsibility.
To quote Hamilton’s words :—“ Our consciousness of
the moral law, which, without a moral liberty in man,
would be a mendacious imperative, gives a decisive
preponderance to the doctrine of freedom over the
doctrine of fate. We are free in act, if we are account
able for our actions.” Now this is the main argument
of the Indeterminist; it seeks to establish the doctrine
of free-will by representing it as inextricably involved
in the common conception of accountability or moral
desert, so that the two must stand or fall together.
There is not a writer on the side of Libertarianism who
has not dwelt with emphasis upon this argument.
* Bain, “Mental and Moral Science,” p. 427.
�26
On the Free-Will Controversy.
Thus Reid writes, “Let us suppose a man necessarily
determined in all cases to will and to do what is best
to be done • he would surely be innocent and inculp
able. But as far as I am able to judge, he would not
be entitled to the esteem and moral approbation of
those who knew and believed this necessity. . . . On
the other hand, if a man be necessarily determined to
do ill, this case seems to me to move pity, but not dis
approbation.
He was ill because he could not be
otherwise. Who can blame him ? Necessity has no
law.” “If there is no free choice,” writes Mr Froude,
“ the praise or blame with which we regard one another
are impertinent and out of place.”* “ Man,” says
Hamilton in another place, “ is a moral agent only as
he is unaccountable for his actions—in other words, as
he is the object of praise or blame ; and this he is only
inasmuch as he has prescribed to him a rule of duty,
and as he is able to act, or not to act, in conformity
with its precepts.
The possibility of morality thus
depends on the possibility of liberty; for if a man be
not a free agent he is not the author of his actions, and
has, therefore, no responsibility,—no moral personality
at all.”
Now, in order to determine whether freedom from
causation is involved in the notion of moral responsi
bility, we shall be obliged to subject that notion to a
careful analysis. What, then, is meant by the feeling
of responsibility? Simply a conviction that if we
committed certain actions, we should deserve punish
ment for so doing. A sense of responsibility is pre
cisely identical with a sense of the justice of punish
ment. Now, punishment presupposes Law, of which
it is the sanction, i.e., to ensure obedience to -which it
is inflicted on the disobedient. Accountability, then,
or responsibility, involves a sense of the justice of Law;
and the question before us resolves itself into this—Is
it necessary to assume that human voluntary action is
undetermined by any moral antecedents, in order to
* Quoted before on p. 7.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
justify the institution of law and punishment ? So far
is this from being the case, that (to use the words of
Herbert Spencer) “ if there is no natural causation
throughout the actions of incorporated humanity,
government and legislation are absurd. Acts of Par
liament may, as well as not, be made to depend on the
drawing of lots or the tossing of a coin; or, rather,
there may as well be none at all.”* The exigencies of
human society require that restrictions should be placed
upon the conduct of the individuals who together make
it up ; this justifies the institution of Law. The justi
fication of Punishment absolutely necessitates the
assumption that men’s actions follow the law of cause
and effect. “ Unless pain, present or prospective,
impels hnman beings to avoid whatever brings it, and
to perform whatever delivers from it, punishment has
no relevance, whether the end be the benefit of the
society, or the benefit of the offender, or both to
gether.’’ f It may be asked—“ Is it just to punish a
man for what he cannot help ? Certainly it is, if
punishment is the only means by which he can be
enabled to help it.
Punishment is inflicted as a
means towards an end—that is to say, if our volitions
are not determined by motives, then punishment is
without justification. If an end is justifiable, the sole
and necessary means to that end must be justifiable.
Now the Necessitarian theory proceeds upon two ends
—the benefit of the offender himself and the protection
of others. To punish a child for its benefit, is no
more unjust than to administer medicine.” J
Such is a brief outline of Mill’s answer to the
position of Hamilton, that freedom is involved in our
consciousness of moral responsibility. Those who wish
to examine the arguments on both sides in detail, will
find them in the 26th chapter of Mill’s “Examination
of Sir W. Hamilton’s Philosophy,” and in the admir.
* “Study of Sociology,” p. 46.
t Bain, “ Compendium,” p. 404,
+ Bain, “ Compendium,” p. 428.
�28
On the Free-Will Controversy.
able remarks on “Liberty and Necessity,” contained in
the 11th chapter of Bain’s “Exposition of the Will,”
to be found in his invaluable “ Compendium of Psy
chology and Ethics.” We have seen that in demolish
ing this position of his opponent, Mill has established
the very opposite principle, viz., that the doctrine of
Determinism is necessarily implicated in the notion of
moral agency or responsibility. This, however, does
not hinder but that there should be some truth in the
assertion that the common notion of responsibility
involves in it the hypothesis of a free and undeter
mined will. Eor, according to the common conception
of moral desert, there is inherent in moral evil or
wrong-doing a heinousness and a perniciousness quite
unique, irrespective of its consequences; and it is
obviously difficult to reconcile with this view the hypo
thesis of a will determined by the strongest motive,
seeing that the peculiar pravity which is the essential
characteristic of moral evil ought in the natural course
of things to exercise a deterring influence stronger than
any counter-influence arising from the prospect of pos
sible advantage to be gained thereby. Accordingly,
the notion of a free and undetermined will, raised
above the influence of motive, and resolving on a course
of wickedness in spite of the dissuasive considerations
suggested by the horrible nature of wrong-doing, was
called in to explain the phenomena of man’s moral
frailty; and this notion soon generated a conception of
punishment as of a kind of vengeance, rightly and duly
inflicted upon the ill-doer, without regard to any bene
ficial results accruing to himself or to society. Now,
this vague notion of the nature of punishment is wholly
incompatible with the definition of it which has been
already given, and which is admitted on all hands to
embody some at least, if not all, of the elements con
tained in the positive signification of the word “ pun
ishment.” On the Determinist theory of volition,
therefore, the vulgar notions of virtue and of vice, as
qualities to be lauded and reprobated irrespective of
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
29
their consequences, as well as the conception of punish
ment as a righteous retribution for ill-doing, apart from
any consideration of the useful ends to he served by it,
must disappear altogether. Virtue is “ a great happi
ness, but no merit in the vulgar sense of the term; ”
and vice is “ a great misfortune, but no demerit.” *
We have now concluded our review of the great
controversy of the Will. Starting with the considera
tion of the question as it stands at the present day, we
saw how numerous and how momentous are the practi
cal issues involved in its solution. We then went on
to enquire whether any, and if so, what psychological
or other causes there were, which would exercise a dis
turbing influence in the decision of this question, and,
as a result, we found that there were many and potent
emotional and other agencies at work in generating and
fostering the belief in an indeterminate will. Finally,
we have passed in review the leading definitions of
Free-Will which have been advanced on the side of
Indeterminism, and have given a brief outline of the
destructive criticism of these definitions which has pro
ceeded from Edwards, Hamilton, and Mill successively.
We have seen that our consciousness, which has been
so triumphantly appealed to by the supporters of free
will, does not in truth, when closely interrogated, yield
any evidence whatever in favour of that doctrine ; and
that the testimony of experience, which is universally
regarded as a sufficient ground for the belief in the law
of causality as holding throughout the phenomenal uni
verse (volitional acts alone being excepted), is admitted
by everybody to be altogether in favour of Determinism,
i.e. of the law of causality as extending over the field
of human action also. We have noticed, however, that
the theory of Determinism involves the sacrifice of the
common notions of moral excellence and depravity;
and it is precisely here (as has been shown by the writer
in the Westminster Revieio) that the strength of Libertar
ianism lies. Men are indignant when it is insinuated
* Westminster Review, October 1873, p. 311,
�3°
On the Free-Will Controversy.
that the popular beliefs with regard to merit and demerit,
responsibility, and punishment, are in great part the
products of lying imagination. They refuse to allow
any moral excellence to actions performed unconsciously
under the constraining influence of unreflecting love or
sympathy. Mr Mivart declares that “acts unaccom
panied by mental acts of conscious will directed towards
the fulfilment of duty ” are “ absolutely destitute of
the most incipient degree of real or formal goodness.”*
According to Reid, a man necessarily determined by
the constitution of his nature to will and to do what is
best to be done, “ would not be entitled to the esteem
and moral approbation of those who knew and believed
this necessity.” “ What was by an ancient author said
of Cato, might indeed be said of him -.—lie was good be
cause he could not be otherwise. But this saying if
understood literally and strictly is not the praise of
Cato, but of his constitution, which was no more the.
work of Cato than his existence/’ Now, in the first
place, be it remarked that this view of moral excellence,
as involving free and undetermined choice of the good,
excludes not only the man who does good without
thinking about it, but the Deity also, from the category
of beings possessed of a claim to our moral approbation.
We are compelled to think of God as necessarily good;
to attribute to Him the power of moral evil is, as
Hamilton has pointed out, to detract from his essential
goodness. Precisely in the same sense as Cato was
said to be good, because he could not be otherwise, so
is God declared to be, in virtue of his nature, necessarily
determined to goodness. “As Euripides hath it, h
Oeo'i ri (tpaxriv auty'p'ov, ovz zlsiv Oeo/.”t According to the
Libertarian definition of moral excellence, then, we
shall be obliged to deny that God possesses any moral
attributes at all, or else to detract from his essential
goodness by admitting the possibility of his becoming
* “On the Genesis of Species,” quoted by Huxley, “Critiques,”
&c. p. 287.
f Hamilton, note to Reid’s Essay on the Active Powers.
�On the Free-Will Controversy.
3i
evil; and it need hardly be said that this is a corollary
of their doctrine from which most Libertarians would
recoil with horror. But, not to press this point any
further—can it be possible that we are to regard all
actions prompted by unreflecting sympathy and affection
as “ absolutely destitute of the most incipient degree of
real or formal goodness ?” Surely not; the unanimous
verdict of mankind forbids it. The perfect ideal of a
virtuous character is that of the man whose actions
invariably have for their spring and source an instinc
tive feeling of sympathy for his fellow-men, irrespective
of any selfish considerations. Or do Mr Mivart and
those who agree with him think to persuade us that
the mother who rushes forward to save her child’s life
at the sacrifice of her own—that a Howard and a
Nightingale, whom the importunate promptings of their
inner nature urge irresistibly forth from the refinements
and the pleasures of domestic life, to all the horrors
and miseries of an existence passed in the midst of
prisons, lazar-houses, and hospitals—that these are
creatures devoid of any “ title to our esteem or moral
approbation?” Such a doctrine only requires to be
fully and definitely stated, in order to be instantly and
unequivocally repudiated.
Our space will not permit us to enter upon a con
sideration of the various collateral arguments urged by
the two sides of this great controversy of the will. Bor
a full account of these, the reader is referred to the
admirable “ History of the Tree-Will Controversy,” to
be found in Professor Bain’s Compendium of Mental
and Moral Science. We will merely add, in conclusion,
that the Determinist hypothesis has always been practi
cally recognised by men in their dealings with one
another. It has been already shown that the institution
of Law presupposes the fact of a uniform connection
between pain and the action necessary to avoid it, that
is, of the law of uniform succession in our acts and
their moral antecedents. Nor does the conduct of
individuals towards one another show less clearly the
�32
On the Free-Will Controversy.
conviction of such a principle of uniformity. For ex
ample (to quote an instance from J. Stuart Mill), “Men
often regard the doubt what their conduct will be, as
a mark of ignorance of their character, and sometimes
even resent it as an imputation.”* Indeed, not only
is prevision concerning the conduct of others constantly
necessary, in virtue of the interdependence of human
beings aggregated in society; it is also no less easy and
sure than the prevision of physical phenomena. “ If,
in crossing a street, a man sees a carriage coming upon
him, you may safely assert that, in nine hundred and
ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, he will try to get
out of the way. ... If he can buy next door a com
modity of daily consumption better and cheaper than
at the other end of town, we may affirm that, if he does
not buy next door, some special relation between him
and the remoter shopkeeper furnishes a strong reason
for taking a worse commodity at greater cost of money
and trouble.”! Finally, what logical justification of
sympathy can there be—how is it possible to reconcile
reason and fellow-feeling, save on the hypothesis of
determinism? Is it not in this creed that we find the
strongest incentive to mercy, charity, long-suffering—
to “ hatred of the sin, and yet love for the sinner ; ” in
a word, to all that is highest and noblest in the charac
ter of man as a social being ? May the day soon come
—and perhaps it is not far distant—when a public and
practical recognition shall he given to this great prin
ciple, and when the popular sanction shall establish a
basis and a system of psychology so fruitful in beneficial
result, not only in Legislation, but in the Sciences of
Morality and Education also. This paper will not
have been written in vain, if it should arouse any to
the earnest and sincere examination of the great sub
ject with which it has dealt.
* Mill, “ Logic,” Book VI., chapter if., § 2.
I Spencer, “Study of Sociology,” page 38.
�
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The free-will controversy
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Hutchison, Thomas Dancer
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Place of publication: London
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Determinism
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Conway Tracts
Free Will and Determinism
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FREE WILL & NECESSITY
A
PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY
CONCERNING
HUMAN LIBERTY
BY
ANTHONY COLLINS.
REPRINTED
WITH PREFACE AND ANNOTATIONS
By G. IE. FOOTE.
AND BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION
By .T. M. WHEELEB.
Price One Shilling.
JTonbon:
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISltlNG COMPANY
28 Stonecvtter Street, E.C.
1890.
��f? 2?5'5
NI7I
w
A
PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY
CONCERNING
HUMAN LIBERTY
BY
ANTHONY COLLINS.
REPRINTED
WITH PREFACE AND ANNOTATIONS
By G. W. FOOTE.
AND BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION
By J. M. WHEELER.
LONDON
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28 Stonecutter Street, E.C.
1890.
g
�LONDON
1’RINTED AND I’UBLISHED BY G. W. EOOTK,
28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C,
�EDITOR’S PREFACE.
Having resolved to reprint Anthony Collins’s little treatise
on Liberty and Necessity—or, as it is now called, Free Will
and Determinism—I asked my friend and colleague, Mr. J. M.
Wheeler, to supply a biographical introduction. He has an
intimate knowledge of eighteenth-century Freethought and
Freethinkers in England, and his introduction does justice to
one who as a man, as well as a philosopher, deserves a better
fate than oblivion or neglect.
Many years ago I picked up a copy of Collins’s essay on
a London street-bookstall, and I was struck with its power
and lucidity. He was the opposite of a mystagogue. Consti
tutionally averse to the great school of learned and supersubtle metaphysicians, he never raised a dust and complained
he could not see. He thought clearly—perhaps because he
thought freely—and expressed himself in the same manner.
Whoever fails to understand Collins, fails from inability to
follow an abstract argument.
Collins does not use a superfluous word, he goes straight to
the heart of the matter, and is careless of adornment. M.
Fonsegrive, in his learned and laborious Essai sur le Libre
Arbitre, sa Theorie et son Histoire, remarks that “ like other
popularisers of impiety, Collins invented no new argument;
he borrowed from here and there, and gave simplicity and
clearness to the arguments of professional philosophers.” But
who is able to invent a new argument on such a well-threshed
topic ? The lasting merit of Collins is that he gave an inimit
able bird’s-eye view of the whole territory in dispute. This,
�IV.
Editor s Preface.
indeed, M. Fonsegrive admits, for he observes that Collins’s
“ work is interesting to study, as it resumes all the determinist
arguments which obtained among enlightened Freethinkers.”
This edition has been reprinted verbatim—Latin and all—
from the original, with the following exceptions. A few
corrections have been made from the “ errata ” and the
“supplement to the errata,” and the list of “contents” has
been omitted, while the marginal summaries have been turned
into headings after the fashion of Dr. Priestley’s reprint.
The original punctuation has not always been adhered to, nor
has the old printer been followed in his lavish use of italics.
A few footnotes have been supplied where I thought they
would assist the ordinary reader, or put him on his guard.
Some of the writers referred to in the text were familiar
enough to eighteenth-century readers, but they are now fallen
dim ; and Collins, writing as a Deist, and naturally anxious to
repel the then terrible suspicion of Atheism, as well perhaps
as to enmesh the “ theologers ” in their own net, rather over
pressed his advantages from the free-will tendency of ancient
“ atheists ” and the necessitarian tendency of Stoic philosophers
and Christian divines. Other reasons for giving the presentday reader a little help will appear in the footnotes themselves.
I have only to add that such footnotes are marked with my
initials.
Should this reprint meet with a reasonable success, it will
be followed by other reprints of valuable works of the older
Freethinkers. In any case I cannot lose the satisfaction of
having put Collins’s masterpiece within the reach of liberal
readers, some of whom will prize it and thank me for my
pains.
G. W. FOOTE.
April 20th, 1890.
�ANTHONY COLLINS AND HIS WORKS.
By J. M. Wheelkr.
,------ o-------The father of English Freethought, whose chief philosophical
work is here reprinted, was the son of Henry Collins,“a
gentleman of fortune, and was born at Heston, near Hounslow,
Middlesex, on June 21, 1676. He was educated at Eton and
King’s College, Cambridge. Upon leaving the University he
became for a while student in the Temple, but showed a greater
predilection for literature and philosophy than for law, although
his studies were of after service to him as a magistrate.
