Once more I fix my attention on the apple: an agreeable sensation arises

in the mind; a desire to eat it is awakened. This desire or appetite is a

state of the sensibility. Whether I shall feel this appetite or desire,

does not depend upon any effort or exertion of my will. The mind is

clearly passive in relation to it; the desire, then, is as strongly marked

with the characteristic of necessity, as are the states of the

intelligence. The same is true of all our feelings; they are necessarily

determined by the objects in view of the mind. There is no controversy on

these points; it is universally agreed that every state of the

intelligence and of the sensibility is necessarily determined by the

evidence and the object in view of the mind. It is not, then, either in

the intelligence or in the sensibility that we are to look for liberty.

But once more I fix my attention on the apple: the desire is awakened, and

I conclude to eat it. Hitherto I have done nothing except in fixing my

attention on the apple. I have experienced the judgment that it is round,

and felt the desire to eat it. But now I conclude to eat it, and I make an

effort of the mind to put forth my hand to take the apple and eat it. It

is done. Now here is an entirely new phenomenon; it is an _effort_, an

_exertion_, an _act_, a _volition_ of the mind. The name is of no

importance; the circumstances under which the phenomenon arises have

called attention to it, and the precise thing intended is seen in the

light of consciousness. Let us look at it closely, and mark its

characteristic well, being careful to see neither more nor less than is

presented by the phenomenon itself.

We are conscious, then, of the existence of an act, of a volition:

everybody can see what this is. We must not say, as the advocates of

free-agency usually do, that when we put forth this act or volition we are

conscious of a power to do the contrary; for this position may be refuted,

and the foundation on which we intend to raise our superstructure

undermined. We are merely conscious of the existence of the act itself,

and not even of the power by means of which we act; the existence of the

power is necessarily inferred from its exercise. This is the only way in

which we know it, and not from the direct testimony of consciousness. Much

less if we had refused to act, should we have been conscious of the power

to withhold it; much less again are we conscious of the power to withhold

the act, as we do not in the case supposed exercise this power. But

certainly we are conscious of the act itself; all men will concede this,

and this is all our argument really demands.

Here then we are conscious of an act, of an effort, of the mind. Look at

it closely. Is the mind passive in this act? No; we venture to answer for

the universal intelligence of man. If this act had been produced in us by

a necessitating cause, would not the mind have been passive in it? In

other words, would it not have been a passive impression, and not an act,

not an effort of the mind at all? Yes; we again venture to answer for the

unbiassed reason of man. But it is not, we have seen, a passive

impression; it is an act of the mind, and hence it is not necessitated. It

is not necessitated, because it is not stamped with the characteristic of

necessity. The universal reason of man declares that the will has not

necessarily yielded like the intelligence and the sensibility, to motives

over which it had no control. It does not bear upon its face the mark of

any such subjection “to the power and action” of a cause. It is marked

with the characteristic, not of necessity, but of liberty.

We would not say, with Dr. Samuel Clarke, that “action and liberty are

identical ideas;” but we will say, that the idea of action necessarily

implies that of liberty; for if we duly reflect on the nature of an act we

cannot conceive it as being necessitated. This consideration furnishes an

easy and satisfactory solution of a problem, by which necessitarians are

sadly perplexed. They endeavour in various ways to account for the fact

that we believe our volitions to be free, or not necessarily caused. Some

resolve this belief and feeling of liberty into a deceitful sense; some

imagine that we are deceived by the ambiguities of language; and some

resort to other methods of explaining the phenomenon. “It is true,” says

President Edwards, “I find myself possessed of my volitions before I can

see the effectual power of any cause to produce them, for the power and

efficacy of the cause is not seen but by the effect; and this, for aught I

know, may make some imagine that volition has no cause, or that it

produces itself.” But this is not a satisfactory account of the

_imagination_, as he would term it. We also find ourselves possessed of

our judgments and feelings before we perceive the effectual power of the

cause which produces them. Why then do we refer these to the operation of

a necessary cause, and not our volitions? If the power and efficacy of the

cause is seen only by the effect in the one case, it is only seen in the

same manner in the other. Why then do we differ in our conclusions with

respect to them? Why do we refer the judgment and the feeling to necessary

causes, and fail to do the same in relation to the volition? The reason is

obvious. The mind is passive in judging and feeling, and hence these

phenomena necessarily demand the operation of causes to account for them;

but the mind is active in its volitions, and this necessarily excludes the

idea of causes to produce them. The mind clearly perceives, by due

reflection, and at all times sees dimly, at least, that an act or volition

is different in its nature from a passive impression or a produced effect;

and hence it knows and feels that it is exempt from the power and efficacy

of a producing cause in its volitions. This fact of our consciousness it

is not in the power of sophistry wholly to conceal, nor in the power of

human nature to evade. Hence we carry about with us the irresistible

conviction that we are free; that our wills are not absolutely subject to

the dominion of causes over which we have no control. Hence we see and

know that we are self-active.

-------------------------------------

Having completed our analysis, in as far as our present purpose demands,

we may proceed to show that the system of necessity is founded on a false

psychology,—on a dark confusion of the facts of human nature. It is very

remarkable that all the advocates of this system, from Hobbes down to

Edwards, will allow the human mind to possess only two faculties, the

understanding and the will. The will and the sensibility are expressly

identified by them. Locke distinguished between will and desire, between

the _faculty_ of willing and the _susceptibility_ to feeling; but Edwards

has endeavoured to show that there is no such distinction as that for

which Locke contends. We shall not arrest the progress of our remarks in

order to point out the manner in which Edwards has deceived himself by an

appeal to logic rather than to consciousness, because the threefold

distinction for which we contend is now admitted by necessitarians

themselves. Indeed, after the clear and beautiful analysis by M. Cousin,

they could not well do otherwise than recognise this threefold

distinction; but they have done so, we think it will be found, without

perceiving all the consequences of such an admission to their system. It

is an admission which, in our opinion, will show the scheme of necessity

to be insecure in its foundation, and disjointed in all its parts.

