The notion of Lord Kames and Sir James Mackintosh on the same subject.
Lord Kames boldly cut the knot which philosophy had failed to unravel for
him. Supposing the doctrine of necessity to be settled on a clear and firm
basis, he resolved our feelings of liberty into “a deceitful sense” which
he imagined the Almighty had conferred on man for wise and good purposes.
He concluded that if men could see the truth, in regard to the scheme of
necessity, without any illusion or mistake, they would relax their
exertions in all directions, and passively submit to the all-controlling
influences by which they are surrounded. But God, he supposed, out of
compassion for us, concealed the truth from our eyes, in order that we
might be induced to take care of ourselves, by the pleasant dream that we
really have the power to do so.
We shall not stop to pull this scheme to pieces. We shall only remark,
that it is a pity the philosopher undertook to counteract the benevolent
design of the Deity, and to expose the cheat and delusion by which he
intended to govern the world for its benefit. But the author himself, it
is but just to add, had the good sense and candour to renounce his own
scheme; and hence we need dwell no longer upon it. It remains at the
present day only as a striking example of the frightful contortions of the
human mind, in its herculean efforts to escape from the dark labyrinth of
fate into the clear and open light of nature.
Sir James Mackintosh, though familiar with the speculations of preceding
philosophers, was satisfied with none of their solutions of the great
problem under consideration, and consequently he has invented one of his
own. This solution is founded on his theory of the moral sentiments, which
is peculiar to himself. This theory is employed to show how it is, that
although we may come by our volitions according to the scheme of
necessity, yet we do not perceive the causes by which they are necessarily
produced, and consequently imagine that we are free. Thus, the “feeling of
liberty,” as he calls it, is resolved into an illusory judgment, and the
scheme of necessity is exhibited in all its adamantine strength. “It seems
impossible,” says he, “for reason to consider occurrences otherwise than
as bound together by the connexion of cause and effect; and in this
circumstance consists the strength of the necessitarian system.”(56)
We shall offer only one remark on this extraordinary hypothesis. If the
theory of Sir James were true, it could only show, that although our
volitions are necessarily caused, we do not perceive the causes by which
they are produced. But this fact has never been denied: it has always been
conceded, that we ascertain the existence of efficient causes, excepting
the acts of our minds, only by means of the effects they produce. Both
Leibnitz and Edwards long ago availed themselves of this undisputed fact,
in order to account for the belief which men entertain in regard to their
internal freedom. “Thus,” says Edwards, “I find myself possessed of my
volitions before I can see the effectual power and efficacy of any cause
to produce them, _for the power and efficacy of the cause are not seen but
by the effect, and this, for aught I know, may make some imagine that
volition has no cause_.” We shall see hereafter that this is a very false
account of the genesis of the common belief, that we possess an internal
freedom from necessity; but it is founded on the truth which no one
pretends to deny, that external efficient causes can only be seen by their
effects, and not by any direct perception of the mind. It was altogether a
work of supererogation, then, for Sir James Mackintosh to bring forth his
theory of moral sentiments to establish the _possibility_ of a thing which
preceding philosophers had admitted to be a _fact_. It requires no
elaborate theory to convince us that a thing might exist without our
perceiving it, when it is conceded on all sides, that even if it did
exist, we have no power by which to perceive it. With this single remark,
we shall dismiss a scheme which resolves our conviction of internal
liberty into a mere illusion, and which, however pure may have been the
intentions of the author, really saps the foundation of moral obligation,
and destroys the nature of virtue.