His fortune enabled him to gratify his tastes. He had, too, the
pleasure of cultivating the friendship of John Locke, between
whom and himself much correspondence ensued. In an early
letter, dated Oct. 29, 1703, Locke says: “Believe it, my good
friend, to love truth for truth’s sake, is the principal part of
human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other
virtues ; and, if I mistake not, you have as much of it as ever
I met with in anybody.” In many other letters Locke speaks
of his affectionate regard for his young friend and disciple,
who became one of the trustees of his will. In a letter,
written Aug. 23, 1704, four days before his death, he says:
“ By my will, you will see I had some kindness for . . . And
I knew no better way to take care of him than to put him, and
what I designed for him, into your hands and management.
The knowledge I have of your virtues of all kinds secures the
trust which, by your permission, I have placed in you, and the
peculiar esteem and love I have observed in the young man for
you, will dispose him to be ruled and influenced by you, so of
that I need say nothing. May you live long and happy, in the
enjoyment of health, freedom, content, and all those blessings
�vi.
ANTHONY COLLINS
which Providence has bestowed on you, and your virtues
entitled you to. I know you loved me living, and will preserve
my memory now I am dead.” Locke evidently looked on
Collins as the man who would carry on the torch of truth when
it had fallen from his own hand. And this position Collins
endeavored to fulfil, though it may be doubted if the master
would have approved of the direction taken by the disciple.
Locke, in his Reasonableness of Christianity, published in
1695, had raised the question which underlay the theological
questions of the eighteenth century, the right of reason to be
heard upon religion. To this question Collins directed himself
in his first important work, published in 1707. It was entitled
An Essay Concerning the Use of Reason in Propositions, the Evi
dence whereof depends upon Human Testimony. A second edition,
corrected, appeared in 1709. Collins’s work throughout was
that of a sapper and miner of the citadel of Christian super
stition, and in this work he seeks to secure ample ground as
the base of the rationalists’ operations. He lays it down that
perception must be every man’s criterion to distinguish truth
from falsehood. The argument Archbishop Tillotson had
advanced against transubstantiation—that no miracle can prove
a doctrine to be divine which is repugnant to our natural ideas
—was adroitly turned against the orthodox, with the conclusion
that as revelation was not immediate but dependent upon
testimony, we are at liberty to reject it if it contradicts our
reason. The essay, in fact, contains in germ Hume’s famous
Essay on Miracles, and also incidentally deals with the anthro
pomorphism of the Bible, and the evidences of late date found
in the Pentateuch.
In this essay, too, Collins deals incidentally with the question
of Liberty and Necessity. He says (p. 34) : “ I know very well
that divines put such an idea to the term Liberty as is directly
inconsistent with the divine prescience; for they suppose
Liberty to stand for a power in man to determine himself, and
consequently that there are several actions of man absolutely
contingent, since they depend as to their existence on man,
who determines their existence from himself without regard
to any extrinsical cause.” This idea, he proceeds to argue, “ is
not only inconsistent with the supposition of the Divine
Prescience, but inconsistent with Truth.”
�ANO HIS WORKS.
VII.
This was followed by what Professor Huxley calls the
wonderful triangular duel between Dodwell, Clarke and Collins
on the immortality and immateriality of the soul. The learned
but eccentric Dodwell had put forward a treatise contending
from the Bible and the Fathers of the Church that the soul was
naturally mortal, but that it derived immortality by virtue of
the Holy Spirit, received in baptism, and hence that no one
since the apostles had power to bestow immortality save the
bishops. Dodwell was a perfect pedant. His learning was, as
Gibbon testifies, immense, but his method was perplexed and
his style barbarous. In this case, from well-established pre
mises, he drew the most absurd conclusions. To rest human
hopes of immortality upon episcopacy was indeed a sandy
foundation. Such a treatise was well calculated to please the
profane and grieve the godly. Several opponents to Dodwell
appeared, foremost among them Dr. Samuel Clarke, the friend
of Newton, and, since the death of Locke, regarded as England’s
leading metaphysician. Clarke essayed to “ demonstrate ” the
natural immortality and immateriality of the soul. This gave
occasion to Collins to call attention to the difficulties of the
question, and to show how far they are from being cleared up
by Dr. Clarke’s “demonstration.” Collins pointed out that
Clarke failed to define his terms, and since he allowed that God
might bestow the power of thinking upon matter, it followed
that matter might think. He hinted, moreover, that scepticism
as to the existence of deity began when the Boyle lecturers
undertook to prove it. Swift, who, in the twelfth chapter of
the Memoirs of Martin Scriblerus, pokes fun at some of
Collins’s arguments, hits the metaphysicians more heavily than
he hits Collins. His famous illustrations of the meat-roasting
quality which inheres in a jack, though neither in the fly, the
weight, nor in any particular wheel, and that of Sir John
Cutler’s pair of black worsted stockings, “ which his maid
darned so often with silk that they became at last a pair of
silk stockings,” tells as strongly against the metaphysical view
as against inadequate physical explanations of psychological
processes.
Collins replied to the three first defences of Clarke, and then
having fully stated his case was satisfied with silence. His
letters were collected and published in French in 1769, and are
�Vlll.
[ANTHONY COLLINS
highly extolled by Naigeon in the Encyclopaedia Metliodique
which devotes over a hundred columns to the article “ Collins.”
Prof. Huxley, in his paper on “ The Metaphysics of Sensation,”
published in Critiques and Addresses says : “ I do not think
that anyone can read the letters which passed between Clarke
and Collins, without admitting that Collins, who writes with
wonderful power and closeness of reasoning, has by far the
best of the argument, so far as the possible materiality of the
soul goes ; and that in this battle the Goliath of Freethinking
overcame the champion of what was considered Orthodoxy.”
Priestcraft in Perfection followed in 1709. In this little
treatise Collins shows that the clause in the twentieth Article
of the Church of England, declaring that “ the Church hath
power to decree rites and ceremonies, and authority in contro
versies of faith ” is not contained in the Articles as sanctioned
by law, and was fraudulently foisted in afterwards. This
pamphlet went through three editions by 1710, and was re
printed in 1865, without any indication of its authorship, but
with a preface by the Rev. F. Saunderson, an agitator for the
revision of the Book of Common Prayer. The work was
anonymous, like all the rest of Collins’s productions, but the
authorship was pretty well known. He followed this pamphlet
up with another, in which he sought to carry the matter
further and show that the consent of law had only been given
to those Articles which confirmed the confession of the true
Christian faith and the doctrine of the sacraments. This
engendered a smart controversy, now happily buried in the
great rubbish-heap of the past. As late as 1724 Collins
returned to the subject in An Historical and Critical Essay on
the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England.
In 1710 appeared A Vindication of the Divine Attributes, in
answer to a sermon preached by Archbishop King at Dublin,
which bore the title Divine Predestination and Foreknowledge
Consistent with the Freedom of Man's Will. The Archbishop con
tended that “ the nature of God as it is in itself, is incompre
hensible by human understanding.” His powers and methods
are indeed “of a nature altogether different from ours,” so that
when we speak of his predetermination, it does not follow that
this is inconsistent with the contingency of events or free will.
Such theological jugglery Collins was able to expose on Theistic
�AND 1IIS WORKS.
IX.
grounds. Truth, goodness and justice in God are meaningless
unless the same as in ourselves. The Archbishop, he declared,
gave up the question of Manicheeism to Bayle. “Only Mr.
Bayle continues to believe God is good and wise against the
force of all human reasoning; and his grace supposes God is
neither wise nor good : which two do not much, if at all, differ,
but in words; for Mr. Bayle’s good and wise against evidence
and argument is much the same with being neither good nor
wise.”
The following year Collins visited Holland, where he became
acquainted with Le Clerc, and other learned men, and after
his return, he published, Feb. 1713, A Discourse of Freethinking,
occasioned by the Rise and Growth of a sect called Freethinkers.
The very title was as the unfurling of a flag presaging battle
to theological authority and supernaturalism. Two years
before Toland had written of “ we Freethinkers.” They were
a sect and growing. Collins’s Discourse was the manifesto of
a new cause, a plea for exercising the Protestant principle of
private judgment on the Protestant fetish of revelation. To us
the duty and necessity of free inquiry seem truisms. At the
beginning of last century this plea was a necessary one. Only
a century previously Legate and Wightman had been burnt to
death for Anti-Trinitarianism, and as late as 1697 Thomas
Aitkenliead was hung for blasphemy at Edinburgh, for calling
the books of Moses, Ezra’s fables. In the controversy that
ensued upon the publication of the Discourse Collins was
unfortunate. There was a host of replies. The Whigs dis
claimed him with loud abhorrence. The Church champions
attacked him violently. Even “ the Socinian bishop,” Hoadly,
felt it necessary to controvert the Freethinker. Against such
as Hoadly, Hare or Wliiston, Collins, had he chosen, might
have held his own, but his anonymous treatise had the
singularly infelicitous fortune of eliciting two anonymous
adversaries, one the prince of critics, the other the king of
satirists.
Bully Bentley, in the guise of “ Phileleutherus Lipsiensis,”
fiercely attacked the Discourse. In truth, while the arguments
of Collins were sound his illustrations were faulty. The Freethinking bantling was healthy, but it was so badly dressed
that it was almost smothered with contempt. Collins made
�X.
ANTHONY COLLINS
mistakes in liis historical allusions. Addison had done no
better. In his work on the Evidences of Christianity, as
Macaulay reminds us, Addison “ assigns as grounds of his
religious belief, stories as absurd as the Cock Lane ghost, and
forgeries as rank as Ireland’s Vortigern, puts faith in the lie
about the Thundering Legion, is convinced that Tiberius
moved the Senate to admit Jesus among the gods, and pro
nounces the letter of Agbarus, King of Edessa, to be a record
of great authority.” Yet Addison was the pride of Oxford, and
his work in defence of orthodoxy was received with applause,
while the heresy of Collins was scouted. Bentley succeeded
by attacking the illustrations and avoiding the question at
issue. He exposed the inferior scholarship of his adversary,
and made out that his bad Greek was the outcome of a wicked
heart. “Inquire closely into their lives and you will find
why they declaim against religion.” He even hints that the
magistrate should take care of Collins either in a prison or
dark rooms, and suggests that the Government should “oblige
your East India Company to take on board the whole growing
sect, and lodge them at Madagascar, among their confessed and
claimed kindred (since they make themselves but a higher
species of brutes), the monkeys and the drills.” This suggests
that Lord Monboddo was not, as generally supposed, the first to
maintain that apes were allied to the human species. Bentley
left his attack unfinished in two parts, because the court
refused to back him in his demand for certain academical fees,
and he consequently discovered that “ those whom he wrote for
were as bad as those he wrote against.” The phrase, says
Leslie Stephen, supplies a queer confusion between the interests
of the Church of Christ and those of the Court of George I.
Richard Cumberland, a grandson of Bentley, says, in the
romance entitled His Life, that Collins was afterwards helped
by Bentley, who, conceiving that by having ruined his cha
racter as a writer he had been the occasion of his personal
misery, liberally contributed to his maintenance. “ In vain,”
says Isaac D’lsraeli in his Curiosities of Literature, “I men
tioned to that elegant writer, who was not curious about facts,
that this person could never have been Anthony Collins, who
had always a plentiful fortune; and when it was suggested to
him that this A. Collins, as he printed it, must have been
�AND HIS WORKS.
xi..
Arthur Collins, the historic compiler, who was often in pecu
niary difficulties, still he persisted in sending the lie down to
posterity, totidem verbis, without alteration in his second
edition, observing to a friend of mine that ‘ the story, while it
told well, might serve as a striking instance of his great rela
tive’s generosity; and that it should stand, because it could do
no harm to any but to Anthony Collins, whom he considered
little short of an Atheist.” This “ should stand ” as an illus
tration of the conception that duty is only due to those of the
faith. Collins, like all pioneers of thought, has had to hold his
own against Christian calumny no less than to be on his guard
against Christian persecution.
In truth Bentley’s scholarship and brow-beating left Collins’
argument for Free Inquiry untouched. Swift, in the guise of a
Whig, put forth a satire entitled Mr. Collins' Discourse of
Freethinking put into Plain English by Way of Abstract for the
Use of the Poor, by a Friend of the Author. It was a masterly
skit But the irony of events is more powerful than that of
the great Dean. The joke now is that much of Swift’s splendid
satire can be retorted on orthodoxy in earnest. Swift’s satire
evidently proceeded from his belief, let the reader call it mis
anthropical or simply just, according to his predilection, that
“the bulk of mankind is as well qualified for flying as
thinking.”
Yet another master mind joined in the attack on Collins.
No. 3 of the Guardian contained a paper which, says Leslie
Stephen, was “ attributed either to the admirable Berkeley or
the good-natured Steele,” but which was certainly by Berkeley,
being ascribed to him by his son, Dr. Geqrge Berkeley, as well
as the annotators, and included in Fraser’s edition of Berkeley’s
Works, 1871. The writer says : “ As for my part, I cannot see
any possible interpretation to give this work but a design to
subvert and ridicule the authority of Scripture. The peace
and the tranquility of the nation, and regards even above these,,
are so much concerned in this matter that it is difficult to
express sufficient sorrow for the offender, or indignation
against him. But if ever man deserved to be denied the
common benefit of air and water, it is the author of A Discourse
of Freethinking.” Had the articles in the Guardian been
signed, the excellent Berkeley might have been spared the-
�All.
ANTHONY COLLINS
reproach which may he said to attach to him for this incite
ment to persecution.1
Collins deemed it prudent to pay a visit to his friends in
Holland. He was in consequence ridiculed by those who had
been crying out for persecution. But he was not idle. In 1715 he
returned to England, and retired to Essex, where he acted as
Justice of the Peace, as he had done before in the County of
Middlesex and the Liberty of Westminster. In the same year
he published the work here reprinted.
Dr. Samuel Clarke, in his Demonstration of the Being and
Attributes of God (1704) had replied to Spinoza’s arguments in
proof of Necessity. To this Collins had evidently an eye
when he said “ Liberty is contended for by its patrons as a great
perfection.” He only mentions “ the most acute and ingenious
Dr. Clarke,” however, towards the close of the work, when he
■adroitly quotes him to show that by his own admissions as to
Moral Necessity he was in fact a Necessitarian. To this Clarke
replied that Moral Necessity was no Necessity at all. It is
notable that modern metaphysicians like Dr. Hutchinson
Stirling take exactly the contrary view.
Clarke having contended against Collins that the doctrine of
Necessity was opposed to religion and morality, the Freethinker
did not deem fit to run the risk of persecution by provoking
further controversy with his opponent. His later Disserta
tion on Liberty and Necessity, a tract of but 23 pages, was not
published until after the death of Clarke and in the year of his
own decease, 1729.
It is, however, upon the little work here reprinted that the
fame of Collins as a philosopher securely rests. The writer of
the article on Collins in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th ed.)
«ays : “ His brief Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty (1715)
gives, in a remarkably clear and concise form, all the important
arguments in favor of his theory, with able and suggestive
replies to the chief objections which have been urged against
1 It is, of course, open to any friend of Berkeley, whose good
ness of heart was as undoubted as his genius, to argue that he did
not intend any incitement to persecution; air and water being
the common benefits of “ Providence,” whom Coilins had pre
sumably insulted, and not such things as men are usually deprived
•of by their persecutors.
�AND HIS WORKS.
xiii.
it. Little, in fact, of moment has been added by modern
determinists.” Similar is the testimony of Dugald Stewart in
his Dissertation on Philosophy prefixed to the seventh edition
of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Collins, he says, “ following
the footsteps of Hobbes, with logical talents not inferior to his
master, and with a weight of personal character in his favor,
to which his master had no pretensions,2 gave to the cause
which he so warmly espoused a degree of credit among sober
and serious inquirers which it had never before possessed in
England. . . . Indeed, I do not know of anything that has
been advanced by later writers in support of the scheme of
Necessity, of which the germ is not to be found in the inquiry
of Collins.”
In France the works of Collins had a notable influence on
the progress of philosophical ideas. His letters in the Clarke
and Dodwell controversy were collected and published (pro
bably by d’Holbach) in 1769 as Essai sur la nature et la desti
nation de I'dme Humaine. They were also reprinted in
Naigeon’s eulogistic article on Collins in the dictionary of
ancient and modern philosophyof the Encyclopedic Methodique.
This also reprinted the work here published, of which two trans
lations had previously been made—one by De Boris, published
by Des Maizeaux in his Recueil de Diverses Pieces sur la
Philosophic, la Religion, etc. (Amsterdam, 1720), and the
other, that used by Naigeon, translated by Lefevre de Beauvray,
published in 1754 ws Paradoxes Metaphysiques sur les Principes
des Actions Humaines. Voltaire, in his Letters on authors
accused of attacking the Christian religion, calls Collins
“ one of the most terrible enemies of the Christian reli
gion.”
There has been some controversy raised as to whether Collins’s
arguments for Necessity do not leadin thedirection of Atheism.
As if aware of this, he points out that the Epicurians asserted
Liberty, while it was denied by the theistic Stoics. He argues,
too, that free-will is inconsistent with the omnipotence ascribed
2 In a footnote Professor Stewart explains that « I allude to the
base servility of Hobbes’ political principles, and to the suppleness
with which he adapted them to the opposite idea.” “ To his
private virtues the most honorable testimony has been borne, both
by his friends and by his enemies.”
�xiv.
ANTHONY COLLINS
to Deity. But his opponents, in the loose fashion of that period,
considered him an Atheist.