With the light of this distinction in our minds, it will be easy to follow

and expose the sophistries of the necessitarian. He often declaims against

the idea of liberty for which we contend, on the ground that it would be,

not a perfection, but a very great imperfection of our nature to possess

such a freedom. But in every such instance he confounds the will with one

of the passive susceptibilities of the mind. Thus, for example, Collins

argues that liberty would be a great imperfection, because “nothing can be

more irrational and absurd than to be able to refuse our assent to what is

evidently true to us, and to assent to what we see to be false.” Now, all

this is true, but it is not to the purpose; for no one contends that the

intelligence is free in assenting to, or in dissenting from, the evidence

in view of the mind. No rational being, we admit, could desire such a

freedom; could desire to be free, for example, from the conviction that

two and two make four. M. Lamartine, we are aware, expresses a very lively

abhorrence of the mathematics, because they allow not a sufficient

_freedom of thought_—because they exercise so great a _despotism over the

intellect_. But the circumstance which this flowery poet deems an

imperfection in the mathematics, every enlightened friend of free-agency

will regard as their chief excellency and glory.

The same error is committed by Spinoza: “We can consider the soul under

two points of view,” says he, “as thought and as desire.” Here the will is

made to disappear, and we behold only the two susceptibilities of the

soul, which are stamped with the characteristic of necessity. Where, then,

will Spinoza find the freedom of the soul? Certainly not in the will, for

this has been blotted out from the map of his psychology. Accordingly he

says: “The free will is a chimera of the species, flattered by our pride,

and founded upon our ignorance.” He must find the freedom of the soul

then, if he find it at all, in one of its passive susceptibilities. This,

as we have already seen, is exactly what he does; he says the soul is free

in the affirmation that two and two are four! Thus he finds the liberty of

the soul, not in the exercises of its will, of its active power, but in

the bosom of the intelligence, which is absolutely necessitated in all its

determinations.

In this particular, as well as in most others, Spinoza merely reproduces

the error of the ancient Stoics. It was a principle with them, says

Ritter, “that the will and the desire are one with thought, and may be

resolved into it.”(102) Thus, by the ancient Stoics, as well as by Hobbes,

and Spinoza, and Collins, and Edwards, the will is merged in one of the

passive elements of the mind, and its real characteristic lost sight of.

“By the freedom of the soul,” says Ritter, “the Stoics understood simply

that assent which it gives to certain ideas.”(103) Thus the ancient Stoics

endeavoured to find the freedom of the soul, where Spinoza and so many

modern necessitarians have sought to find it, in the passive, necessitated

states of the intelligence. This was indeed to impose upon themselves a

mere shadow for a substance,—a dream for a reality.

“By whatever name we call the act of the will,” says Edwards, “choosing,

refusing, approving, disapproving, liking, disliking, embracing,

rejecting, determining, directing, commanding, forbidding, inclining or

being averse, being pleased or displeased with—all may be reduced to this

of choosing.”(104) Thus, in the vocabulary and according to the psychology

of this great author, the phenomena of the sensibility and those of the

will are identified, as well as the faculties themselves. _Pleasing_ and

_willing_, liking and acting, are all one with him. His psychology admits

of no distinction, for example, between the pleasant impression made by an

apple on the sensibility, and the act of the will by which the hand is put

forth to take it. “The will and the affections of the soul,” says he, “are

not two faculties; the affections are not essentially distinct from the

will, nor do they differ from the mere actings of the will and

inclination, but only in the liveliness and sensibility of exercise.”(105)

And again, “I humbly conceive that the affections of the soul are not

properly distinguished from the will, as though there were two

faculties.”(106) And still more explicitly, “all acts of the will are

truly acts of the affections.”(107) Is it not strange, that one who could

exhibit such wonderful discrimination when the exigences of his system

demanded the exercise of such a power, should have confounded things so

clearly distinct in their natures as an act of the will and an agreeable

impression made on the sensibility?

It is not possible for any mind, no matter how great its powers, to see

the nature of things clearly when it comes to the contemplation of them

with such a confusion of ideas. Even President Edwards is not exempt from

the common lot of humanity. His doctrine is necessarily enveloped in

obscurity. We can turn it in no light without being struck with its

inconsistencies or its futility. He repeatedly says, the will is always

determined by the strongest affection, or appetite, or passion; that is,

by the most agreeable state of the sensibility. But if the will and the

sensibility are identical, as his language expressly makes them; or if the

states of the one are not distinguishable from the states of the other,

then to say that the will is always determined by the sensibility, or an

act of the will by the strongest affection of the sensibility, is to say

that a thing is determined by itself. It is to say, in fact, that the will

is always determined by itself; a doctrine against which he uniformly

protests. Nay, more, that an act of the will causes itself; a position

which he has repeatedly ascribed to his opponents, and held up to the

derision of mankind.

It is very remarkable, that Edwards seems to have been conscious, at

times, that he laid himself open to the charge of such an absurdity, when

he said that the will is determined by the greatest apparent good, or by

what seems most agreeable to the mind. For he says, “I have chosen rather

to express myself thus, that the will always is as the greatest apparent

good, or as what appears most agreeable, than to say the will is

determined by the greatest apparent good, or by what seems most agreeable;

_because an appearing most agreeable to the mind, and the mind’s

preferring, seem scarcely distinct_.” We have taken the liberty to

emphasize his words. Now here he tells us that the “mind’s preferring,” by

which word he has explained himself to mean willing,(108) is scarcely

distinct from “an appearing most agreeable to the mind.” Here he returns

to his psychology, and identifies the most agreeable impression made on

the sensibility with an act of the will. He does not like to say, that the

act of the will is caused by the most agreeable sensation, because this

seems to make a thing the cause of itself.

In this he does wisely; but having shaped his doctrine to suit himself

more exactly, in what form is it presented to us? Let us look at it in its

new shape, and see what it is. The will is not determined by the greatest

apparent good, because a thing is not determined by itself; but the will

is always as the greatest apparent good! Thus the absurdity of saying a

thing is determined by itself is avoided; but surely, if an appearing most

agreeable to the mind is not distinct from the mind’s acting, then to say

that the mind’s acting is always as that which appears most agreeable to

it is merely to say, that the mind’s acting is always as the mind’s

acting! or, in other words, that a thing is always as itself! Thus, his

great fundamental proposition is, in one form, a glaring absurdity; and in

the other, it is an insignificant truism; and there is no escape from this

dilemma except through a return to a better psychology, to a sounder

analysis of the great facts of human nature.

When Edwards once reaches the truism that a thing is always as itself, he

feels perfectly secure, and defies with unbounded confidence the utmost

efforts of his opponents to dislodge him. “As we observed before,” says

he, “nothing is more evident than that, when men act voluntarily, and do

what they please, then they do what appears most agreeable to them; and to

say otherwise, would be as much as to affirm, that men do not choose what

appears to suit them best, or what seems most pleasing to them; or that

they do not choose what they prefer—_which brings the matter to a

contradiction_.” True; this brings the matter to a contradiction, as he

has repeatedly told us; for choosing, and preferring, or willing, are all

one. But if any one denies that a man does what he pleases when he does

what he pleases; or if he affirms that he pleases without pleasing, or

chooses without choosing, or prefers without preferring, we shall leave

him to the logic of the necessitarian and the physician. We have no idea

that he will ever be able to refute the volumes that have been written to

confound him. President Edwards clearly has the better of him; for he puts

“the soul in a state of choice,” and yet affirms that it “has no choice.”

He might as well say, indeed, that “a body may move while it is in a state

of rest,” as to say that “the mind may choose without choosing,” or

without having a choice. He is very clearly involved in an absurdity; and

if he can read the three hundred pages of the Inquiry, without being

convinced of his error, his case must indeed be truly hopeless.

Edwards is far from being the only necessitarian who has fallen into the

error of identifying the sensibility with the will; thus reducing his

doctrine to an unassailable truism. In his famous controversy with Clarke,

Leibnitz has done the same thing. “Thus,” says he, “in truth, the motives

comprehend all the dispositions which the mind can have to act

voluntarily; for they include not only reasons, but also the inclinations

and passions, or other preceding impressions. Wherefore if the mind should

prefer a weak inclination to a strong one, _it would act against itself,

and otherwise than it is disposed to act_.”

Now is it not wonderful, that so profound a thinker, and so acute a

metaphysician, as Leibnitz, should have supposed that he was engaged in a

controversy to show that the mind never acts otherwise than it acts; that

it never acts against itself? Having reduced his doctrine to this truism,

he says, this “shows that the author’s notions, contrary to mine, are

superficial, and appear to have no solidity in them, when they are well

considered.” True, the notions of Clarke were superficial, and worse than

superficial, if he supposed that the mind ever acts contrary to its act,

or otherwise than it really acts. But Clarke distinguished between the

disposition and the will.

In like manner Thummig, the disciple of Leibnitz, has the following

language, as quoted by Sir William Hamilton: “It is to philosophize very

crudely concerning mind, and to image everything in a corporeal manner, to

conceive that actuating reasons are something external, which make an

impression on the mind, and _to distinguish motives from the active

principle itself_.” Now this language, it seems, is found in Thummig’s

defence of the last paper of Leibnitz (who died before the controversy was

terminated) against the answer of Clarke. But, surely, if it is a great

mistake, as the author insists it is, to distinguish motives from the

active principle itself; then to say that the active principle is

determined by motives, is to say that the active principle is determined

by itself. And having reached this point, the disciple of Leibnitz finds

himself planted precisely on the position he had undertaken to overthrow,

namely, that the will is determined by itself. And again, if it be wrong

to distinguish the motive from the active principle itself, then to say

that the active principle never departs from the motive, is to affirm that

a thing is always as itself.

The great service which a false psychology has rendered to the cause of

necessity is easily seen. For having identified an act of the will with a

state of the sensibility, which is universally conceived to be

necessitated, the necessitarian is delivered from more than half his

labours. By merging a phenomenon or manifestation of the will in a state

of the sensibility, it seems to lose its own characteristic, which is

incompatible with the scheme of necessity, and to assume the

characteristic of feeling, which is perfectly reconcilable with it; nay,

which demands the scheme of necessity to account for its existence. Thus,

the system of necessity is based on a false psychology, on which it has

too securely stood from the earliest times down to the present day. But

the stream of knowledge, ever deepening and widening in its course, has

been gradually undermining the foundations of this dark system.

Section II.

The scheme of necessity is directed against a false issue.

As we have seen in the last section, the argument of the necessitarian is

frequently directed against a false issue; but the point is worthy of a

still more careful consideration.

We shall never cease to admire the logical dexterity with which the

champions of necessity assail and worry their adversaries. They have said,

in all ages, that “nothing taketh beginning from itself;” but who ever

imagined or dreamed of so wild an absurdity? It is conceded by all

rational beings. Motion taketh not beginning from itself, but from action;

action taketh not beginning from itself, but from mind; and mind taketh

not beginning from itself, but from God. It is false, however, to conclude

that because nothing taketh beginning from itself, it is brought to pass

“by the action of some immediate agent without itself.” The motion of

body, as we have seen, is produced by the action of some immediate agent

without itself; but the action of mind is produced, or brought to pass, by

no action at all. It taketh beginning from an agent, and not from the

action of an agent. This distinction, though so clearly founded in the

nature of things, is always overlooked by the logic of the necessitarian.

They might well adopt the language of Bacon, that the subtilty of nature

far surpasseth that of our logic.

Hobbes was content to rest on a simple statement of the fact, that nothing

can produce itself; but it is not every logician who is willing to rely on

the inherent strength of such a position. Ask a child, Did you make

yourself? and the child will answer, No. Propound the same question to the

roving savage, or to the man of mere common sense, and he will also

answer, No. Appeal to the universal reason of man, and the same emphatic

No, will come up from its profoundest depths. But your redoubtable

logicians are not satisfied to rely on such testimony alone: they dare not

build on such a foundation unless it be first secured and rendered firm by

the aid of the syllogistic process. I know “I did not make myself,” says

Descartes, “for if I had made myself, I should have given myself every

perfection.” Now this argument in true syllogistic form stands thus: If I

had made myself, I should have endowed myself with every perfection; I am

not endowed with every perfection; therefore I did not make myself.

Surely, after so clear a process of reasoning, no one can possibly doubt

the proposition that Descartes did not make himself! In the same way we

might prove that he did not make his own logic: for if he had made his

logic, he would have endowed it with every possible perfection; but it is

not endowed with every possible perfection, and therefore he did not make

it.