Bentley assumed that Collins was one of “ those Atheists,
who, looking at their own actions, wish there was no God; and
because they wish there were none, persuade themselves there
is none.” There was little likelihood of Atheism, if it existed,
being known, whilst ‘ Atheist ’ was considered the synonym of
4 scoundrel.’ ” Collins says that his expression of his opinion
was carefully kept “ within the bounds of doing himself no
harm.” He always published anonymously, or with but his
initials. But the authorship of his works never remained long
a secret. It was probably his position which saved him from
attack. How else can we explain it that Blount, Shaftesbury
and Collins, who were rich, escaped, while Toland, Woolston
and Annet, who were poor, were prosecuted, and the two latter
severely punished, for their heresies ?
In the advertisement to his Alciphron, Bishop Berkeley
says he “ is well assured that one of the most noted writers
against Christianity in our times declared he had found out a
demonstration against the being of a God.” From Dr. Chandler’s
Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson—not the lexicographer, but an
American friend of Berkeley—it appears that this noted writer
was Collins. Chandler says (p. 57) : “ Mr. Johnson, in one of
his visits to the Dean [Berkeley], conversing with him on the
work on hand [Alciphron] was more particularly informed by
him that he himself [the Dean] had heard this strange declara
tion, while he was present in one of the deistical clubs, in the
pretended character of a learner, that Collins was the man
who made it; and that the ‘ demonstration ’ was what he
afterwards published, in an attempt to prove that every action
is the effect of Fate and Necessity, in his book entitled A Philo
sophical Inquiry concerning Human Liberty. And, indeed, could
the point be once established, that everything is produced by
Fate and Necessity, it would naturally follow that there is no
God, or that he is a very useless and insignificant Being, which
amounts to the same thing.”
This anecdote must evidently be taken with caution. Accord
ing to Collins the way to demonstrate the non-existence of
God would be to demonstrate the freedom of the will—the very
thing he is opposing. No doubt his opposition to Christianity
�AND HIS WORKS.
XV.
went deeper in reality than in appearance, but there is even
less reason for denying his sincere Deism than in the case of
Voltaire.
Dr. John Hunt, in his candid Religious Thought in England,
(vol. ii., p. 399), says, “ Collins’s intellect was as cold as it was
clear, but it was thoroughly honest. To examine freely and
to judge fairly was his religion.............. As a magistrate he
bore a high character. His worst enemies, it is said, could
never charge him with any vice or immorality. He is des
cribed as amiable, prudent, virtuous, and humane in all domestic
duties and relations ; of a benevolence towards all men worthy
■of the character of the citizen of the world.” Dr. Hunt would
fain give him the title of Christian, and evidently endorses
the observation recorded in the Autobiography of Alexander
Carlyle, that one who knew Collins well once said that if he was
not saved in the ship he would certainly get ashore on a plank.
The Philosophical Inquiry was republished with a preface
by Priestley at Birmingham in 1790. Priestley considered it
superior to the renowned work by Jonathan Edwards on
the Freedom of the Will. It is curious, indeed, how far
the New England Calvinist (certainly the ablest American
metaphysician), whose work was first published in 1754,
followed the work of the English Freethinker. Dugald Stewart
says, “ The coincidence is so perfect that the outline given by
the former of the plan of his work, might have served with
•equal propriety as a preface to that of the latter.” Indeed, if
the argument of Collins can be looked on as a demonstration
of the non-existence of God, so must that of the great Puritan
divine. But Edwards, like Collins, argues that the scheme of
free will, by affording an exception to the dictum that every
thing has a cause, would destroy the .proof for the being of
■God. Professor Fraser, in his smallei- work on Berkeley
in Philosophical Classics, gives his testimony that Collins
“ states the arguments against human freedom with a logical
force unsurpassed by any Necessitarian.”
In 1718 Collins was chosen Treasurer for the County of
Essex, to the delight, it is said, of tradesmen and others, who
had, owing to the defalcations of a former treasurer, large
sums of money due to them from the county. Collins sup
ported the poorest of them with his private cash and paid
�XVI.
ANTHONY COLLINS
interest to others, till in 1722 all the debts were discharged by
his integrity, care and management. These duties appear to
have taken up Collins’s attention, for it was not till 1724 that
his next work appeared. This was entitled A Discourse of
the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion. It was the
most powerful attack upon orthodoxy which had then appeared.
With unerring aim he went to the weakest point of Christian
Evidences. He maintained, what is indeed indisputable, that
Christianity was founded on Judaism, and that the Apostles
derive and prove Christianity from the Old Testament. But
an examination of the Old Testament prophecies alleged to be
fulfilled in the New Testament shows that they do not literally
correspond. For example, Matt, i., 22-23 : “ Now all this was
done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord
by the prophet [or rather, as the Revised Version gives it, by
the Lord through the prophet], saying, Behold, a virgin shall
be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call
his name Immanuel.” The words as they stand in Isaiah vii.,
14, in their obvious and literal sense, refer to a young woman
in the reign of Ahaz, king of Judah, and the context shows
that the child was Isaiah’s own son, the prophet in this matter
leaving nothing to the labors of his successors. The only
resource is to say that the prophecy was typical, and this
Collins explains as such a sense as no one could have dis
covered in the passages quoted in the New Testament simply
as they stand in the Old; so that prophecy was verily a light
in a dark place, but not overcoming the darkness, and God
must have been in the habit of talking to his prophets in
riddles. Collins does not expressly draw the natural inferences
from the New Testament misquotations and misinterpretations.
He writes as a Christian, and on this, as on many other- points,
the broad Christians of to-day have come to occupy the ground
taken up by the Deists of last century.
Dr. John Hunt says: “Whatever error Collins may have
made in detail, his great principle was fairly established, that
the evidence for the truth of Christianity from prophecy rests
on secondary or typical fulfilments.” The real purport of this
admission is made plain in Leslie Stephen’s acute statement
that Collins’s true meaning may be brought out by everywhere
substituting “ nonsense ” for “ allegory.”
�AND HIS WORKS.
xvii.
The discourse made a great sensation. In the preface to his
Scheme of Literal Prophecy Considered, 1727, in which he re
plied to his critics, Collins gives a list of thirty-five answers
which had already appeared. Collins gave the principal attention
to Bishop Chandler. Lesser fry suggested persecution. Dr. John
Rogers, Canon of Wells, wrote : “ A confessor or two would be
a mighty ornament to his cause. If he expects us to believe
that he is in earnest, and believes himself, he should not
decline giving us this proof of his sincerity. What will not
abide this trial, we shall suspect to have but a poor foundation.”
No prosecution, however, was instituted.
Iu 1726 Collins lost his only son, which affected him deeply,
He suffered for some time with the stone, and was in very bad
health for several years before his death, which occurred at his
house in Harley Street, London, Dec. 13, 1729. He was buried
at Oxford Chapel, where a monument was erected to his
memory. In the year of his death, in addition to the brief
dissertation upon Liberty and Necessity, already mentioned,
he published an anonymous Discourse on Ridicule and Irony,
in which he vindicated the employment of these weapons in
religious controversy.
Collins bore so high a character that even theological rancor
was unable to assert anything against him. On his death
he was called in the papers “ the active, upright and impartial
magistrate; the tender husband, the kind parent, the good
master and the true friend.” Locke had described him as a gentle
man who had “ an estate in the country, a library in town, and
a friend everywhere.”
Collins was a great lover of literature, and his fine library
was open to all comers and especially to antagonists. By his
will he left part of his goods to the poor. Legacies were also
left to Dr. A. Sykes, one of his opponents, and to Des Maizeaux,
his friend and literary agent, to whom he left his manuscripts,
which included a dissertation on the Sibylline Oracles, showing
they were forged by the early Christians, and a discourse on
Miracles which he mentions at the end of his Scheme of Literal
Prophecy Considered. One collection, we know not what it
was, was in eight octavo volumes.
This precious legacy the widow of Collins persuaded Des
Maizeaux to relinquish, upon which she presented him with
B
�XV111.
ANTHONY COLLINS.
fifty pounds. Des Maizeaux was weak but not dishonest. He
returned the money “ convinced ” as he says in a letter written
Jan. 6, 1730, “that I have acted contrary to the will and inten
tion of my dear deceased friend; showed a disregard of the
particular mark of esteem he gave me on that occasion; in
short, that I have forfeited what is dearer to me than my own
life—honor and reputation.” Seven years afterwards, on Des
Maizeaux spreading a report that the MSS. had been betrayed
to the Bishop of London, Mrs. Collins wrote him a sharp letter.
He replied in a tone which spoke at once of his affection for
Mr. Collins and his own remorse for his weakness. He con
cludes thus : “ Mr. Collins loved me and esteemed me for my
integrity and sincerity, of which he had several proofs; how I
have been drawn in to injure him, to forfeit the good opinion
he had of me, and which were he now alive, would deservedly
expose me to this utmost contempt, is a grief which I shall
carry to the grave. It would be a sort of comfort to me, if
those who have consented I should be drawn in were in some
measure sensible of the guilt towards so good, kind and
generous a man.” The unpublished MSS. disappeared like
those of Toland and Blount, and the second volume of
Tindal.
�THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE.
Too much care cannot be taken to prevent being
misunderstood and prejudged in handling questions of
such nice speculation as those of Liberty and Necessity;
and therefore, though I might in justice expect to be
read before any judgment be passed on me, I think it
proper to premise the following observations.
1. First, though I deny Liberty, in a certain meaning
of that word, yet I contend for Liberty as it signifies
a power in man to do as he wills, or pleases; which is
the notion of Liberty maintained by Aristotle, Cicero,
Mr. Locke, and several other philosophers, ancient and
modern ; and indeed, after a careful examination of the
best authors who have treated of Liberty, I may affirm
that however opposite they appear in words to one
another, and how much soever some of them seem to
maintain another notion of liberty, yet at the bottom,
there is an almost universal agreement in the notion
defended by me, and all that they say, when examined,
will be found to amount to no more.
2. Secondly, when I affirm Necessity, 1 contend only
for what is called Moral Necessity, meaning thereby,
that man, who is an intelligent and sensible being, is
determined by his reason and his senses; and I deny
man to be subject to such necessity as is in clocks,
w’atches, and such other beings, which for want of
sensation and intelligence, are subject to an absolute,
physical, or mechanical necessity. And here also I
have the concurrence of almost all the greatest asserters
of Liberty, who either expressly maintain moral
necessity, or the thing signified by those words.
3. Thirdly, I have undertaken to show, that the
notions I advance, are so far from being inconsistent
with, that they are the sole foundations of morality
and laws and of rewards and punishments in society
�XX.
author’s preface.
and that the notions I explode are subversive of them.
This I judged necessary to make out, in treating a
subject that has a relation to Morality, because nothing
can be true which subverts those things; and all
discourse must be defective wherein the reader perceives
any disagreement to moral truth; which is as evident
as any speculative truth, and much more necessary to
be rendered clear to the reader’s mind than truth in
all other sciences.
4. Fourthly, I have entitled my discourse, a
Philosophical Enquiry, etc. because I propose only to
prove my point by experience and by reason, omitting
all considerations strictly theological. By this method
I have reduced the matter to a short compass; and
hope I shall give no less satisfaction than if I had
considered it also theological; for all but enthusiasts1
must think true theology consistent with reason, and
with experience.
5. Fifthly, if any should ask of what use such a
discourse is, I might offer to their consideration, first,
the usefulness of truth in general; and secondly, the
usefulness of the truths I maintain towards establishing
laws and morality, rewards and punishments in society;
but shall content myself with observing, that it may
be of use to all those who desire to know the truth in
the questions that I handle, and that think examination
the propel' means to arrive at that knowledge. As for
those who either make no inquiries at all, and concern
not themselves about any speculations ; or who take up
with speculations without any examination ; or who
read only books to confirm themselves in the speculations
they have received—I allow my book to be of no use to
them, but yet think they may allow others to enjoy a
taste different from their own.
1 An enthusiast, according to the vocabulary of Locke and War
burton, and the usage of an age following the excesses of Puri
tanism, was almost equivalent to a. fanatic. It was frequently, if
not generally, used to designate a person who claimed to be moved
by divine illumination, and superior to the dictates of carnal
sense.—G. W. F.
�A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning
Human Liberty.
------- 0------To LUCIUS.
“ I here send you in writing my thoughts concerning
Liberty and Necessity, which you have so often desired
of me : and in drawing them up, have had’ regard to
your penetration, by being as short as is consistent
with being understood, and to your love of truth, by
saying nothing but what I think true, and also all the
truth that I apprehend relates to the subject, with the
sincerity belonging to the conversation of friends. If
you think me either too short in any respect, or to
have omitted the consideration of any objection, by its
not occurring to me, or, that you think of importance
to be considered; be pleased to acquaint me therewith,
and I will give you all the satisfaction I can.”
INTRODUCTION. :
It is a common observation, even among the learned,
that there are certain matters of speculation about
which it is impossible, from the nature of the subjects
themselves, to speak clearly and distinctly. Upon
which account men are very indulgent to, and pardon
the unintelligible discourses of theologers and phi
losophers, which treat of the sublime points in theology
and philosophy. And there is no question in the whole
compass of speculation of which men have written
more obscurely, and of which it is thought more
impossible to discourse clearly, and concerning which
men more expect and pardon obscure discourse, than
�22
HUMAN LIBERTY.
upon the subjects of Liberty and Necessity. But this
common observation is both a common and a learned
error. For whoever employs his thoughts either about
God, or the Trinity in Unity, or any other profound
subject, ought to have some ideas,1 to be the objects
of his thoughts, in the same manner as he has in think
ing on the most common subjects ; for where ideas fail
us in any matter, our thoughts must also fail us. And
it is plain, whenever we have ideas, we are able to com
municate them to others by words1; for words being
2
arbitrary marks of our ideas, we can never want them
to signify our ideas, as long as we have so many in use
among us, and a power to make as many more as we
have occasion for. Since then we can think of nothing
farther than we have ideas, and can signify all the
ideas we have by words to one another; why should
we not be able to put one idea into a proposition as well
as another ? Why not to compare ideas together about
one subject as well as another ? And why not to range
one sort of propositions into order and method as well
as another? When we use the term God, the idea
signified thereby ought to be as distinct and determi
nate in us, as the idea of a triangle or a square, when we
discourse of either of them; otherwise, the term God is
an empty sound. What hinders us then from putting
the idea signified by the term God into a proposition,
any more than the idea of a triangle or a square?
And why cannot we compare that idea with another
idea, as well as two other ideas together ; since com
parison of ideas consists in observing wherein ideas
differ, and wherein they agree; to which nothing is
requisite in any ideas, but their being distinct and
determinate in our minds? And since we ought to
1 Collins uses the term idea in the sense attached to it by Locke
—“the immediate object of percetion, thought, or understanding.”
—G. " . F.
21 do not mean unknown simple ideas. These can at first only
be made known by application of the object to the faculty; but
when they have been once perceived and a common name agreed
upon to signify them, they can be communicated by words.
�HUMAN LIBERTY.
23
have a distinct and determinate idea to the term God,
whenever we use it, and as distinct and determinate
as that of a triangle or a square; since we can put it
into a proposition; since we can compare it with other
ideas on account of its distinctness and determinate
ness ; why should we not be able to range our
thoughts about God in as clear a method, and with
as great perspicuity as about figure and quantity ?
1 would not hereby be thought to suppose that the
idea of God is an adequate idea, and exhausts the
subject it refers to, like the idea of a triangle or a
square; or that it is as easy to form in our minds as
the idea of a triangle or a square ; or that it does not
require a great comprehension of mind to bring
together the various ideas that relate to God, and so
compare them together; or that there are not several
propositions concerning him that are doubtful, and of
which we can arrive at no certainty; or that there are
not many propositions concerning him subject to very
great difficulties or objections. All these I grant; but
I say, they are no reasons to justify obscurity. For,
first, an inadequate idea is no less distinct, as such, than
an adequate idea, and no less true, as far as it goes ;
and therefore may be discoursed of with equal clearness
and truth. Secondly, though the idea of God be not
so easy to form in our minds as the idea of a triangle
or a square, and it requires a great comprehension of
mind to bring together the various ideas that relate to
him, and compare them together; yet these are only
reasons for using a greater application, or for not
writing at all. Thirdly, if a writer has in relation to
his subject any doubts or objections in his mind, which
he cannot resolve to his satisfaction, he may express
those conceptions or thoughts no less clearly than any
other conceptions or thoughts. He should only take
care not to exceed the bounds of those conceptions, nor
endeavor to make his reader understand what he does
not understand himself : foi' when he exceeds those
bounds, his discourse must be dark and his pains useless.
�24
HUMAN LIBERTY.
To express what a man conceives is the end of writing;
and every reader ought to be satisfied when he sees an
author speak of a subject according to the light he has
about it, so far as to think him a clear writer.
When therefore any writer speaks obscurely, either
about God or any other idea of his mind, the defect is
in him. For why did he write before he had a meaning,
or before he was able to express to others what he
meant ? Is it not unpardonable for a man to cant who
pretends to teach ?
These general reflections may be confirmed by matter
of fact from the writings of the most celebrated dog
matical authors.
When such great men as Gassendus, Cartesius,3
Cudworth, Locke, Bayle, Sir Isaac Newton and M.
de Fontenelle treat of the most profound questions in
metaphysics, mathematics, and other parts of philo
sophy ; they by handling them as far as their clear and
distinct ideas reached, have written with no less per
spicuity to their proper readers, than other authors
have done about historical matters, and upon the
plainest and most common subjects.