But President Edwards has excelled Descartes, and every other adept in the

syllogistic art, except Aristotle in his physics, in his ability to render

the light of perfect day clearer by a few masterly strokes of logic. He

has furnished the reason why some persons imagine that volition has no

cause of its existence, or “that it produces itself.” Now, by the way,

would it not have been as well if he had first made sure of the fact,

before he undertook to explain it? But to proceed: let us see how he has

proved that volition does not produce itself; that it does not arise out

of nothing and bring itself into existence.

He does this in true logical form, and according to the most approved

methods of demonstration. He first establishes the general position, that

no existence or event whatever can give rise to its own being,(109) and he

then shows that this is true of volition in particular.(110) And having

reached the position, that volition does not arise out of nothing, but

must “have some antecedent” to introduce it into being; he next proceeds

to prove that there is a necessary connexion between volition and the

antecedents on which it depends for existence. This completes the chain of

logic, and the process is held up by his followers to the admiration of

the world as a perfect demonstration. Let us look at it a little more

closely, and examine the nature and mechanism of its parts.

If the huge frame of the earth, with all its teeming population and

productions, could rise up out of nothing, he argues, and bring itself

into being without any cause of its existence, then we could not prove the

being of a God. All this is very true. For, as he truly alleges, if one

world could thus make itself, so also might another and another, even unto

millions of millions. The universe might make itself, or come into

existence without any cause thereof, and hence we could never know that

there is a God. But surely, if any man imagined that even one world could

create itself, it is scarcely worth while to reason with him. It is not at

all likely that he would be frightened from his position by such a

_reductio ad absurdum_. We should almost as soon suspect a sane man of

denying the existence of God himself, as of doubting the proposition that

“nothing taketh beginning from itself.”

Having settled it to his entire satisfaction, by this and other arguments,

that no effect whatever can produce itself, he then proceeds to show that

this proposition is true of volitions as well as of all other events or

occurrences. “If any should imagine,” says he, “there is something in the

sort of event that renders it possible to come into existence without a

cause, and should say that the free acts of the will are existences of an

_exceeding different nature_ from other things, by reason of which they

may come into existence without _previous ground or reason of it_, though

other things cannot; if they make this objection in good earnest, it would

be an evidence of their strangely forgetting themselves; for it would be

giving some account of the existence of a thing, when, at the same time,

they would maintain there is no ground of its existence.”(111) True, if

any man should suppose that a volition rises up in the world “without any

ground or reason of its existence,” and afterward endeavour to assign a

ground or reason of it, he would certainly be strangely inconsistent with

himself; but we should deem his last position, that there must be a ground

or reason of its existence, to be some evidence of _his coming to

himself_, rather than of his having forgotten himself. But to proceed with

the argument. “Therefore I would observe,” says he, “that the particular

nature of existence, be it never so diverse from others, can lay no

foundation for that thing coming into existence without a cause; because,

to suppose this, would be to suppose the _particular nature_ of existence

to be a thing prior to existence, without a cause or reason of existence.

But that which in any respect makes way for a thing coming into being, or

for any manner or circumstance of its first existence, must be prior to

existence. The distinguished nature of the effect, which is something

belonging to the effect, cannot have influence backward to act before it

is. The peculiar nature of that thing called volition, can do nothing, can

have no influence, while it is not. And afterward it is too late for its

influence; for then the thing has made sure of its existence already

without its help.”(112) After all this reasoning, and more to the same

effect, we are perfectly satisfied that volition, no matter what its

nature may be, cannot produce itself; and that it must have some ground or

reason of its existence, some antecedent without which it could not come

into being.

We shall not do justice to this branch of our subject, if we leave it

without laying before the reader one or two more specimens of logic from

the celebrated Inquiry of President Edwards. He is opposing “the

hypothesis,” he tells us, “of acts of the will coming to pass without a

cause.” Now, according to his definition of the term _cause_, as laid down

at the beginning of the section under consideration, it signifies any

antecedent on which a thing depends, in whole or in part, for its

existence, or which constitutes the reason why it is, rather than

not.(113) His doctrine is, then, that nothing ever comes to pass without

some “ground or reason of its existence,” without some antecedent which is

necessary to account for its coming into being. And those who deny it are

bound to maintain the strange thesis, that something may come into

existence without any antecedent to account for it; that it may rise from

nothing and bring itself into existence. It is against this thesis that

his logic is directed.

“If it were so,” says he, “that things only of one kind, viz., acts of the

will, seemed to come to pass of themselves; and it were an event that was

continual, and that happened in a course whenever were found subjects

capable of such events; this very thing would demonstrate there was some

cause of them, which made such a difference between this event and others.

For contingency is blind, and does not pick and choose a particular sort

of events. Nothing has no choice. This no-cause, which causes no

existence, cannot cause the existence which comes to pass to be of one

particular sort only, distinguished from all others. Thus, that only one

sort of matter drops out of heaven, even water; and that this comes so

often, so constantly and plentifully, all over the world, in all ages,

shows that there is some cause or reason of the falling of water out of

the heavens, and that something besides mere contingence had a hand in the

matter.”(114) We do not intend to comment on this passage; we merely wish

to advert to the fact, that it is a laboured and logical effort to

demolish the hypothesis that acts of the will do not bring themselves into

existence, and to show that there must be some antecedent to account for

their coming into being. We shall only add, “it is true that nothing has

no choice;” but who ever pretended to believe that _nothing_ puts forth

volitions? that there is no mind, no motive, no ground or reason of

volition? Is it not wonderful that the great metaphysician of New-England

should thus worry himself and exhaust his powers in grappling with shadows

and combatting dreams, which no sane man ever seriously entertained for a

moment?

“If we should suppose non-entity to be about to bring forth,” he

continues, “and things were coming into existence without any cause or

_antecedent_ on which the existence, or kind or manner of existence

depends, or which could at all determine whether the things should be

stones or stems, or beasts or angels, or human bodies or souls, or only

some new motion or figure in natural bodies, or some new sensation in

animals, or new idea in the human understanding, or new volition in the

will, or anything else of all the infinite number of possibles,—then it

certainly would not be expected, although many millions of millions of

things were coming into existence in this manner all over the face of the

earth, that they should all be only of one particular kind, and that it

should be thus in all ages, and that this sort of existences should never

fail to come to pass when there is room for them, or a subject capable of

them, and that constantly whenever there is occasion.”(115) Now all these

words are put together to prove that non-entity cannot bring forth

effects, at least such effects as we see in the world; for if non-entity

brought them forth, that is, to come to the point in dispute, if

non-entity brought forth our volitions, they would not be always of one

particular sort of effects. But they are of one particular sort, and hence

there must be some antecedent to account for this uniformity in their

nature, and they could not have been brought forth by nonentity! Surely if

anything can equal the fatuity of the hypothesis that nonentity can bring

forth, or that a thing can produce itself, it is a serious attempt to

refute it. How often, while poring over the works of necessitarians, are

we lost in amazement at the logical mania which seems to have seized them,

and which, in its impetuous efforts to settle and determine everything by

reasoning, leaves reason itself neither time nor opportunity to

contemplate the nature of things themselves, or listen to its own most

authoritative and irreversible mandates.