On the other side, when authors, who in other
respects are equal to the foregoing, treat of any
subjects further than they have clear and distinct
ideas; they do, and cannot but write to as little
purpose, and take as absurd pains, as the most ignorant
authors do, who treat of any subject under a total
ignorance, or a confused knowledge of it. There are
so many examples of these latter occurring to every
reader; and there are such frequent complaints of
men’s venturing beyond their ability in several ques
tions, that I need not name particular authors, and may
fairly avoid the odium of censuring any one. But
having met with a passage concerning the ingenious
Father Malebranche in the Letters of Mr. Bayle, who
3 Gassendius is the Latin form of Gassendi, name of an eminent
astronomer and philosopher, born in 1592. Cartesius is of course
the great Descartes.—G. W. F.
�HUMAN LIBERTY.
25
was an able judge, a friend to him, and a defender of
him in othei' respects, I hope 1 may, without being
liable to exception, produce Father Malebranche as an
example. He has in several books treated of, and
vindicated, the opinion of seeing all things in God ;
and yet so acute a person as Mr. Bayle, after having
read them all, declares that he less comprehends his
notion from his last book than ever.4 Which plainly
shows a defect in F. Malebranche to write upon a
subject he understood not, and therefore could not
make others understand.
You see, I bespeak no favor in the question before
me, and take the whole fault to myself, if I do not
write clearly to you on it, and prove what I propose.
And that I may inform you, in what I think clear
to myself, I will begin with explaining the sense of the
question.
The question stated.
■ Man is a necessary agent, if all his actions are so
determined by the causes preceding each action, that
not one past action could possibly not have come to
pass, or have been otherwise than it hath been ; nor
one future action can possibly not come to pass, or be
otherwise than it shall be. He is a free agent, if he is
able, at any time under the circumstances and causes
he then is, to do different things ; or, in other words, if
he is not unavoidably determined in every point of
time by the circumstances he is in, and the causes he is
under, to do that one thing he does, and not possibly
to do any other.
First argument, wherein our experience is
considered.
I. This being a question of fact concerning what
we ourselves do, we will first consider our own experi
4 J’ai parcouru le nouveau livre du Pete Malebranche contre
Mr. Arnauld: & j’y ai moins compris que jamais sa pretention,
que les Idees, par lesquelles nous connoiffons les Objets, sont en
Dieu, & non dans notre Ame. Il y a 1A du mal-entendu: ce sont,
■ce me semble, des equivoques perpetuelles. Letter of the 16th of
October, 1705, to Mr. Des Maizeaux.
�26
HUMAN LIBERTY.
ence, which, if we can know, as sure we may, will
certainly determine this matter. And because experi
ence is urged with great triumph, by the patrons of
Liberty, we will begin with a few general reflections
concerning the argument of experience; and then we
will proceed to our experience itself.
General Reflections on the argument of
experience.
1. The vulgar, who are bred up to believe Liberty
or Freedom, think themselves secure of success, con
stantly appealing to experience for a proof of their
freedom, and being persuaded that they feel themselves
free on a thousand occasions. And the source of their
mistake, seems to be as follows. They either attend
not to, or see not the causes of their actions,5 especially
in matters of little moment, and thence conclude they
are free, or not moved by causes, to do what they do.
They also frequently do actions whereof they repent;
and because in the repenting humor the_y find no pre
sent motive to do those actions, they conclude that they
might not have done them at the time they did them,
and that they were free from necessity (as they were
from outward impediments) in the doing them.
They also find that they can do as they will, and
forbear as they will, without any external impediment
to hinder them from doing as they will; let them will
eithei’ doing or forbearing. They likewise see that
they often change their minds ; that they can, and
do choose differently every successive moment; and
that they frequently deliberate, and thereby are some
times at a near balance, and in a state of indifference
with respect to judging about some propositions, and
willing or choosing with respect to some objects. And
experiencing these things they mistake them for the
exercise of Freedom, or Liberty from Necessity. For
5 Spinoza had previously pointed out, in his terse, magisterial
style, that men know that they will, but do not know the causes
that determined them to will.—G. W. F.
�HUMAN LIBERTY.
27
ask them whether they think themselves free, and they
will immediately answer, Yes ; and say some one or
other of these foregoing things, and particularly think
they prove themselves free when they affirm they can
do as they will.
Nay, celebrated philosophers and theologers, both
ancient and modern, who have meditated much on this
matter, talk after the same manner, giving definitions
of Liberty that are consistent with Fate or Necessity ;
though, at the same time, they would be thought to
exempt some of the actions of man from the power of
Fate, or to assert Liberty from Necessity. Cicero
defines Liberty to be a power to do as we will.6
And therein several moderns follow him. One defines
Liberty to be a power to act, or not to act, as we will.7
Another defines it in more words thus : “ A power to
do what we will, and because we will; so that if we
did not will it, we should not do it; we should even do
the contrary if we willed it.”8 And another : “ A
power to do or forbear an action, according to the
determination or thought of the mind, whereby either
is preferred to the other.”9 On all which definitions,
if the reader will be pleased to reflect, he will see them
to be only definitions of Liberty or Freedom from out
ward impediments of action, and not a Freedom or
Liberty from Necessity ; as I also will show them to be
in the sequel of this discourse, wherein I shall contend
equally with them for such a power as they describe,
though I affirm that there is no Liberty from Necessity.
Alexander the Apbrodisaean1 (a most acute philoso
pher of the second century, and the earliest commen
tator now extant upon Aristotle, and esteemed his best
defender and interpreter) defines Liberty to be “ A
power to choose what to do after deliberation and
6 Opera, p. 3968. Ed. Gron.
7 Placette Eclairciss. sur la Liberte, p. 2.
8 Jaquelot, sur l’exist. de Dieu, p. 381.
9 Locke’s Essay of Human Understanding, Book IT., c. xxi., § 8.
1 Eabricii Bibl. Gr., vol. iv., 63. Vossius de Sect. Phil. c. 18.
�28
HUMAN LIBERTY.
consultation, and to choose and do what is most eligible
to our reason; whereas otherwise we should follow our
fancy.”2 Now a choice after deliberation, is a no less
necessary choice than a choice by fancy. For though
a choice by fancy, or without deliberation, may be one
way, and a choice with deliberation may be another
way, or different; yet each choice being founded on
what is judged best, the one for one reason and the
other for another, is equally necessary; and good or
bad reasons, hasty or deliberate thoughts, fancy or
deliberation, make no difference.
In the same manner Bishop Bramhall,3 who has
written several books for Liberty, and pretends to
assert the Liberty taught by Aristotle, defines Liberty
thus: He says, “ That act which makes a man’s
actions to be truly free, is election; which is the
deliberate choosing or refusing of this or that means,
or the acception of one means before another, where
divers are represented by the understanding.”4 And
that this definition places Liberty wholly in choosing
the seeming best means, and not in choosing the seem
ing worst means, equally with the best, will appear
from the following passages. He says, “ Actions done
in sudden and violent passions, are not free ; because
there is no deliberation nor election. To say the will
is determined by motives, that is, by reasons or dis
courses, is as much as to say that the agent is determined
by himself or is free. Because motives determine not
naturally but morally; which kind of determination is
consistent with true Liberty. Admitting that the will
2 De fato, p. m. 57.
3 Bishop Bramhall was a learned divine, who forgot that St.
Augustine and Martin Luther were Necessitarians, and who
opposed Hobbes with great insolence and asperity. Considering
the greatness of his adversary, and the perfect inability of the
Bishop to understand the questions in dispute, it is amusing to
read the wish of his clerical editor, in the Library of AngloCatholic Theology, that “ his opponent had been more worthy of
him.”—G. W. F.
4 Bp. Bramhall’s Works, p. 755.
�HUMAN LIBERTY.
29
follows necessarily the last dictate of the understanding,
this is not destructive of the Liberty of the will; this
is only an hypothetical necessity.” So that Liberty
with him consists in choosing or refusing necessarily
after deliberation; which choosing or refusing is
morally and hypothetically determined, or necessary by
virtue of the said deliberation.
Lastly, a great Armenian theologer, who has writ a
course of Philosophy and entered into several contro
versies on the subject of Liberty, makes Liberty to
consist in “ an indifferency of mind while a thing is
under deliberation.”5 i( For,” says he, “ while the
mind deliberates it is free till the moment of action;
because nothing determines it necessarily to act or not
to act.” Whereas when the mind balances or compares
ideas or motives together, it is then no less necessarily
determined to a state of indifferency by the appearances
of those ideas and motives, than it is necessarily
determined in the very moment of action. Were a
man to be at liberty in this state of indifferency he
ought to have it in his power to be not indifferent, at
the same time that he is indifferent.
If experience therefore proves the Liberty contended
for by the foregoing asserters of Liberty, it proves men
to have no Liberty from Necessity.
2. As the foregoing asserters of Liberty give us
definitions of Liberty, as grounded on experience,
which are consistent with Necessity, so some of the
greatest patrons of Liberty do by their concessions in
this matter sufficiently destroy all argument from
experience.
Erasmus, in his treatise for Free-will against Luther,
says, That among the difficulties which have exercised
the theologers and philosophers of all ages, there is
none greater than the question of free-will.6 And M.
Le Clerc, speaking of this book of Erasmus, says that
5 Le Clerc Bibl. Chois., tom. xii., p. 103, 104.
s Opera, tom. ix., p. 1215.
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HUMAN LIBERTY.
the question of free-will was too subtle for Erasmus,
who was no philosopher; which makes him often con
tradict himself.7
The late Bishop of Sarum,8 though he contends,
Every man experiences Liberty; yet owns that great
difficulties attend the subject on all hands, and that
therefore he pretends not to explain or answer them.
The famous Bernard Ochin, a great Italian wit, has
written a most subtle and ingenious book, entitled,
Labyrinths concerning Free-will and Predestination,
•etc., wherein he shows that they who assert that
man acts freely are involved in four great difficulties ; and that those who assert that man
acts necessarily, fall into four other difficulties. So
that he forms eight labyrinths, four against Liberty
and four against Necessity. He turns himself all
manner of ways to get clear of them; but not being
able to find any solution, he constantly concludes with
a prayer to God to deliver him from these abysses.
Indeed, in the progress of his work, he endeavors to
furnish means to get out of this prison ; but he con
cludes that the only way is to say, with Socrates, Hoc
unum scio quod nihil scio. We ought, says he, to rest
contented, and conclude that God requires neither the
affirmative nor negative of us. This is the title of his
last chapter, Qua vid ex omnibus supradictis Labyrinthis cito exiri possit, quce doctoe ignorantice via
vocatur.
A famous author,9 who appeals to common experience
for a proof of Liberty, confesses that the question of
Liberty is the most obscure and difficult question in all
philosophy; that the learned are fuller of contradic
tions to themselves, and to one another, on this than on
any other subject: and that he writes against the
common notion of Liberty, and endeavors to establish
another notion, which he allows to be intricate.
7 Bibl. Clioif., tom. xii., p. 51.
» Expos., p. 117.
9 King de Orig. Mali., p. 91, 127.
�HUMAN LIBERTY.
31
But how can all this happen in a plain matter of
fact, supposed to be experienced by everybody ? What
difficulty can there be in stating a plain matter of fact,
and describing what everybody feels ? What need of
so much philosophy ? and why so many contradictions
■on the subject'? And how can all men experience
Liberty, when it is allowed that the common notion of
Liberty is false, or not experienced; and a new notion
of Liberty, not thought on before (or thought on but
by few) is set up as matter of experience ? This could
not happen if matter of fact was clear for Liberty.
3. Other asserters of Liberty seem driven into it on
account of supposed inconveniencies attending the
doctrine of Necessity. The great Episcopius, in his
Treatise of Free-will, acknowledges in effect that the
asserters of Necessity have seeming experience on
their side, and are thereby very numerous. They,1 as
he observes, allege one thing of moment in which they
triumph, viz., “ that the will is determined by the
understanding : and assert that unless it were so the
will would be a blind faculty, and might make evil, as
■evil, its object, and reject what is pleasant and agree
able, and by consequence that all persuasions, promises,
reasonings and threats would be as useless to a man as
to a stock or a stone.” This he allows to be very
plausible, and to have the appearance of probability ;
to be the common sentiment of the schools; to be the
rock on which the ablest defenders of Liberty have
split, without being able to answet it; and to be the
reason or argument (or rather the matter of experience)
which has made men in all ages, and not a few in this
age, fall into the opinion of the fatal Necessity of all
things. But because it makes all our actions necessary,
and thereby, in his opinion, subverts all religion, laws,
rewards and punishments, he concludes it to be most
certainly false, and religion makes him quit this common
and plausible opinion. Thus also many other strenuous
1 Opera, vol. i., p. 198, 199, 200.
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HUMAN LIBERTY.
asserters of Liberty as well as himself are driven bv
these supposed difficulties to deny manifest experience.
I say manifest experience, for are we not manifestly
determined by pleasure or pain, and by what seems
reasonable or unreasonable to us, to judge, or will, or
act? Whereas could they see that there are not
grounds for laws and morality, rewards and punish
ments, but by supposing the doctrine of Necessity;
and that there is no foundation for laws and morality,
rewards and punishments, upon the supposition of a
man’s being a free agent (as shall evidently and demon
stratively appear) they would readily allow experience
to be against Free-will and deny Liberty when they
should see there was no need to assert it, in order to
maintain those necessary things. And as a farther
evidence thereof, let any man peruse the discourses
written by the ablest authors for Liberty, and he will
see (as they confess of one another) that they fre
quently contradict themselves, write obscurely, and
know not where to place Liberty; at least he will see
that he is able to make nothing of their discourses, no
more than Mr. Locke2 was of this treatise of Episcopius,
who in all his other writings shows himself to be a clear,
strong and argumentative writer.
4. There are others, and those contenders for
Liberty, as well as deniers of it, who report the per
suasions of men, as to the matter of fact, very differently,
and also judge very differently themselves about the
fact, from what is vulgarly believed among those who.
mantain Free-will.
An ancient author speaks thus3: Fate, says he, is
sufficiently proved from the general received opinion
and persuasion of men thereof. For in certain things,
when men all agree, except a few who dissent from
them on account of maintaining some doctrines before
taken up, they cannot be mistaken. Wherefore
Anaxagoras the Clazomenian, though no contemptible
2 Letters, p. 521.
3 Alexander de Fato, p. 10.
�HUMAN LIBERTY.
33
naturalist, ought not be judged to deserve any regard,
when opposing the common persuasion of all men, he
asserts, “ That nothing is done by fate; but that it is
an empty name.” And according to all authors, record
ing the opinions of men in this matter, the belief of
Fate, to all events, has continued to be the most
common persuasion both of philosophers and people ; as
it is at this day the persuasion of much the greatest
part of mankind, according to the relations of voyagers.
A.nd though it has not equally prevailed among
Christians, as it has, and does, among all other religious
parties; yet it is certain, the Fatalists have been and
are very numerous among Christians ; and the free-will
theologers themselves allow,4 That some Christians
are as great Fatalists, as any of the ancient philo
sophers were.
The acute and penetrating Mr. Bayle, reports the
fact, as very differently understood by those who have
thoroughly examined and considered the various actions
of man, from what is vulgarly supposed in this
matter.
Says he,56 “ They who examine not to the
7
bottom what passes within them, easily persuade them
selves that they are free; but they who have con
sidered with care the foundation and circumstances
of their actions, doubt of their Freedom, and are even
persuaded that their reason and understandings are
slaves that cannot resist the force which carries them
along.” He says also, in a familiar letter, that “ the
best proofs alleged for Liberty are, that without it
man could not sin ; and that Grod would be the author
of evil as well as good thoughts.’'0
And the celebrated Mr. Leibniz, that universal
genius, on occasion of Archbishop King’s appeal to
experience (in behalf of his notion of liberty, viz.”
A faculty, which, being indifferent to objects and
4
5
6
7
Reeves’s Apol., vol. i., p. 150, Sherlock of Prov., p. 66.
Dictionnaire, p. 1497; 20 edit.
Letter of the 13th December, 1696, to the Abbott du Bos.
De Orig. Mali., c. 5.
�34
HUMAN LIBERTY.
over-ruling our passions, appetites, sensations, and
reason, chooses arbitrarily among objects; and renders
the object chosen agreeable, only because it has
chosen it) denies that we experience such, or any
other Liberty; but contends that we rather experience
a determination in all our actions. Says he,8 “We
experience something in us which inclines us to a
choice; and if it happens that we cannot give a reason
of all our inclinations, a little attention will show us,
that the constitution of our bodies, the bodies encom
passing us, the present, or preceding state of our minds,
and several little matters comprehended under these
great causes, may contribute to make us choose certain
objects, without having recourse to a pure indifference,
or to I know not what power of the soul, which does
upon objects what they say colors do upon the cameleon.”
In fine he is so far from thinking that there is the least
foundation, from experience, for the said notion of
Liberty, that he treats it as a chimera, and compares it
to the magical power of the fairies to transform things.