But lest we should be suspected of doing this great metaphysician

injustice, we must point out the means by which he has so grossly deceived

himself. According to his definition of motive, as the younger Edwards

truly says, it includes every cause and condition of volition. If anything

is merely a condition, without which a volition could not come to pass,

though it exerts no influence, it is called a cause of that volition, and

placed in the definition of motive. And if anything exerts a positive

influence to produce volition, this is also a cause of it, and is included

in the same definition. In short, this definition embraces every

conceivable antecedent on which volition in any manner, either in whole or

in part, either negatively or positively, depends. Thus the most

heterogeneous materials are crowded together under one and the same

term,—the most different ideas under one and the same definition. Is it

possible to conceive of a better method of obscuring a subject than such a

course? When Edwards merely means a condition, why does he not say so? and

when he means a producing cause, why does he not use the right word to

express his meaning? If he had carried on the various processes of his

reasoning with some one clear and distinct idea before his mind, we might

have expected great things from him; but he has not chosen to do so. It is

with the term _cause_ that he operates, against the ambiguities of which

he has not guarded himself or his reader.

“Having thus explained what I mean by cause,” says he, “I assert that

nothing ever comes to pass without a cause.” We have seen his reasoning on

this point. He labours through page after page to establish his very

ambiguous proposition, in a sense in which nobody ever denied it; unless

some one has affirmed that a thing may come into being without any ground

or reason of its existence,—may arise out of nothing and help itself into

existence. Having sufficiently established his fundamental proposition in

this sense, he proceeds to show that every effect and volition in

particular, is necessarily connected with its cause. “It must be

remembered,” says he, “that it has been already shown, that nothing can

ever come to pass without a cause or a reason;”(116) and he then proceeds

to show, that “the acts of the will must be connected with their cause.”

In this part of his argument, he employs his ambiguous proposition in a

different sense from that in which he established it. In the establishment

of it he only insists that there must be some antecedent sufficient to

account for every event; and in the application of it he contends, that

the antecedent or cause must produce the event. These ideas are perfectly

distinct. There could be no act of the mind unless there were a mind to

act, and unless there were a motive in view of which it acts; but it does

not follow that the mind is compelled to act by motive. But let us see how

he comes to this conclusion.

“For an event,” says he, “to have a cause and ground of its existence, and

yet not be connected with its cause, is an inconsistency. For if the event

be not connected with its cause, it is not dependent on the cause: _its

existence is, as it were, loose from its influence, and may attend it or

may not_.”(117) “Dependence on the influence of a cause is the very notion

of an effect.”(118) Again, “to suppose there are some events which have a

cause and ground of their existence, that yet are not necessarily

connected with their cause, is to suppose that they have a cause which is

not their cause. Thus, if the effect be not necessarily connected with the

cause, with its influence and influential circumstances, then, as I

observed before, _it is a thing possible and supposable that the cause may

sometimes exert the same influence under the same circumstances, and yet

the effect not follow_.”(119) He has much other similar reasoning to show

that it is absurd and contradictory to say that motive is the cause of

volition, and yet admit that volition may be loose from the influence of

motive, or that “the cause is not sufficient to produce the effect.”(120)

In all this he uses the term in its most narrow and restricted sense. It

is no longer a mere antecedent or antecedents, which are sufficient to

account for the existence of the phenomena of volition; it is an efficient

cause which produces volitions. Thus he establishes his ambiguous

proposition in one sense, and builds on it in another. He explains the

term _cause_ to signify any antecedent, in order, he tells us, to prevent

objection to his doctrine, when he alleges that nothing ever comes to pass

without some cause of its existence; and yet, when he applies this

fundamental proposition to the construction of his scheme, he returns to

the restricted sense of the word, in which it signifies, “that which has a

positive efficacy or influence to produce a thing.” It is thus that the

great scheme of President Edwards is made up of mere words, having no

intrinsic coherency of parts, and appearing consistent throughout, only

because its disjointed fragments seem to be united, and its huge chasms

concealed by means of the ambiguities of language.

Section III.

The scheme of necessity is supported by false logic.

One reason why the advocates of necessity deceive themselves, as well as

others, is, that there is great want of precision and distinctness in

their views and definitions. We are told by them that the will is always

determined by the strongest motive; that this is invariably the cause of

volition. But what is meant by the term _cause_? We have final causes,

instrumental causes, occasional causes, predisposing causes, efficient

causes, and many others. Now, in which of these senses is the word used,

when we are informed that motive is the cause of volition? On this point

we are not enlightened. Neither Leibnitz nor Edwards is sufficiently

explicit. The proposition, as left by them, is vague and obscure.

Leibnitz inclined to the use of the word _reason_, because he carried on a

controversy with Bayle and Hobbes, who were atheists; though he frequently

speaks of a chain of causes which embrace human volitions.(121) While

Edwards, who opposed the Arminians, generally employs the more rigid term

_cause_; though he, too, frequently represents motive as “the ground and

reason” of volition. The one softens his language, in places, as he

contends with those who had rendered themselves obnoxious to the Christian

world by an advocacy of the doctrine of necessity in connexion with

atheistical sentiments. The other appears to prefer the stronger

expression, as he puts forth his power against antagonists whose views of

liberty were deemed subversive of the tenets of Calvinism. But the law of

causality, as stated by Edwards, and the principle of the sufficient

reason, as defined and employed by Leibnitz, are perfectly identical.