Lastly, the Journalists of Paris are very far from
thinking Archbishop King’s notion of Liberty to be
matter of experience, when they say that Dr. King
not satisfied with any of the former notions of liberty,
proposes a new notion ; and carries indifference so far
as to maintain that pleasure is not the motive, but the
effect of the choice of the will; placet res quia eligitur,
non ehgitur quia placet. This opinion, add they, makes
him frequently contradict himself.9
So that upon the whole, the affair of experience, with
relation to Liberty, stands thus. Some give the name
Liberty to ’ actions, which, when described, are plainly
actions that are necessary. Others, though appealing
to vulgar experience, yet inconsistently therewith,
contradict the vulgar experience, by owning it to be an
intricate matter, and treating it after an intricate
8 Remarques fur le liv. de l’Orig. du mal, p. 76.
9 Journal des Savans of the 16th of March, 1705.
�HUMAN LIBERTY.
35
manner. Others are driven into the defence of
Liberty by difficulties imagined to flow from the
doctrine of Necessity, combating what they allow to be
matter of seeming experience. Others, and those the
most discerning, either think Liberty cannot be proved
by experience, or think men may see by experience,
that they are necessary agents, and the bulk of man
kind have always been persuaded that they are necessary
agencs.
Our experience itself considered.
Having thus paved the way by showing that Liberty
is not a plain matter of experience, by arguments
drawn from the asserters of Liberty themselves, and
by consequence subverted the argument from experi
ence for Liberty; we will now run over the various
actions of men which can be conceived to concern this
subject, and examine, whether we can know from ex
perience, that man is a free or a necessary agent. I
think those actions may be reduced to these four :
1. Perception of Ideas. 2. Judging of Propositions.
3. Willing. 4. Doing as we will.
1. Perception of Idea. Of this there can be no
dispute but it is a necessary action of man, since it is
not even a voluntary action. The ideas both of sensa
tion and reflection, offer themselves to us whether we
will or no, and we cannot reject them. We must be
conscious that we think, when we do think; and
thereby we necessarily have the .ideas of reflection.
We must also use our senses when awake; and thereby
necessarily receive the ideas of sensation. And as we
necessarily receive ideas, so each idea is necessarily
what it is in our mind ; for it is not possible to make
any thing different from itself. This first necessary
action, the reader will see, is the foundation and cause
of all the other intelligent actions of man, and makes
them also necessary. For, as a judicious author, and
nice observer of the inward actions of man, says truly:
“ Temples have their sacred images, and we see what
�36
HUMAN LIBERTY.
influence they have always had over a great part of
mankind. But in truth, the ideas and images in men’s
minds, are the Invisible Powers that constantly govern
them, and to these they universally pay a readv sub
mission.”1
2. The second action of man is judging of proposi
tions. All propositions must appear to me either selfevident, or evident from proof, or probable, or
improbable, or doubtful, or false. Now these various
appearances of propositions to me, being founded on
my capacity, and the degree of light propositions stand
in to me, I can no more change those appearances in
me than I can change the idea of red raised in me.
Nor can I judge contrary to those appearances, for
what is judging of propositions but judging that pro
positions do appear as they do appear ? which I cannot
avoid doing, without lying to myself, which is impos
sible. If any man thinks he can judge a proposition,
appearing to him evident, to be not evident; or a
probable proposition to be more or less probable than it
appears by the proofs to be ; he knows not what he
says, as he may see if he will define his words. The
necessity of being determined by appearances was
maintained by all the old philosophers, even by the
academics or sceptics. Cicero says,1 “ You must take
2
from a man his senses, if you take from him the power
of assenting; for it is as necessary the mind should
yield to what is clear, as that a scale hanging on a
balance should sink with a weight laid on it. For as
all living creatures cannot but desire what is agreeable
to their natures, so they cannot but assent to what is
clear. Wherefore, if those things whereof we dispute
are true, it is to no purpose to speak of assent. For
he who apprehends, or perceives anything, assents
immediately.” Again, “ assent not only precedes the
practice of vice, but of virtue, the steady performance
1 Locke’s Posth. Works, p. 1, 2.
2 Academ. Quest., lib. 2.
�HUMAN LIBERTY.
37
whereof and adherence to which depend on what a man
has assented to and approved. And it is necessary that
something should appear to us before we act, and that
we should assent to that appearance. Wherefore he
who takes away appearances and assent from man,
destroys all action in him.” The force of this reasoning
manifestly extends to all the various judgments men
make upon the appearance of things. And Cicero, as
an academic or sceptic, must be supposed to extend
Necessity to every kind of judgment, or assent, of man
upon the appearances (or as the Greeks call them
$atvo/xAa and himself the Pisa) of things. Sextus
Empiricus says,3 “ they who say the sceptics take away
appearances, have not conversed with them, and do not
understand them. For we destroy not the passions, to
which our senses find themselves exposed whether we
will or no, and which force us to submit to appearances.
For when it is asked us whether objects are such as
they appear, we deny not their appearances nor doubt
of them, but only question whether the external objects
are like the appearances.”
3. Willing is the third action of man which I
propose to consider. It is matter of daily experience
that we begin or forbear, continue or end, several
actions barely by a thought, or preference of the mind,
ordering the doing or not doing, the continuing or
ending, such or such actions. Thus, before we think
or deliberate on any subject, as before we get on horse
back, we do prefer those things to anything else in
competition with them. In like manner, if we forbear
these actions when any of them are offered *to our
thoughts, or if we continue to proceed in any one of
these actions once begun, or if at any time we make an
end of prosecuting them, we do forbear, or continue, or
end them on our preference of the forbearance to the
doing of them, of the continuing of them to the ending
them, and of the ending to the continuing them. This
3 Pyrrhon. Hypot. 1. 2, c. 10.
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HUMAN LIBERTY.
power of the man thus to order the beginning or for
bearance, the continuance or ending of any action, is
called the will, and the actual exercise thereof willing.
There are two questions usually put about this
matter—first, Whether we are at liberty to will or not
to will ? secondly, Whether we are at liberty to will
one or the other of two or more objects ?
1. As to the first, whether we are at liberty to will
or not to will, it is manifest we have not that liberty.
For let an action in a man’s power be proposed to him
as presently to be done, as for example, to walk—the
will to walk or not to walk exists immediately. And
when an action in a man’s power is proposed to him to
be done to-morrow, as to walk to-morrow, he is no less
obliged to have some immediate will. He must either
have a will to defer willing about the matter proposed,
or he must will immediately in relation to the thing pro
posed, and one or the other of those wills must exist
immediately, no less than the will to walk or not to
walk in the former case. Wherefore, in every proposal
of something to be done which is in a man’s power to
do, he cannot but have some immediate will.
Hence appears the mistake of those who4 think men
at liberty to will, or not to will, because, say they, they
can suspend willing, in relation to actions to be done
to-morrow ; wherein they plainly confound themselves
with words. For when it is said man is necessarily
determined to will, it is not thereby understood that he
is determined to will or choose one out of two objects
immediately in every case proposed to him (or to choose
at all in some cases—as whether he will travel into
France or Holland), but that on every proposal he
must necessarily have some will. And he is not less
determined to will, because he does often suspend
willing or choosing in certain cases ; for suspending to
will is itself an act of willing; it is willing to defer
willing about the matter proposed. In fine, though
4 Locke of the Hum. Und., 1. 2, c. 21.
�HUMAN LIBERTY.
39
great stress is laid on the case of suspending the will
to prove Liberty, yet there is no difference between
that and the most common cases of willing and choosing
upon the manifest excellency of one object before
another. For, as when a man wills or chooses living
in England before going out of it (in which will he is
manifestly determined by the satisfaction he has in
living in England) he rejects the will to go out of
England; so a man who suspends a will about any
matter, wills doing nothing in it at present, or rejects
for a time willing about it; which circumstances of
wholly rejecting, and rejecting for a time, make no
variation that affects the question. So that willing, or
choosing suspension, is like all other choices or wills
that we have.
2. Secondly, let us now see whether we are at liberty
to will or choose one or the other of two or more
objects. Now as to this we will first consider whether
we are at liberty to will one of two or more objects
wherein we discern any difference ; that is, where one
upon the whole seems less hurtful than another. And
this will not admit of much dispute, if we consider
what willing is. Willing or preferring is the same
with respect to good and evil, that judging is with
respect to truth or falsehood. It is judging that one
thing is, upon the whole, better than another, or not so
bad as another. Wherefore, as we judge of truth or
falsehood according to appearances, so we must will or
prefer as things seem to us, unless we can lie to our
selves, and think that to be worst which we think
best.
An ingenious author expresses this matter well when
he says, “the question whether a man be at liberty to
will which of the two he pleases, motion or rest, carries
the absurdity of it so manifestly in itself that one
might hereby be sufficiently convinced that Liberty
concerns not the will. For to ask whether a man be
at liberty to will either motion or rest, speaking or
silence, which he pleases, is to ask whether a man can
�40
HUMAN LIBERTY.
will what he wills, or be pleased with what he is pleased
with. A question that needs no answer/’5
To suppose a sensible being capable of willing or
preferring (call it as you please) misery and refusing
good, is to deny it to be really sensible; for every man
while he has his senses, aims at pleasure and happiness,
and avoids pain and misery; and this, in willing actions,
which are supposed to be attended with the most terrible
consequences. And therefore the ingenious Mr. Norris6
very justly observes, that all who commit sin, think it
at the instant of commission, all things considered, a lesser
evil; otherwise it is impossible they should commit it;
and he instances in St. Peter’s denial of his master,
who he says, “judged that part most eligible which he
choose, that is, judged the sin of denying his master, at
that present juncture, to be a less evil than the danger
of not denying him; and so chose it. Otherwise, if
he had then actually thought it a greater evil, all that
whereby it exceeded the other, he would have chosen
gratis, and consequently have willed evil as evil, which
is impossible.” And another acute philosopher observes7,
that there are in France many new converts, who go to
mass with great reluctance. They know they mortally
offend God, but as each offence would cost them
(suppose) two pistoles, and having reckoned the charge,
and finding that this fine, paid as often as there are
festivals and Sundays would reduce them and their
families to beg their bread, they conclude it is better to
offend God than beg.
In fine, though there is hardly anything so absurd,
but some ancient philosopher or other may be cited for
it; yet, according to Plato,8 none of them were so
absurd as to say that men did evil voluntarily ; and he
asserts that it is contrary to the nature of man to follow
evil as evil, and not pursue good ; and that when a man
5 Locke's Essay of Human Understanding, 1. 2, c. 21, sect. 25.
6 Theory of Love, p. 199.
7 Bayle Response aux Ques. etc., vol. iii„ p. 756.
8 Opera, Edit. Serran, vol. i., p. 345, 358.
�HUMAN LIBERTY.
41
is compelled to choose between two evils, you will never
find a man who chooses the greatest, if it is in his
power to choose the less; and that this is a truth
manifest to all.
9And even the greatest modern
advocates for Liberty allow that whatever the will
chooseth, it chooseth under the notion of good; and that
the object of the will is good in general, which is the
end of all human actions.
This 1 take to be sufficient to show that man is not
at liberty to will one or the other of two or more objects
between which (all things considered) he perceives a
difference ; and to account truly for all the choices of
that kind which can be assigned.
But, secondly, some of the patrons of Liberty contend
that we are free in our choice among things indifferent,
or alike, as in choosing one out of two or more eggs ;
and that in such cases the man, having no motives from
the objects, is not necessitated to choose one rather than
the other, because there is no perceivable difference
between them, but chooses one by a mere act of
willing without any cause but his own free act.*
1
To which 1 answer, (1) first, by asking whether this
and other instances like this are the only instances
wherein man is free to will or choose among objects? If
they are the only instances where man is free to will
oi' choose among objects, then we are advanced a great
way in the question; because there are few (if any)
objects of the will that are perfectly alike; and
because Necessity is hereby allowed to take place in
9 Bramhall’s Works, p. 656, 658.
1 Necessitarians may think that Collins has overlabored his
answer to this sophism of the two eggs, but there is nothing like
thoroughly disposing of your adversary’s illustration, ami showing
that it proves your own argument. It should also be remembered
that the sophism still does duty on orthodox platforms, to the
delight of ignorant believers. How long it has figured in the
world we are unable to say, but it can at least be traced back to
Buridan, a writer of the fourteenth century, who put the case of
a hungry ass between two bundles of hay so exactly similar that
he could not choose between them, and would therefore die of
starvation in the sight of plenty.—G. W. F.
�42
HUMAN LIBERTY.
all cases where there is a perceiveable difference in
things, and consequently in all moral and religious
cases, for the sake whereof such endeavors have
been used to maintain so absurd and inconsistent a
thing as Liberty or Freedom from Necessity. So that
Liberty is almost, if not quite, reduced to nothing
and destroyed, as to the grand end in asserting it.
If those are not the only instances wherein man is
free to will or choose among objects, but man is
free to will in other cases, these other cases should
be assigned, and not such cases as are of no con
sequence, and which by the great likeness of the
objects to one another, and for other reasons, make
the cause of the determination of man’s will less easy
to be known, and consequently serve to no other
purpose but to darken the question, which may be
better determined by considering, whether man be
free to will or not in more important instances.
2. Secondly, I answer, that whenever a choice is
made, there can be no equality of circumstances pre
ceding the choice. For in the case of choosing one
out of two or more eggs, between which there is no
perceivable difference ; there is not, nor can there be,
a true equality of circumstances and causes preceding
the act of choosing one of the said eggs. It is not
enough to render things equal to the will, that they
are equal or alike in themselves. All the various
modifications of the man, his opinions, prejudices,
temper, habit, and circumstances, are to be taken in,
and considered as causes of election, no less than the
objects without us among which we choose ; and these
will ever incline or determine our wills, and make
the choice we do make preferable to us, though the
external objects of our choice are ever so much alike
to each other. And, for example, in the case of
choosing one out of the two eggs that are alike, there
is first, in the person choosing, will to eat or use an egg.
There is, secondly, a will to take but one, or one first.
Thirdly, consequent to these two wills, follow in the
�HUMAN LIBERTY.
43
same instant choosing and taking one; which one is
chosen and taken, most commonly, according as the
parts of our bodies have been formed long since by our
wills, or by other causes, to an habitual practice, or as
those parts are determined by some particular’ circum
stances at that time. And we may know, by reflection
on our actions, that several of our choices have been
determined to one among several objects by these last
means, when no cause has arisen from the mere con
sideration of the objects themselves. For we know by
experience that we either use all the parts of our bodies
by habit, or according to some particular cause deter
mining their use at that time.
Fourthly, there are in all trains of causes that precede
their effects, and especially effects which nearly resemble
each other, certain differences undiscernible on account
of their minuteness and also on account of our not
accustoming ourselves to attend to them, which yet, in
concurrence with other causes, as necessarily produce
their effect, as the last feather laid on breaks the horse’s
back, and as a grain necessarily turns the balance
between any weights, though the eye cannot discover
which is the greatest weight or bulk by so small a
difference. And I add, that as we know without such
discovery by the eye, that if one scale rises and the
other falls, there is a greater weight in one scale than
the other, and also know that the least additional weight
is sufficient to determine the scales, so likewise we may
know that the least circumstance in the extensive chain
of causes that precede every effect, is sufficient to
produce an effect, and also know that there must be
causes of our choice (though we do not, or cannot
discern those causes) by knowing that every thing
that has a beginning must have a cause. By which
last principle we are as necessarily led to conceive a
cause of action in man, where we see not the particular
cause itself, as we are to conceive that a greater weight
determines a scale, though our eyes discover no differ
ence between the two weights.
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HUMAN LIBERTY.
But let us put a case of true equality or indiffer
ence, and what I have asserted will more manifestly
appear true. Let two eggs appear perfectly alike
to a man; and let him have no will to eat or use
eggs (for so the case ought to be put, to render
things perfectly indifferent to him), because, if once
a will to eat eggs be supposed, that will must neces
sarily introduce a train of causes which will ever destroy
an equality of circumstances in relation to the things
which are the objects of our choice. There will soon follow
a second will to eat one first. And these two wills must
put the man upon action, and the usages of the parts
of his body to obtain his end; which parts are deter
mined in their motions either by some habitual practice,
or by some particular circumstance at that time, and
cause the man to choose and take one of them first
rather than the other. The case of equality being thus
rightly stated, I say it is manifest no choice would or
could be made ; and the man is visibly prevented in
the beginning from making a choice. For every man
experiences that before he can make a choice among
eggs, he must have a will to eat or use an egg; other
wise he must let them alone. And he also experiences,
in relation to all things which are the objects of his
choice, that he must have a precedent will to choose,
otherwise he will make no choice. No man marries
one woman preferably to another, or travels into France
rather than into another country, or writes a book on
one subject rather than another, but he must first have
a precedent will to marry, travel and write.
It is therefore contrary to experience to suppose any
choice can be made under an equality of circum
stances. And by consequence it is matter of experi
ence that man is ever determined in his willing or acts
of volition and choice.
Doing as we will.
4. Fourthly, I shall now consider the actions of man
consequent to willing, and see whether he be free in
�HUMAN LIBERTY.
45
any of those actions. And here also we experience
perfect Necessity. If we will thinking or deliberating
on a subject, or will reading, or walking, or riding, we
find we must do those actions, unless some external im
pediment, as an apoplexy, or some intervening cause,
hinders us ; and then we are as much necessitated to
let an action alone, as we are to act according to our
will, had no such external impediment to action hap
pened. If also we change our wills after we have
begun any of these actions, we find we necessarily leave
off these actions and follow the new will or choice.