When we are told that motive is the cause of volition, it is evident we

cannot determine whether to deny or to assent to the proposition, unless

we know in what sense the term _cause_ is used. We might discuss this

perplexed question forever, by the use of such vague and indefinite

propositions, without progressing a single step toward the end of the

controversy. We must bring a more searching analysis to the subject, if we

hope to accomplish anything. We must take the word cause or _reason_, in

each of its significations, in order to discover in what particulars the

contending parties agree, and in what particulars they disagree, in order

to see how far each party is right, and how far it is wrong. This is the

only course that promises the least prospect of a satisfactory result.

If we mean by the cause of volition, that which wills or exerts the

volition, there is no controversy; for in this sense the advocates of

necessity admit that the mind is the cause of volition. Thus says Edwards:

“The acts of my will are my own; i. e., they are acts of my will.”(122) It

is universally conceded that it is the mind which wills, and nothing else

in the place of it; and hence, in this sense of the word, there is no

question but that the mind is the cause of volition. But the advocates of

necessity cannot be understood in this sense; for they deny that the mind

is the cause of volition, and insist that it is caused by motive.

The term _cause_ is very often used to designate the condition of a thing,

or that without which it could not happen or come to pass. Thus we are

told by Edwards, that he sometimes uses “the word cause to signify any

_antecedent_” of an event, “whether it has any influence or not,” in the

production of such event.(123) If this be the meaning, when it is said

that motive is the cause of volition, the truth of the proposition is

conceded by the advocates of free-agency. In speaking of arguments and

motives, Dr. Samuel Clarke says: “Occasions indeed there may be, and are,

upon which that substance in man, wherever the self-moving principle

resides, freely exerts its active power.”(124) Herein, then, there is a

perfect agreement between the contending parties. The fact that the mind

requires certain conditions or occasions, on which to exercise its active

power, does not at all interfere with its freedom; and hence the advocates

of free-agency have readily admitted that motives are the occasional

causes of volition. We must look out for some other meaning of the term,

then, if we would clearly and distinctly fix our minds on the point in

controversy.

We say that an antecedent is the cause of its consequent, when the latter

is produced by the action of the former. For example, a motion of the body

is said to be caused by the mind; because it is produced by an act of the

mind. This seems to be what is meant by an “_efficient cause_.” It is, no

doubt, the most proper sense of the word; and around this it is that the

controversy still rages, and has for centuries raged.

The advocates of necessity contend, not only that volition is the effect

of motive, but also that “to be an effect implies _passiveness_, or the

being subject to the power and action of its cause.”(125) Such precisely

is the doctrine of Edwards, and Collins, and Hobbes. In this sense of the

word it is denied that motive is the cause of volition, and it is affirmed

that mind is the cause thereof. Thus, says Dr. Samuel Clarke, in his reply

to Collins, “’Tis the self-moving principle, and not at all the reason or

motive, which is the _physical_ or _efficient_ cause of action;” by which

we understand him to mean volition, as that is the thing in dispute. Now,

when the advocates of free-agency insist that motive is not the efficient

cause of volition, and that mind is the efficient cause thereof, we

suppose them to employ the expression, _efficient cause_, in one and the

same sense in both branches of the proposition. This is the only fair way

of viewing their language; and if they wished to be understood in any

other manner, they should have taken the pains to explain themselves, and

not permit us to be misled by an ambiguity. Here the precise point in

dispute is clearly presented; and let us hear the contending parties,

before we proceed to decide between them.

You are in error, says the necessitarian to his opponents, in denying that

motive, and in affirming that mind, is the efficient cause of volition.

For if an act of the mind, or a volition, is caused by the mind, it must

be produced by a preceding act of the mind, and this act must be produced

by another preceding act of the mind, and so on _ad infinitum_; which

reduces the matter to a plain impossibility. Now, if the necessitarian has

not been deceived by an unwarrantable ambiguity on the part of his

adversary, he has clearly reduced his doctrine to the absurdity of an

infinite series of acts: that is to say, if the advocate of free-agency

does not depart from the ordinary meaning of words, when he affirms that

mind is the _efficient cause_ of volition; and if he does not use these

terms “_efficient cause_,” in different senses in the same sentence, then

we feel bound to say that he is fairly caught in the toils of his

adversary. But we are not yet in condition to pass a final judgment

between the parties.

The necessitarian contends that “volition, or an act of the mind, is the

effect of motive, and that it is subject to the power and action of its

cause.”(126) The advocate of free-will replies, If we must suppose an

action of motive on the mind to account for its act, we must likewise

suppose another action to account for the action of motive; and so on _ad

infinitum_. Thus the necessitarian seems to be fairly caught in his own

toils, and entrapped by his own definition and arguments.

Our decision (for the correctness of which we appeal to the calm and

impartial judgment of the reader) is as follows: If the term _cause_ be

understood in the first or the second sense above mentioned, there is no

disagreement between the contending parties; and if it be understood in

the third sense, then both parties are in error. If, in order to account

for an act of the mind, we suppose it is caused by an action of motive, we

are involved in the absurdity of an infinite series of actions; and on the

other hand, if we suppose it is caused by a preceding act of the mind

itself, we are forced into the same absurdity. Hence, we conclude, that an

act of the mind, or a volition, is not produced by the action of either

mind or motive, but takes its rise in the world without any such efficient

cause of its existence.

Each party has refuted his adversary, and in the enjoyment of his triumph

he seems not to have duly reflected on the destruction of his own

position. Both are in the right, and both are in the wrong; but, as we

shall hereafter see, not equally so. If we adopt the argument of both

sides, in so far as it is true, we shall come to the conclusion that

action must take its rise somewhere in the universe without being caused

by preceding action. And if so, where shall we look for its origin? in

that which by nature is endowed with active power, or in that which is

purely and altogether passive?

We lay it down, then, as an established and fundamental position, that the

mind acts or puts forth its volitions without being efficiently caused to

do so—without being impelled by its own prior action, or by the prior

action of anything else. The conditions or occasions of volition being

supplied, the mind itself acts in view thereof, without being subject to

the power or action of any cause whatever. All rational beings must, as we

have seen, either admit this exemption of the mind in willing from the

power and action of any cause, or else lose themselves in the labyrinth of

an infinite series of causes. It is this exemption which constitutes the

freedom of the human soul.