And this was Aristotle’s sense of such actions of man.
“ As,” says he, “in arguing we necessarily assent to
the inference or conclusion drawn from premises, so if
that arguing relate to practice, we necessarily act upon
such inference or conclusion. As, for example, when
we argue thus, whatever is sweet, is to be tasted, this is
sweet; he who infers, therefore, this ought to be tasted,
necessarily tastes that sweet thing if there be no
obstacle to hinder him.”2
For a conclusion of this argument from experience,
let us compare the actions of inferior, intelligent, and
sensible agents, and those of men together. It is
allowed that beasts are necessary agents, and'.yet there
is no perceivable difference between their actions and
the actions of men, from whence they should be
deemed necessary and men free agents. Sheep, for
example, are supposed to be necessary agents, when
they stand still, lie down, go slow or fast, turn to the
right or left, skip, as they are differently affected in
their minds; when they are doubtful or deliberate
which way to take ; when they eat or drink more or
less according to their humor, or as they like the water
or the pasture; when they choose the sweetest and
best pasture; when they choose among pastures that
are indifferent or alike ; when they copulate ; when
they are fickle or steadfast in their amours ; when they
2 Ethica, 1. 7, c. 5, ap. Opera Edit. Par, vol. ii., p. 88, etc.
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z
HUMAN LIBERTY.
take more or less care of their young; when they act
in virtue of vain fears ; when they apprehend danger
and fly from it, and sometimes defend themselves;
when they quarrel among themselves about love or
other matters, and terminate those quarrels by fighting ;
when they follow those leaders among themselves that
presume to go first; and when they are either obedient
to the shepherd and his dog or refractory. And why
should man be deemed free in the performance of the
same or like actions? He has indeed more knowledge
than sheep. He takes in more things as matter of
pleasure than they do, being sometimes moved with
notions of honor and virtue, as well as with those
pleasures he has in common with them. He is also
more moved by absent things and things future than
they are.3 He is also subject to more vain fears, more
mistakes and wrong actions, and infinitely more
absurdities in notions. He has also more power and
strength, as well as more art and cunning, and is
capable of doing more good and more mischief to his
fellow-men than they are to one another. But these
larger powers and larger weaknesses which are of the
same kind with the powers and weaknesses of sheep,
cannot contain Liberty in them, and plainly make no
perceivable difference between them and men as to the
general causes of action, in finite intelligent and
sensible beings, no more than the different degrees of
these powers and weaknesses among the various kinds
of beasts, birds, fishes, and reptiles do among them.
- Wherefore I need not run through the actions of foxes,
3 This little sentence is pregnant with great meanings, and. it
shows how Collins had pondered the problem he was discussing.
Imagination brings absent things present, and thus enlarges the
held of moral motive. Without its aid we are at the mercy of
the momentary solicitation of what is present to our senses; and
this accounts for the strangely callous conduct of many amiable
persons. The relation of imagination to morality is beautifully
dealt with by Shelley in his Defence of Poetry, where he justly
remarks that “A man to be greatly good must imagine intensely
and comprehensively.”—G. W. F.
�HUMAN LIBERTY.
47
or anv of the more subtile animals, nor the actions of
children, which are allowed by the advocates4 of Liberty
to be all necessary. I shall only ask these questions
concerning the last. To what age do children continue
necessary agents, and when do they become free?
What different experience have they when they are
supposed to be free agents from what they had while
necessary agents ? And what different actions do they
do from whence it appears that they are necessary
agents to a certain age, and free agents afterwards ?
Second argument taken from the impossibility of
Liberty.
II. A second reason to prove man a necessary agent
is because all his actions have a beginning. For what
ever has a beginning must have a cause, and every
cause is a necessary cause.
If anything can have a beginning which has no
cause, then nothing can produce something. And if
nothing can produce something, then the world might
have had a beginning without a cause; which is not
only an absurdity commonly charged on Atheists, but
is a real absurdity in itself.5
Besides, if a cause be not a necessary cause, it is no
cause at all. For if causes are ilot necessary causes,
then causes are not suited to, or are indifferent to
effects; and the Epicurean System of chance is ren
dered possible; and this orderly world might have
been produced by a disorderly or fortuitous concourse
of atoms; or which is all one, by no cause at all.
For in arguing against the Epicurean system of
chance, do we not say (and that justly) that it is
impossible for chance ever to have produced an orderly
system of things, as not being a cause suited to the
effect; and that an orderly system of things which
had a beginning, must have had an intelligent agent
4 Bramhall’s Works, p. 656, 662.
5 The phrase “ commonly charged on Atheists ” seems to show
that Collins knew better than to charge it upon them himself.—
G. W. F.
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HUMAN LIBERTY.
for its cause, as being the only proper cause to that
effect? All which implies that causes are suited, or
have relation to some particular effects, and not to
others. And if they be suited to some particular
effect and not to others, they can be no causes at
all to those others. And therefore a cause not suited
to the effect, and no cause, are the same thing.
And if a cause not Suited to the effect is no cause,
then a cause suited to the effect is a necessary
cause; for if it does not produce the effect, it is not
suited to it, or is no cause at all of it.
Liberty therefore, or a power to act or not to act,
to do this is another thing under the same causes, is
an impossibility and atheistical.6
And as Liberty stands and can only be grounded on
the absurd principle of Epicurean Atheism, so the Epi
curean Atheists, who were the most popular and most
numerous sect of the Atheists of antiquity, were the
great7 asserters of Liberty8; as on the other side the
. 6 “Atheistical” here is so grotesque that it cm only be
explained by what I have said in the Preface as to Collins havingtried to circumvent his Christian opponents. To every student of
philosophy there is an obvious equivoke in the preceding para
graph. The “Epicurean system of chance ” simply involved the
absence of supernatural determination in the universe, and not
the absence of law and order arising from the constitution of
things. As the word chance is usually employed, it means nothing
but contingency, and contingency is nothing but ignorance.
Where we know perfectly all the causes in operation we can
predict the result; where we know them but partially we cannot
predict with accuracy. For instance, it is certain that any par
ticular man will die, but it is uncertain when he will die, and thus
his death is contingent, or, as we say, a matter of chance, although
when it happens it will be the necessary effect of the many and
subtle causes that operated to produce it.—G. W. F.
7 Lucretius, 1. 2, v. 250, etc. Eus. Prep. Ev., 1. 6., c. 7.
8 The “Epicurean Atheists”—who were not Atheists in the
sense of denying the existence of gods, but only in the sense of
denying their interference in the affairs of the cosmos—can hardly
be said to have been “ assertorsof liberty ” in Colln-s’s sense of the
word. They did not deny causation, but strenuously affirmed it.
Collins probably depended on Cudworth’s Intellectual System of the
Universe, a vast magazine of learning which has supplied many
subsequent writers with what has passed foi’ original scholarship
�HUMAN LIBERTY.
49
Stoics,9 who were the most popular and most numerous
sect among the religionaries of antiquity, were the
great asserters of Fate and Necessity. The case was
also the same among the Jews, as among the heathen ;
the Jews, I say, who besides the light of nature, had
many books of Revelation (some whereof are now lost)
and who had intimate and personal conversation with
God himself. They were principally divided into three
sects, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, and the Essenes.1
The Sadducees, who were esteemed an irreligious and
atheistical sect,* maintained the liberty of man. But
2
Now it is remarked by Cud worth (Chap. V., § 1) that Epicurus not
only rejected divination and prediction of future events because
he denied providence, but “pretended this further reason also
against it, because it was a thing absolutely inconsistent with
liberty of will, and destructive of the same.” But Diogenes
Laertius, from whom Cudworrh derived his information, does not
represent Epicurus as-holding the doctrine of Fr.-e Will as it is
taught by modern divines, and as it was opposed by Collins. He
speaks, like Collin«, of the liberty to act as we please, but he does
not teach that our choice is capricious and incalculable; and
while he denies the tyranny of gods and the necessity of destiny,
he also rebukes those who adore Fortun- as a deity, although it
contributes nothing to the course of events. On the whole, it
would seem that Epicurus denied Necessity in the sense of a
positive constraint upon our will, and not in the sense of what is
called moral causation, which would be inconsistent with his
teaching as to the cultivation of good habits.—G. W. F.
9 Cicero de Nat. Deor., 1. 1.
1 Josephus Antiq., 1. 18, c. 2.
2 With respect to the Sadducees also, 1 fancy Collins relied
upon Cudworth. Our author’s reference to Josephus is erroneous.
In the section referred to, the Jewish historian deals only with
their belief that death was the end of all' It is in two other
places (Antiquities, Bk. xiii, ch. vi, §9; and Wars, Bk. II., chap,
viii., § 14) that be deals with their opinions on fate. He says that
the Sadducees utterly rejected fate, that the Essenes absolutely
accepted it, and that the Pharisees taught a mixture of fate and
free-will. But this “ fate ” was obviously a divine constraint, and
not a natural necessity; for the dispute among these sects was
clearly upon whether—to use the very words of Josephus—God is
concerned in our doing or not doing what is evil. Collins adds
that the Sadducees were esteemed an irr ligi us and atheistical
sects, but this is using language very loosely. They admitted the
existence of God and kept the law: yet they were “ irreligious”
to this extent, that they would have dj more religion than was
absolutely necessary.—G. W. F.
D
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HUMAN LIBERTY.
the Pharisees, who were a religious sect, ascribed aH
things to fate, or to God’s appointment, and it was the
first article of their creed that fate and God do all3;
and consequently they do not assert a true liberty,
when they asserted a liberty together with this fatality
and necessity of all things. And the Essenes, who
were the most religious sect among the Jews, and fell
not under the censure of our Savior for their hypocrisy
as the Pharisees did, were asserters of absolute fate
and necessity. St. Paul,4 who was a Pharisee, and the
son of a Pharisee, is supposed by the learned Dodwell,5
to have received his doctrine of fate from the masters
of that sect, as they received it from the Stoics. And
he observes further, that the Stoic philosophy is neces
sary for the explication of Christian theology; that
there are examples in the holy scriptures of the Holy
Ghost’s speaking according to the opinions of the
Stoics, and that in particular the apostle St. Paul in
what he has disputed concerning predestination and
reprobation, is to be expounded according to the Stoics’
opinion concerning fate. So that Liberty is both the
real foundation of popular Atheism, and has been the
professed principle of the Atheists themselves; as on
the other side, Fate, or the necessity of events, has
been esteemed a religious opinion and been the pro
fessed principle of the religious, both among heathens
and Jews, and also of that great convert to Christianity
and great converter of others, St. Paul.6
3 Jud. 1. 2, c. 7.
< Acts xxiii., 6.
5 Proleg. ad Stearn. de Obstin. sect. 40 and 41.
6 This treatment of the Jewish sects shows that Collins was a
shrewd polemist. By pressing religion into the service of his
argument in this way he was wounding his adversaries in a vital
place. The reference to St. Paul is extremely effective, besides
proving that pollins had a sly humor. But, at this time of day,
it must be said that the Jewish sects were really divided over
predestination, and not over the doctrine of moral causation.
Between them, as between the Epicureans and Stoics, it was the
direction of human affairs by God or the gods that was in dispute,
and by no means whether volition was determined by motives.
Now that the real question of Free Will versus Determinism is
�HUMAN LIBERTY.
51
Third argument taken from the imperfection of
Liberty.
III. Thirdly, Liberty is contended for by the
patrons thereof as a great perfection. In order there
fore to disprove all pretences for it, I will now show
that according to all the various descriptions given of
it by theologers and philosophers, it would often . be an
imperfection, but never a perfection, as I have in the
last article showed it to be impossible and atheistical.
1. If Liberty7 be defined a power to pass different
judgments at the same instant of time upon the same
individual propositions that are not evident (we being,
as it is owned necessarily determined to pass but one
judgment on evident propositions) it will follow that
men will be so far irrational, and by consequence im
perfect agents, as they have that freedom of judgment.
For, since they would be irrational agents, if they were
capable of judging evident propositions not to be
evident, they must be also deemed irrational agents if
they are capable of judging the self-same probable or
improbable propositions not to be probable or im
probable. The appearances of all propositions to us,
whether evident, probable or improbable, are the sole
rational grounds of our judgments in relation to them,
and the appearances of probable or improbable propo
sitions, are no less necessary in us from the respective
reasons by which they appear probable or improbable,
than are the appearances of evident propositions from
the reasons by which they appear evident. Wherefore
if it be rational and a perfection to be determined by
an evident appearance, it is no less so to be determined
by a probable or improbable appearance, and conse
quently an imperfection not to be so determined.
It is not only an absurdity, and by consequence an
imperfection, not to be equally and necessarily deter
being discussed, the tables are completely turned. It is the
Atheists who maintain Determinism, while the Christians largely
maintain Free Will.—G. W. F.
7 Le Clerc. Bibl. Chois., tom. xii. p. 88, 89.
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HUMAN LIBERTY.
mined in our respective judgments, by probable and
improbable, as well as bv evident appearances, which I
have just now proved; but even not to be necessarily
determined by probable appearances would be a greater
imperfection than not to be necessarily determined by
evident appearances, because almost all our actions are
founded on the probable appearances of things, and
few on the evident appearance of things. And there
fore, if we could judge that what appears probable is
not probable, but improbable or false, we should be
without the best rule of action and assent we can have.
2. Were Liberty defined a power to overcome our
reason by the force of choice, as a celebrated author8
may be supposed to mean when he says9 the will seems
to have so great a power over the understanding being
overruled by the election of the will, not only takes
what is good to be evil, but is also compelled to admit
what is false to be true; man would, with the exercise
of such a power, be the most irrational and inconsistent
being, and by consequence the most imperfect under
standing being which can be conceived. For what can
be more irrational and inconsistent than to be able to
refuse our assent to what is evidently true to us, and
to assent to what we see to be evidently false, and
thereby inwardly give the lie to the understanding ?
3. Were Liberty defined1 a power to will evil (know
ing it to be evil) as well as good ; that would be an
imperfection in man, considered as a sensible being,
if it be an imperfection in such a being to be miserable.
For willing evil is choosing to be miserable, and
bringing knowingly destruction on ourselves. Men
are already sufficiently unhappy by their several
volitions ; founded on the wrong use of their faculties,
and on the mistaken appearances of things. But what
8 William King, Archbishop of Dublin. His work on the
Origin of Evil, composed in Latin, was translated into English by
Edmund Law, who supplied a great quantity of annotations.
Both the author and his commentator were men of great ability,
the Bishop in especial having an original turn of mind._ G-. W. F.
9 King de Orig. Mali., p. 131. > Cheyne’s Phil. Prim, c. 3, s. 13.
�HUMAN LIBERTY.
53
miserable beings would they be, if instead of choosing
evil under the appearance of good (which is the only
case wherein men now choose evil) they were indif
ferent to good and evil, and had the power to choose
evil as evil, and did actually choose evil as evil in
virtue of that power? They would, in such a state,
or with such a liberty, be like infants that cannot
walk, left to go alone, with Liberty to fall; or like
children, with knives in their hands; or lastly, like
young rope-dancers, left to themselves, on their first
essays upon the rope, without anyone to catch them
if they fall. And this miserable state following from
the supposition of Liberty, is so visible to some of the
greatest advocates thereof,2 that they acknowledge
that created beings, when in a state of happiness, cease
to have Liberty3 (that is, cease to have Liberty to
choose evil) being invoilably attached to their duty by
the actual enjoyment of their felicity.
4. Were Liberty defined, as it is by some, a power
to will or choose at the same time any one out of two
or more indifferent things ; that would be no perfec
tion. For those things called here indifferent or alike
may be considered either as really different from each
other, and that only seem indifferent or alike to us
through our want of discernment; or as exactly like
each other. Now the more Liberty we have in the
first kind, that is, the more instances there are of
things which seem alike to us, and are not alike, the
more mistakes and wrong choices we must run into.
For if we had just notions, we should know those
things were not indifferent or alike. This Liberty
therefore would be founded on a direct imperfection
of our faculties. And as to a power of choosing differ
ently at the same time among things, really indifferent;
what benefit, what perfection would such a power of
choosing be, when the things that are the sole objects
of our free choice are all alike ?
2 Bibl. Chois, tom. xii., p. 95.
3 Bramhall’s Works, p. 655.
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HUMAN LIBERTY.
5. Lastly, a celebrated author seems to understand
by Liberty, a faculty, which being indifferent to objects,
and over-ruling our passions, appetites, sensations, and
reason, chooses arbitrarily among objects; and renders
the object chosen agreeable, only because it has
chosen it.
My design here is to consider this definition, with
the same view that I have considered the several
foregoing definitions, viz., to show that Liberty, incon
sistent with Necessity, however described or defined, is
an imperfection. Referring therefore my reader for a
confutation of this new notion of Liberty to the other
parts of my book, wherein I have already proved
that the existence of such an arbitrary faculty is con
trary to experience, and impossible; that our passions,
appetites, sensations, and reason, determine us in our
several choices; and that we choose objects because
they please us, and not as the author pretends, that
objects please us only because we choose them : I pro
ceed to show the imperfection of this last kind of
Liberty.
1. First, the pleasure of happiness accruing from
the Liberty here asserted is less than accrues from the
hypothesis of Necessity.
All the pleasure and happiness said to attend this
pretended Liberty consists wholly in creating pleasure
and happiness by choosing objects.