We are now prepared to see, in a clear light, the sophistical nature of

the pretended demonstration of the scheme of necessity. “It is impossible

to consider occurrences,” says Sir James Mackintosh, otherwise than as

bound together in “_the relation of cause and effect_.” Now this relation,

if we interpret it according to the nature of things, and not according to

the sound of words, is not one, but two.

The motions of the body are caused by the mind, that is, they are produced

by the action of the mind; this constitutes one relation: but acts of the

mind are caused, that is, they are produced by the action of nothing; and

this is a quite different relation. In other words, the motions of body

are produced by preceding action, and the acts of the mind are not

produced by preceding action. Hence, the first are necessitated, and the

last are free: the first come under “the relation of cause and effect,”

and the last come under a very different relation. The relation of cause

and effect connects the most remote consequences of volition with volition

itself; but when we reach volition there a new relation arises: it is the

relation which subsists between an agent and its act. We may trace changes

in the external world up to the volitions or acts of mind, and perceive no

diversity in the chain of dependencies; but precisely at this point the

chain of cause and effect ceases, and agency begins. The surrounding

circumstances may be conditions, may be occasional causes, may be

predisposing causes, but they are not, and cannot be, producing or

efficient causes. Here, then, the iron chain terminates, and freedom

commences. In the ambiguity which fails to distinguish between “the

relation of cause and effect,” and the relation which volition bears to

its antecedents, “consists the strength of the necessitarian system.” Let

this distinction be clearly made and firmly borne in mind, and the great

boasted adamantine scheme of necessity will resolve itself into an empty,

ineffectual sound.

Hence, if we would place the doctrine of liberty upon solid grounds, it

becomes necessary to modify the categories of M. Cousin. All things, says

he, fall under the one or the other of the two following relations: the

relation between subject and attribute, or the relation between cause and

effect. This last category, we think, should be subdivided, so as to give

two relations; one between cause and effect, properly so called, and the

other between agent and action. Until this be done, it will be impossible

to extricate the phenomena of the will from the mechanism of cause and

effect.

We think we might here leave the stupendous sophism of the necessitarian;

but as it has exerted so wonderful an influence over the human mind, and

obscured, for ages, the glory of the moral government of God, we may well

be permitted to pursue it further, and to continue the pursuit so long as

a fragment or a shadow of it remains to be demolished.

Section IV.

The scheme of necessity is fortified by false conceptions.

One of the notions to which the cause of necessity owes much of its

strength, is a false conception of liberty, as consisting in “a power over

the determinations of the will.” Hence it is said that this power over the

will can do nothing, can cause no determination except by acting to

produce it. But according to this notion of liberty, this causative act

cannot be free unless it be also caused by a preceding act; and so on _ad

infinitum_. Such is one of the favourite arguments of the necessitarian.

But in truth the freedom of the mind does not consist in its possessing a

power over the determinations of its own will, for the true notion of

freedom is a negative idea, and consists in the absence of every power

over the determinations of the will. The mind is free because it possesses

a power of acting, over which there is no controlling power, either within

or without itself.

It must be admitted, it seems to us, that the advocates of free-agency

have too often sanctioned this false conception of liberty, and thereby

strengthened the cause of their opponents. Cudworth, Clark, Stuart,

Coleridge, and Reid, all speak of this supposed power of the mind over the

determinations of the will, as that which constitutes its freedom. Thus

says Reid, for example: “By the liberty of a moral agent, I understand a

power over the determinations of his own will.” Now, it is not at all

strange that this language should be conceived by necessitarians in such a

manner as to involve the doctrine of liberty in the absurd consequence of

an infinite series of acts, since it is so understood by some of the most

enlightened advocates of free-agency themselves. “A power over the

determinations of our will,” says Sir William Hamilton, “supposes an act

of the will that our will should determine so and so; for we can only

exert power through a rational determination or volition. _This definition

of liberty is right._ But the question upon question remains, (and this

_ad infinitum_)—have we a power (a will) over such anterior will? and

until this question be definitively answered, which it never can, we must

be _unable to conceive the possibility of the fact of liberty_. But,

though inconceivable, this fact is not therefore false.” True, we are

unable to conceive the possibility of the fact of liberty, if this must be

conceived as consisting in a power over the determinations of the will;

but, in our humble opinion, this definition of liberty is not right. It

seems more correct to say, that the freedom of the will consists in the

absence of a power over its determinations, than in the presence of such a

power.

There is another false conception which has given great apparent force to

the cause of necessity. It is supposed that the states of the will, the

volitions, are often necessitated by the necessitated states of the

sensibility. In other words, it is supposed that the appetites, passions,

and desires, often act upon the will, and produce its volitions. But this

seems to be a very great mistake, which has arisen from viewing the subtle

operations of the mind through the medium of those mechanical forms of

thought that have been derived from the contemplation of the phenomena of

the material world. In truth, the feelings do not act at all, and

consequently they cannot act upon the will. It is absurd, as Locke and

Edwards well say, to ascribe power, which belongs to the agent himself, to

the properties of an agent. Hence, it is absurd to suppose that our

feelings, appetites, desires, and passions, are endowed with power, and

can act. They are not agents—they are merely the properties of an agent.

It is the mind itself which acts, and not its passions. These are but

passive impressions made upon the sensibility; and hence, “it is to

philosophize very crudely concerning mind, and to image everything in a

corporeal manner,” to conceive that they act upon the will and control its

determinations, just as the motions of body are caused and controlled by

the action of mind.(127)

This conception, however, is not peculiar to the necessitarian. It has

been most unfortunately sanctioned by the greatest advocates of

free-agency. Thus says Dr. Reid, in relation to the appetites and

passions: “Such motives are not addressed to the rational powers. Their

influence is _immediately_ upon the will.” “When a man is acted upon by

contrary motives of this kind, he finds it easy to yield to the strongest.

_They are like two forces pushing him in contrary directions. To yield to

the strongest he needs only be passive._” If this be so, how can Dr. Reid

maintain, as he does, that “the determination was made by the _man_, and

not by the motive?” To this assertion Sir William Hamilton replies: “But

was the _man_ determined by no motive to that determination? Was his

specific volition to this or to that without a cause? On the supposition

that the sum of the influences (motives, dispositions, tendencies) to

volition A is equal to 12, and the sum of counter volition B, equal to

8—can we conceive that the determination of volition A should not be

necessary? We can only conceive the volition B to be determined by

supposing that the man _creates_ (calls from nonexistence into existence)

a certain supplement of influences. But this creation as actual, or in

itself, is inconceivable; and even to conceive the possibility of this

inconceivable act, we must suppose some cause by which the man is

determined to exert it. We thus _in thought_, never escape determination

and necessity. It will be observed that I do not consider this inability

to notion any disproof of the fact of free-will.”