Now man, considered as an intelligent necessary
agent, would no less create this pleasure and happiness
to himself by choosing objects, than a being endued
with the said faculty : if it be true in fact, that things
please us because we choose them.
But man, as an intelligent necessary agent, has
these further pleasures and advantages. He, by not
being indifferent to objects, is moved by the goodness
and agreeableness of them as they appear to him, and
as he knows them by reflection and experience. It
is not m. his power to be indifferent to what causes
pleasure or pain. He cannot resist the pleasure aris
�HUMAN LIBERTY.
55
ing from the use of his passions, appetites, senses, and
reason ; and if he suspends his choice of an object, that
is presented to him by any of these powers as agree
able ; it is because he doubts or examines whether
upon the whole the object would make him happy, and
because he would gratify all these powers in the best
manner he is able, or at least such of these powers as
he conceives tend most to his happiness. If he makes
a choice which proves disagreeable, he gets thereby an
experience which may qualify him to choose the next
time with more satisfaction to himself. And thus
wrong choices may turn to his advantage for the future.
So that, at all times, and under all circumstances, he
is pursuing and enjoying the greatest happiness which
his condition will allow.
It may not be improper to observe that some of the
pleasures he receives from objects are so far from
being the effect of choice, that they are not the effect
of the least premeditation, or any act of his own, as in
finding a treasure on the road, or in receiving a legacy
from a person unknown to him.
2. Secondly, this arbitrary4 faculty would subject a
man to more wrong choices, that if he was determined
in his choice.
A man determined in his choice by the appearing
nature of things, and the usage of his intellectual
powers, never makes a wrong choice, but by mistaking
the true relation of things to him. But a being,
indifferent to all objects, and swayed by no motives
in his choice of objects, chooses at a venture; and only
makes a right choice when it happens (as the author
justly expresses his notion) that he chooses an object,
which he can by his creating power render so agreeable,
as that it may be called a rightly chosen object. Nor
can this faculty be improved by any experience : but
must ever continue to choose at a venture, or as it
happens. For if this faculty improves by experience,
4 Bramhall’s Works, p. 147 to 150.
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HUMAN LIBERTY.
ancl will have regard to the agreeableness or disagree
ableness of objects in themselves, it is no longer the
faculty contended for, but a faculty moved and affected
by the nature of things.
So that man, with a faculty of choice indifferent to
all objects, must make more wrong choices than man
considered as a necessary being; in the same proportion,
as acting as it happens, is a worse direction to choose
right, than the use of our senses, experience, and reason.
3. Thirdly, the existence of such an arbitrary faculty,
to choose without regard to the qualities of objects,
would destroy the use of our senses, appetites, passions,
and reason; which have been given us to direct us in
our inquiries after’ truth, in our pursuit after happiness,
and to preserve our beings. For if we had a faculty,
which chose without regard to the notices and adver
tisements of these powers, and by its choice over-ruled
them, we should then be endued with a faculty to
defeat the end and uses of these powers.
The perfection of Necessity.
But the imperfection of Liberty inconsistent with
Necessity will yet more appear by considering the great
perfection of being necessarily determined.
Can anything be perfect that is not necessarily
perfect ? For whatever is not necessarily perfect may
be imperfect, and is by consequence imperfect.
Is it not a perfection in God necessarily to know all
truth ?
Is it not a perfection in him to be necessarily happy ?
Is it not also a perfection in him to will and do
always what is best? For if all things are indifferent
to him, as some of the advocates of Liberty assert,5 and
become good only by his willing them, he cannot have
any motive from his own ideas, or from the nature of
things, to will one thing rather than another, and con
sequently he must will without any reason or cause,
5 King de Orig. Mali., p. 177.
�HUMAN LIBERTY.
57
which cannot be conceived possible of any being, and
is contrary to this self-evident, truth that whatever has
a beginning must have a cause. But if things are not
indifferent to him, he must be necessarily determined
by what is best. Besides, as he is a wise being, he must
have some end and design, and as he is a good being,
things cannot be indifferent to him, when the happiness
of intelligent and sensible beings depend on the will he
has in the formation of things. With what consistency,
therefore, can those advocates of Liberty assert God
to be a holy and good being, who maintain that all
things are indifferent to him before he wills anything,
and that he may will and do all things which they them
selves esteem wicked and unjust ?
I cannot give a better confirmation of this argument
from the consideration of the attributes of God than
by the judgment of the late Bishop of Sarum,® which
has the more weight as proceeding from a great
assertor of Liberty, who by the force of truth
is driven to say what he does. He grants that
infinite perfection excludes successive thoughts in God,
and therefore that the essence of God' is one perfect
thought, in which he views and wills all things. And
though his transient acts, such as creation, providence,
and miracles, are done in a succession of time; yet his
immanent acts, his knowledge and decrees, are one
with his essence. And as he grants this to be a true
notion of God, so he allows that a vast difficulty arises
from it against the Liberty of God. For, says he, the
immanent acts of God being supposed free, it is not
easy to imagine how they should be one with the divine
essence; to which necessary existence does most cer
tainly belong. And if the immanent acts of God are
necessary, then the transient must be so likewise, as*
6 Gilbert Burnet, a well-known author of some historical works.
He was satirised for his egotism and tediousness by Pope and
Swift. The work here referred to is his treatise on the ThirtyNine Articles, which is still in use.
7 Expos., p. 26, 27
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being the certain effects of his immanent acts ; and a
chain of necessary fate must run through the whole
order of things; and God himself then is no free
being, but acts by a necessity of nature. And this
necessity, to which God is thus subject, is, adds he, no
absurdity to some. God is, according to them, neces
sarily just, true, and good, by an intrinsic Necessity
that arises from his own infinite perfection. And from
hence they have thought that since God acts by infinite
wisdom and goodness, things could not have been other
wise than they are; for what is infinitely wise or good
cannot be altered, or made either better or worse.
And he concludes that he “ must leave this difficulty
without pretending to explain it, or answer the
objections that arise against all the several ways by
which divines have endeavored to resolve it.”
Again,8 are not angels and other heavenly beings
esteemed more perfect than men ; because, having a
cleai’ insight into the nature of things, they are neces
sarily determined to judge right in relation to truth and
falsehood, and to choose right in relation to good and
evil, pleasure and pain; and also to act right in pur
suance of their judgment and choice ? And therefore
would not man be more perfect than he is, if, by
having a clear insight into the nature of things, he was
necessarily determined to assent to truth only, to choose
only such objects as would make him happy, and to
act accordingly ?
Further, is not man more perfect the more capable
he is of conviction? And will he not be more
capable of conviction if he be necessarily determined
in his assent by what seems a reason to him, and
necessarily determined in his several volitions by what
seems good to him, than if he was indifferent to pro
positions, notwithstanding any reason for them, or
was indifferent to any objects, notwithstanding they
seemed good to him ? for otherwise he could be
8 Bramhall’s Works, p. 656 and 695.
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convinced upon no other principles, and would be
the most undisciplinable and untractable of all ani
mals. All advice and all reasonings would be of no
use to him. You might offer arguments to him, and
lay before him pleasure and pain; and he might stand
unmoved like a rock. He might reject what appears
true to him, assent to what seems absurd to him, avoid
what he sees to be good, and choose what he sees to be
evil. Indifference therefore to receive truth, that is
Liberty to deny it when we see it; and indifference to
pleasure and pain, that is, Liberty to refuse the first,
and choose the last; are direct obstacles to knowledge
and happiness. On the contrary, to be necessarily
determined by what seems reasonable, and by what
seems good, has a direct tendency to promote truth and
happiness, and is the proper perfection of an understand
ing and sensible being. And indeed it seems strange
that men should allow that God and angels act more
perfectly because they are determined by reason; and
also allow that clocks, watches, mills, and other
artificial unintelligent beings are the better, the more
they are determined to go right by weight and measure ;
and yet that they should deem in a perfection in man
not to be determined by his reason, but to have Liberty
to go against it.9 Would it not be as reasonable to'say,
it would be a perfection in a clock not to be necessarily
determined to go right, but to have its motions depend
upon chance ?
Again, though man does, through weakness and
imperfection, fall into several mistakes, both in judging
9 “ I protest,” says Professor Huxley in his lecture on Descartes
“ that if sotne gre it Power would agree to make me always think
what is true and do what is right, on condition of being turned
into a sort of clock and wound up every morning before 1 got out
of bed, I should instantly close with the offer. The only freedom
I care about is the freedom to do right; the freedom to do wrong
I am ready to part with on the cheapest terms to any one who
will take it of me” (Lay Sermons, p. 340). Professor Huxley has
read Collins, and he may have had the above passage in his mind.
—G. W. F.
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and willing, in relation to what is true and good; yet
he is still less ignorant, and less unhappy, by being
necessarily determined in judging by what seems
reasonable, and in willing by what seems best, than if
he was capable of judging contrary to his reason and
willing against his senses. For, were it not so, what
seems false would be as just a rule of truth as what
seems true, and what seems evil as just a rule of good
as what seems good. Which are absurdities too great
for any to affirm; especially if we consider that there
is a perfectly wise and good Being who has given men
senses and reason to conduct them.
Lastly, it is a perfection to be necessarily determined
in our choices, even in the most indifferent things;
because if in such cases there was not a cause of choice,
but a choice could be made without a cause, then
all choices might be made without a cause, and we
should not be necessarily determined by the greatest
evidence to assent to truth, nor by the strongest
inclination for happiness to choose pleasure and avoid
pain; to all which it is a perfection to be necessarily
determined. For if any action whatsoever can be done
without a cause, then effects and causes have no neces
sary relation, and by consequence we should not be
necessarily determined in any case at all.
Fourth argument, taken from the consideration
of the divine prescience.
IV. A fourth argument to prove man a necessary
agent shall be taken from the consideration of the
divine prescience. The divine prescience supposes that
all things future will certainly exist in such time, such
order, and with such circumstances, and not otherwise.
For if any things future were contingent, or uncertain,
or depended on the liberty of man—that is, might or
might not happen—their certain existence could not be
the object of the divine prescience, it being a contra
diction to know that to be certain which is not certain,
and God himself could only guess at the existence of
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such things. And if the divine prescience supposes
the certain existence of all things future, it supposes
also the necessary existence of all things future, because
God can foreknow their certain existence only, either
as that existence is the effect of his decree or as it
depends on its own causes. If he foreknows that
existence as it is the effect of his decree, his decree
makes that existence necessary, for it implies a contra
diction for an all-powerful being to decree anything
which shall not necessarily come to pass. If he fore
knows that existence as it depends on its own causes,
that existence is no less necessary, for it no less implies
a contradiction that causes should not produce their
effects (causes and effects having a necessary relation to
and dependence on each other) than that an event
should not come to pass which is decreed by God.
Cicero has some passages to the purpose of this argu
ment. Says he,1 “ Qui potest provideri quidquam
futurum esse quod neque causam habet ullam, neque
notam, cur futurum fit ?—Quid est igitur, quod casu
fieri aut forte fortuna, putemus 1—Nihil est enim tam
contrarium rationi & Constantia quam fortuna; ut mihi
ne in Deum cadere videatur, ut sciat, quid casu & fortuito futurum fit. Si enim scit, certe illud eveniet. Sin
certe eveniet, nulla est fortuna. Est autem fortuna.
Rerum igitur fortuitarum nulla est presentio.” Also
that illustrious reformer, Luther, says in his treatise
against free will2: “ Concessa Dei praescientia & omnipotentia, sequitur naturaliter irrefragabili consequentia,
nos per nos ipsos non esse factos, nec vivere, nec agere
quicquam, sed per illius omnipotentiam. Cum autem
tales nos ille ante praescierit futuros, talesque nunc
faciat, moveat, & gubernit ; quid potest fingi
quaeso, quod in nobis liberum fit, aliter & aliter
fieri, quam ille praescierit aut nunc agat? Pugnat
itaque ex diametro praescientia & omnipotentia
Dei cum nostro libero arbitrio. Aut enim Deus
1 De Divin. c. 2.
2 Cap. 147.
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falletur praesciendo, errabit & agendo (quod est
impossible) aut nos agemus & agemur secumdum
ipsius prsescientiam & actionem.” And our learned
Dr. South says3, “ the fore-knowledge of an event does
certainly and necessarily infer that there must be such
an event; forasmuch as the certainty of knowledge
depends upon the certainty of the thing known. And
in this sense it is that God’s decree and promise give a
necessary existence to the thing decreed or promised,
that is to say, they infer it by infallible consequence;
so that it was as impossible for Christ not to rise from
the dead, as it was for God absolutely to decree and
promise a thing, and yet the thing not come to pass.”
I could also bring in the greatest divines and philo
sophers4 who are assertors of Liberty, as confirming
this argument; for5 they acknowledge that they are
unable to reconcile the6 divine prescience and the
Liberty of man together, which is all 1 intended to
prove by this argument, taken from the consideration
of the divine prescience.
Fifth argument, taken from the nature of Rewards
and Punishments.
V. A fifth argument to prove man a necessary agent
is as follows: If man was not a necessary agent,
determined by pleasure and pain, there would be no
foundation for rewards and punishments, which are
the essential supports of society.7
For if men were not necessarily determined by plea
sure and pain, or if pleasure and pain were no causes
to determine men’s wills; of what use would be the
prospect of rewards to frame a man’s will to the obser
vation of the law, or punishments to hinder his trans3 Sermons, vol. iii., p. 488.
4 See among others Cartes. Prin. Pars. I., Art. 41. Locke’s
Letters, p. 27.
5 Tillotson’s Sermons, VI., p. 157.
6 Stillingfleet of Christ’s Satisfaction, p. 355.
7 Solon rempublicam contineri dicebat duabus rebus, praemio
& poena. Cicero Epist. 15 ad Brutum.
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gression thereof? Were pain, as such, eligible, and
pleasure, as such, avoidable; rewards and punishments
could be no motives to a man, to make him do or
forbear any action. But if pleasure and pain have a
necessary effect on men, and if it be impossible for
men not to choose what seems good to them, and not
to avoid what seems evil, the necessity of rewards and
punishments is then evident, and rewards will be of
use to all those who conceive those rewards to be plea
sure, and punishments will be of use to all those who
conceive them to be pain; and rewards and punish
ments will frame those men’s wills to observe and not
transgress the laws.
Besides, since there are so many robbers, murderers,
whore-masters, and other criminals, who notwithstand
ing the punishments threatened, and rewards promised,
by laws, prefer breaking the laws as the greater good
or lesser evil, and reject conformity to them as the
greater evil or lesser good ; how many more would there
be, and with what disorders would not all societies be
filled, if rewards and punishments, considered as
pleasure and pain, did not determine some men’s
wills, but that, instead thereof, all men could prefer
or will, punishment considered as pain, and reject
rewards considered as pleasure ? Men would then be
■under no restraints.
Sixth argument taken from the Nature of
Morality.
VI. My sixth and last argument to prove man a
necessary agent is ; if man was not a necessary agent
determined by pleasure and pain, he would have no
notion of morality, or motive to practise it; the dis
tinction between morality and immorality, virtue and
vice, would be lost; and man -would not be a moral
agent.
Morality or Virtue,8 consists of such actions as are
8 Locke’s Essay of H. Un., 1. ii., c. 20. Serjeant’s Sol. Philos.
Asserted, p. 215.
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in their own nature, and upon the whole pleasant; and
immorality or vice, consists in such actions as are in
their own nature, and upon the whole painful. Where
fore a man must be affected with pleasure and pain in
order to know what morality is, and to distinguish it
from immorality. He must also be affected with
pleasure and pain to have a reason to practise
morality; for there can be no motives but pleasure and'
pain to make a man do or forbear any action. And
a man must be the more moral the more he under
stands or is duly sensible, what actions give pleasure
and what pain ; and must be perfectly moral if neces
sarily determined by pleasure and pain rightly under
stood and apprehended. But if man be indifferent to
pleasure and pain, or is not duly affected with them,
he cannot know what morality is nor distinguish it
from immorality, nor have any motive to practise
morality and abstain from immorality; and will be
equally indifferent to morality and immorality or
virtue and vice. Man in his present condition is
sufficiently immoral by mistaking pain for pleasure
and thereby judging, willing, and practising amiss; but
if he was indifferent to pleasure and pain, he would
have no rule to go by, and might never judge, will,,
and practise right.
Though I conceive I have so proposed my arguments
as to have obviated most of the plausible objections
usually urged against the doctrine of Necessity, yet it
may not be improper to give a particular solution to
the principal of them.
1. First then it is objected that if men are neces
sary agents,9 and do commit necessarily all breaches
of the law, it would be unjust to punish them fordoing
what they cannot avoid doing.
To which I answer that the sole end of punishment
in society is to prevent, as far as may be, the commis
sion of certain crimes; and that punishments have
9 Auli Gellii noctes Att., 1. 6, c. 2.
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their designed effect two ways ; first, by restraining or
cutting off from society the vicious members; and
secondly, by correcting men or terrifying them from
the commission of those crimes. Now let punishments
be inflicted with either of these views, it will be mani
fest that no regard is had to any free agency in man,
in order to render those punishments just; but that
on the contrary, punishments may be justly inflicted
on man, though a necessary agent. For, first, if mur
derers for example, or any such vicious members are
cut off from society, merely as they are public nuisances
and unfit to live among men; it is plain they are in
that case so far from being considered as free agents
that they are cut off from society as a cankered branch
is from a tree, or as a mad dog is killed in the streets.
And the punishment of such men is just, as it takes
mischievous members out of society. Also, for the
same reason, furious madmen, whom all allow to be
necessary agents, are in many places of the world
either the objects of judicial punishments, or be allowed
to be dispatched by private men. Nay, even men
infected with the plague, who are not voluntary agents
and are guilty of no crime, are sometimes thought to
be justly cut off from society to prevent contagion
from them.
Secondly, let punishments be inflicted on some
criminals with a view to terrify, it will appear that in
inflicting punishments with that view, no regard is had
to any free agency in man in order to make those
punishments just. To render the punishment of such
men just, it is sufficient that they were voluntary
agents, or had the will to do the crime for which they
suffer, for the law very justly and rightly regardeth
only the will, and no other preceding causes of action.
For example, suppose the law, on pain of death, forbids
theft, and there be a man who, by the strength of
temptation, is necessitated to steal, and is thereupon
put to death for it; doth not his punishment deter
others from theft ? Is it not a cause that others steal
E
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not ? doth it not frame their wills to justice ? Whereas
a criminal who is an involuntary agent (as for instance
a man who has killed another in a chance medly, or
while in a fever or the like) cannot serve for an example
to deter any others from doing the same, he being no
more an intelligent agent in doing the crime than a
house is which kills a man by its fall, and by conse
quence the punishment of such an involuntary agent
w’ould be unjust. When therefore a man does a crime
voluntarily, and his punishment will serve to deter
others from doing the same, he is justly punished for
doing what (through strength of temptation, ill habits,
or othei* causes) he could not avoid doing.
It may not be improper to add this farther considera
tion from the law of our country. There is one case
wherein our law is so far from requiring that the
persons punished should be free agents, that it does not
consider them as voluntary agents, or even as guilty of
the crime for which they suffer: so little is free agency
requisite to make punishments just. The children of
rebel parents suffei* in their fortunes for the guilt of
their parents, and their punishment is deemed just,
because it is supposed to be a means to prevent rebellion
in parents.
II. Secondly, it is objected that it is useless to
threaten punishment, or inflict it on men to prevent
crimes, when they are necessarily determined in all
their actions.
1. To which I answer first, that threatening of
punishments is a cause which necessarily determines
some men’s wills to a conformity to law, and against
committing the crimes to which punishments are
annexed, and therefore is useful to all those whose wills
must be determined by it. It is as useful to such men,
as the sun is to the ripening the fruits of the earth,
or as any other causes are to produce their proper
effects, and a man may as well say the sun is useless, if
the ripening the fruits of the earth be necessary, as
say there is no need of threatening punishment for the
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use of those to whom threatening punishment is a
necessary cause of forbearing to do a crime. It is also
of use to society to inflict punishments on men for
doing what they cannot avoid doing, to the end that
necessary causes may exist to form the wills of those
who in virtue of them necessarily observe the laws, and
also of use to cut them off as noxious members of
society.
2. But secondly, so far is threatening and inflicting
punishments from being useless, if men are necessary
agents, that it would be useless to correct and deter
(which are the principal effects designed to be obtained
by threatening and inflicting punishments) unless men
were necessary agents, and were determined by pleasure
and pain; because if men were free or indifferent to
pleasure and pain, pain could be no motive to cause
men to observe the law.
3. Thirdly, men have every day examples before
them of the usefulness of punishments upon some in
telligent or sensible beings, which they all contend are
necessary agents. They punish dogs, horses, and other
animals every day with great success, and make them
leave off their vicious habits, and form them thereby
according to their wills. These are plain facts, and
matters of constant experience, and even confirmed by
the evasions of the advocates of Liberty, who call1 the
rewards and punishments used to brute beasts ana
logical ; and say that beating them and giving them
victuals have only the shadow of rewards and punish
ments. Nor are capital punishments without their use
among beasts and birds. Rorarius1 tells us that they
2
crucify lions in Africa to drive away other lions from
their cities and towns ; and that travelling through the
country of Juliers, he observed they hanged up wolves
to secure their flocks. And in like manner with us,
men hang up crows and rooks to keep birds from their
1 Bramhall’s Work®, p. 685.
2 Quad bruta anim, etc,, 1. 2, p. 109
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corn, as they hang up murderers in chains to deter
other murderers. But I need not go to brutes for
examples of the usefulness of punishments on necessary
agents. Punishments are not without effect on some
idiots and madmen, by restraining them to a certain
degree; and they are the very means by which the
minds of children are formed by their parents. Nay,
punishments have plainly a better effect on children
than on grown persons, and more easily form them to
virtue and discipline than they change the vicious
habits of grown persons or plant new habits in them.
Wherefore the objectors ought to think punishments
maybe threatened and inflicted on men usefully, though
they are necessary agents.
III. Thirdly, it is objected, if men are necessary
agents it is of no use to represent reasons to them, or
to entreat them, or to admonish them, or to blame
them, or to praise them.
To which I answer, that all these, according to me,
are necessary causes to determine certain men’s wills
to do what we desire of them; and are therefore
useful as acting on such necessary agents co whom they
are necessary causes of action; but would be of no use
if men had free-will, or their wills were not moved by
them. So that they who make this objection must
run into the absurdities of saying that that cause is
useful, which is no cause of action and serves not to
change the will, and that that cause is useless which
necessitates the effect.
Let me add something further in respect of praise.
Men have at all times been praised for actions judged
by all the world to be necessary. It has been a stand
ing method of commendation among the epic poets,
who are the greatest panegyrists of glorious actions,
to attribute their hero’s valor, and his great actions,
to some deity present with him and assisting. Homer
gives many of his heroes a god or a goddess to attend
them in battle or be ready to help them in distress.
Virgil describes 2Eneas as always under the divine
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direction and assistance. And Tasso gives the
Christians in their holy war, divine assistance.
Orators also, and historians think necessary actions
the proper subjects of praise.3 Cicero, when he
maintained that the Gods inspired Milo with the design
and courage to kill Clodius, did not intend to lessen the
satisfaction or glory of Milo, but on the contrary to
augment it. But can there be a finer commendation
than that given by Velleius Paterculus to Cato, that
he was good by nature because he could not be other
wise ? For that alone is true goodness which flows
from disposition, whether that disposition be natural or
acquired. Such goodness may be depended on, and
will seldom or never fail. Whereas goodness founded
on any reasonings whatsoever, is a very precarious
thing; as may be seen by the lives of the greatest
deciaimers against vice who, though they are constantly
acquainting themselves with all the topics that can be
drawn from the excellency of goodness or virtue, and
the mischiefs of vice ; the rewards that attend the one
and the punishments that attend the other; yet are not
better than those who are never conversant in such
topics. Lastly, the common proverb, yaudeant bene
nati, is a general commendation of men for what plainly
in no sense depends on them.
IV. Fourthly, it is objected that if all events are
necessary, then there is a period fixed to every man’s
life, and if there is a period fixed to every man’s life,
then it cannot be shortened by want of care or violence
offered or disease, nor can it be prolonged by care or
physic, and if it cannot be shortened or prolonged by
them, then it is useless to avoid or use any of these
things.
In answer to which, I grant that if the period of
human life be fixed (as I contend it is) it cannot but
happen at the time fixed, and nothing can fall out to
prolong or shorten that period. Neither such want of
3 Oratio pro Milone.
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care nor such violence offered, nor such diseases can
happen, as can cause the period of human life to fall
short of that time, nor such care nor physic be used, as
to prolong it beyond that time. But though these
cannot so fall out, as to shorten or prolong the period
of human life, yet being necessary causes in the chain
of causes to bring human life to the period fixed, or to
cause it not to exceed that time, they must as neces
sarily precede that effect, as other causes do their
proper effects, and consequently when used or neglected
serve all the ends and purposes that can be hoped for
or feared from use of any means, or the neglect of any
means whatsoever. For example, let it be fixed and
necessary for the river Nile annually to overflow, the
means to cause it to overflow must no less necessarily
precede. And as it would be absurd to argue that if
the overflowing of the Nile was annually fixed and
necessary, it would overflow, though the necessary
means to make it overflow did not precede, so it is no
less absurd to argue from the fixed period of human
life, against the necessary means to bring it to its
fixed period, or to cause it not to exceed that period.
V. Fifthly, it is asked how a man can act against his
conscience, and how a man’s conscience can accuse him
if he knows he acts necessarily, and also does what he
thinks best when he commits any sin.
I reply, that conscience being a man’s own opinion
of his actions with relation to some rule, he may at
the time of doing an action contrary to that rule, know
that he breaks that rule, and consequently act with
reluctance, though not sufficient to hinder the action.
But after the action is over he may not only judge
his action to be contrary to that rule; but by the
absence of the pleasure of the sin, and by finding
himself obnoxious to shame, or believing himself liable
to punishment, he may really accuse himself, that is,
he may condemn himself for having done it, be sorry
he has done it, and wish it undone because of the
consequences that attend it.
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VI. Sixthly, it is objected, that if all events are
necessary, it was as impossible (for example) for Julius
Caesar not to have died in the Senate, as it is impossible
for two and two to make six. But who will say the
former was as impossible as the latter is, when we can
conceive it possible for Julius Caesar to have died any
where else as well as in the Senate, and impossible to
conceive two and two ever to make six ?
To which I answer, that I do allow that if all events
are necessary, it was impossible for Julius Caesar not
to have died in the Senate, as it is impossible for two
and two to make six, and will add, that it is no more
possible to conceive the death of Julius Caessr to have
happened any where else but in the Senate, than that
two and two should make six. For whoever does
conceive his death possible any where else, supposes
other circumstances preceding his death than did
precede his death.
Whereas, let them suppose all the
same circumstances to come up to pass that did precede
his death, and then it will be impossible to conceive
(if they think justly) his death could have come to
pass any where else, as they conceive it impossible for
two and two to make six. I observe also, that to
suppose other circumstances of any action possible than
those that precede it, is to suppose a contradiction or
impossibility, for as all actions have their particular
circumstances, so every circumstance proceding an
action is as impossible not to have come to pass by
virtue of the causes preceding that circumstance, as
that two and two should make six.
The opinions of the learned concerning
Liberty, etc.
Having as I hope proved the truth of what I have
advanced, and answered the most material objections
that can be urged against me ; it will perhaps not be
improper to give some account of the sentiments of the
learned in relation to my subject, and confirm by
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authority what I have said for the sake of those with
whom authority has weight in matters of speculation.
The questions of Liberty, Necessity, and chance
have been subjects of dispute among philosophers at
all times; and most of those philosophers have clearly
asserted Necessity, and denied Liberty and chance.
The questions of Liberty and Necessity have also
been debated among divines in the several ages of the
Christian church, under the terms of free-will and
predestination, and the divines who have denied free
will and asserted predestination have enforced the
arguments of the philosopher by the consideration
of some doctrines peculiar to the Christian religion.
And as to chance, hazard or fortune, I think divines
unanimously agree that those words have no meaning.
Some Christian communions have even proceeded so
far in relation to these matters, as to condemn in
councils and synods the doctrine of Free Will as
heretical; and the denial thereof is become a part of
the Confessions of Faith, and Articles of Religion of
several churches.4
From this state of the fact it is manifest that who
ever embraces the opinion I have maintained cannot
want the authority of as many learned and pious men
as in embracing the contrary.
But considering how little men are moved by the
authority of those who professedly maintain opinions
contrary to theirs, though at the same time they them
selves embrace no opinion but on the authority of some
body, I shall waive all the advantages that I might
draw from the authority of such philosophers and
divines as are undoubtedly on my side, and for that
reason shall not enter into a more particular detail of
4 Both the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Articles
of the Church of England distinctly deny Free Will and assert
Predestination. Yet the zealots of the Establishment, after sub
scribing the Thirty-Nine Articles, are the most strenuous supp >rters of Liberty, and fierce and contemptuous in their opposition
to Necessity.—G. W. F.
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them, but shall offer the authority of such men who
profess to maintain Liberty. There are indeed very
few real adversaries to the opinion I defend among
those who pretend to be so; and upon due inquiry it
will be found that most of those who assert Liberty in
words, deny the thing when the question is rightly
stated. For proof whereof let any man examine the
clearest and acutest authors who have written for
Liberty, or discourse with those who think Liberty a
matter of experience, and he will see that they allow
that the will follows the judgment of the understand
ing, and that when two objects are presented to man’s
choice, one whereof appears better than the other, he
cannot choose the worst—that is, cannot choose evil as
evil. And since they acknowledge these things to be
true they yield up the question of Liberty to their
adversaries, who only contend that the will or choice
is always determined by what seems best. I will give
my reader one example thereof in the most acute and
ingenious Dr. Clarke, whose authority is equal to that
of many others put together, and makes it needless to
cite others after him. He asserts5 that the will is deter
mined by moral motives, and calls the Necessity by
which a man chooses in virtue of those motives, moral
Necessity. And he explains himself with his usual
candor and perspicuity by the following instance.
“ A man,” says he, “ entirely free from all pain of
body and disorder of mind, judges it unreasonable for
him to hurt or destroy himself; and being under no
temptation or external violence he cannot possibly
act contrary to this judgment, not because he wants a
natural or physical power so to do, but because it is
absurd and mischievous, and morally impossible for
him to choose to do it. Which also is the very same rea
son why the most perfect rational creatures, superior to
men, cannot do evil; not because they want a natural
5 “ Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God,” p. 105
•of the 4th edition, 1716.
�74
HUMAN LIBERTY.
power to perform the material action, but because it is
morally impossible that with a perfect knowledge of
what is best and without any temptation to evil, their
will should determine itself to choose to act foolishly
and unreasonably.”
In this he plainly allows the necessity for which I
have contended. For he assigns the same causes of
human actions that I have done, and extends the
necessity of human actions as far, when he asserts that
a man cannot under those causes possibly do the con
trary to what he does; and particularly that a man
under the circumstances of judging it unreasonable
to hurt or destroy himself, and being under no temptation
or external violence, cannot possibly act contrary to that
judgment. And as to a natural or physical power in
man to act contrary to that judgment, and to hurt or
destroy himself, which is asserted in the foregoing
passage, that is so far from being inconsistent with
the doctrine of Necessity, that the said natural power
to do the contrary, or to hurt or destroy himself, is a
consequence of the doctrine of Necessity. For if man
is necessarily determined by particular moral causes,
and cannot then possibly act contrary to what he does,,
he must under opposite moral causes, have a power todo the contrary. Man as determined by moral causes,
cannot possibly choose evil as evil, and by consequence
chooses life before death, while he apprehends life tobe a good and death to be an evil; as, on the contrary,,
he chooses death before life, while he apprehends death
to be a good and life to be an evil. And thus moral
causes, by being different from one another, or differ
ently understood, do determine men differently, and by
consequence suppose a natural power to choose and act
as differently as those causes differently determine
them.
If therefore men will be governed by authority in
the questions before us, let them sum up the real
asserters of the Liberty of man, and they will find
them not to be very numerous, but on the contrary,.
�HUMAN LIBERTY.
75
they will find far the greater part of the pretended
assertors of Liberty to be real asserters of Necessity.
The Author’s notion of Liberty.
I shall conclude this discourse with observing that
though I have contended that Liberty from Necessity
is contrary to experience ; that it is impossible; and if
possible, that it is imperfection; that it is inconsistent
with the divine perfections ; and that it is subversive
of laws and morality; yet to prevent all objections to
me, founded on the equivocal use of the word Liberty,
which, like other words employed in debates of conse
quence, has various meanings affixed to it, I think
myself obliged to declare my opinion that I take man
to have a truly valuable Liberty of another kind. He
has a power to do as he wills or pleases. Thus, if he
wills or pleases to speak, or be silent, to sit or stand,
to ride or walk, to go this way or that way, to move
fast or slow ; or, in fine, if his will changes like a
weathercock ; he is able to do as he wills or pleases,
unless prevented by some restraint or compulsion, as by
being gagged, being under an acute pain, being forced
out of his place, being confined, having convulsive
motions, having lost the use of his limbs, or such-like
causes.
He has also the same power in relation to the actions
of his mind, as to those of his body. If he wills or
pleases, he can think of this or that subject, stop short,
or pursue his thoughts, deliberate, or defer deliberation,
as he pleases, resolve or suspend his resolution as he
pleases, unless prevented by pain, or a fit of an apoplexy,
or some such intervening restraint or compulsion.
And is it not a great perfection in man to be able
in relation both to his thoughts and actions, to do as
he wills or pleases in all those cases of pleasure and
interest? Nay, can a greater and more beneficial
power in man be conceived than to be able to do as
he wills or pleases ? And can any other Liberty be
conceived beneficial to him? Had he this power or
Liberty in all things, he would be omnipotent 1
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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A philosophical inquiry concerning human liberty : with preface and annotations by G.W. Foote, and biographical introduction by J.M. Wheeler
Creator
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Collins, Anthony [1676-1729]
Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915] (ed)
Wheeler, J. M. (Joseph Mazzini) [1850-1898]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: xx, [21]-75, [2] p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: First published 1715. Publisher's advertisements on unnumbered pages at the end. Includes bibliographical references. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Progressive Publishing Company
Date
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1890
Identifier
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N171
Subject
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Determinism
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (A philosophical inquiry concerning human liberty : with preface and annotations by G.W. Foote, and biographical introduction by J.M. Wheeler), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Free Will and Determinism
NSS