It is true, that if we suppose, according to the doctrine of Sir William

and Dr. Reid, that two counter influences act upon the will, the one being

as 12 and the other as 8, then the first must necessarily prevail. But if

this supposition be correct, we are not only unable to conceive the fact

of liberty, we are also able to conceive that it cannot be a fact at all.

There is a great difference, we have been accustomed to believe, between

being unable to conceive how a thing is, and being able to conceive that

it cannot be anyhow at all: the first would leave it a mere mystery,—the

last would show it to be an absurdity. In the one case, the thing would be

above reason, and in the other, contrary to reason. Now, to which of these

categories does the fact of liberty, as left by Sir William Hamilton,

belong? Is it a mystery, or is it an absurdity? Is it an inconceivable

fact, or is it a conceived impossibility? It seems to us that it is the

latter; and that if we will only take the pains to view the phenomena of

mind as they exist in consciousness, and not through the medium of

material analogies, we shall be able to untie the knot which Sir William

Hamilton has found it necessary to cut.

The doctrine of liberty, if properly viewed, is perfectly conceivable. We

can certainly conceive that the omnipotence of God can put forth an act

without being impelled thereto by a power back of his own; and to suppose

otherwise, is to suppose a power greater than God’s, and upon which the

exercise of his omnipotence depends. By parity of reason, we should be

compelled to suppose another power still back of that, and so on _ad

infinitum_. This is not only absurd, but, as Calvin truly says, it is

impious. Here, then, we have upon the throne of the universe a clear and

unequivocal instance of a self-active power,—a power whose goings forth

are not impelled by any power without itself. It goes forth, it is true,

in the light of the Eternal Reason, and in pursuit of the ends of the

Eternal Goodness; but yet in itself it possesses an infinite fulness,

being self-sustained, self-active, and wholly independent of all other

powers and influences whatsoever.

Now, if such a Being should create at all, it is not difficult to conceive

that he would create subordinate agents, bearing his own image in this,

namely, the possession of a self-active power. It is not difficult to

conceive that he should produce spiritual beings like himself, who can act

without being necessitated to act, like the inanimate portions of

creation, as well as those of an inferior nature. Nor is it more difficult

to conceive that man, in point of fact, possesses such a limited

self-active power, than it is to conceive that God possesses an infinite

self-active power. Indeed we must and do conceive this, or else we should

have no type or representative in this lower part of the world, by and

through which to rise to a contemplation of its universal Lord and

Sovereign. We should have a temple without a symbol, and a universe

without a God. But God has not thus left himself without witness; for he

has raised man above the dust of the earth in this, that he is endowed

with a self-active power, from whence, as from an humble platform, he may

rise to the sublime contemplation of the Universal Mover of the heavens

and the earth. But for this ray of light, shed abroad in our hearts by the

creative energy of God, the nature of the divine power itself would be

unknown to us, and its eternal, immutable glories shrouded in impenetrable

darkness. The idea of an omnipotent power, moving in and of itself in

obedience to the dictates of infinite wisdom and goodness, would be

forever merged and lost in the dark scheme of an implexed series and

concatenation of causes, binding all things fast, God himself not

excepted, in the iron bonds of fate.

If liberty be a _fact_, as Sir William Hamilton contends it is, then no

such objections can be urged against it as those in which he supposes it

to be involved. We are aware of what may be said in favour of such a mode

of viewing subjects of this kind, as well as of the nature of the

principles from which it takes its rise. But we cannot consider those

principles altogether sound. They appear to be too sceptical, with respect

to the powers of the human mind, and the destiny of human knowledge. The

sentiment of Leibnitz seems to rest upon a more solid foundation. “It is

necessary to come,” says he, “to the grand question which M. Bayle has

recently brought upon the carpet, to wit, whether a truth, and especially

a truth of faith, can be subject to unanswerable objections. That

excellent author seems boldly to maintain the affirmative of this

question: he cites grave theologians on his side, and even those of Rome,

who appear to say what he pretends; and he adduces philosophers who have

believed _that there are even philosophical truths, the defenders of which

cannot reply to objections made against them_.” “For my part,” says

Leibnitz, “I avow that I cannot be of the sentiment of those who maintain

that a truth can be liable to invincible objections; for what is an

_objection_ but an argument of which the conclusion contradicts our

thesis? and is not an invincible argument a demonstration?” “It is always

necessary to yield to demonstrations, whether they are proposed for our

adoption, or advanced in the form of objections. And it is unjust and

useless to wish to weaken the proofs of adversaries, under the pretext

that they are only objections; since the adversary has the same right, and

can reverse the denominations, by honouring his arguments with the name of

_proofs_, and lowering yours by the disparaging name of objections.”(128)

There is another false conception, by which the necessitarian fortifies

himself in his opposition to the freedom of the will. As he identifies the

sensibility and the will, so when the indifference of the latter is spoken

of, the language is understood to mean that the mind is indifferent, and

destitute of all feeling or emotion. But this is to view the doctrine of

liberty, not as it is held by its advocates, but as it is seen through the

medium of a false psychology. We might adduce a hundred examples of the

truth of this remark, but one or two must suffice. Thus, Collins supposes

that the doctrine of liberty implies, that the mind is “indifferent to

good and evil;” “indifferent to what causes _pleasure_ or _pain_;”

“indifferent to all objects, and swayed by no motives.” Gross as this

misrepresentation of the doctrine of free-agency is, it is frequently made

by its opponents. It occurs repeatedly in the writings of President

Edwards and President Day.(129) The freedom of the _will_, indeed, no more

implies an indifference of the _sensibility_ than the power of a bird to

fly implies the existence of a vacuum.

Section V.

The scheme of necessity is recommended by false analogies.

It is insisted that there is no difficulty in conceiving of a caused

action or volition; but this position is illustrated by false and

deceptive analogies. Thus says an advocate of necessity: “The term passive

is sometimes employed to express the relation of an effect to its cause.

In this sense, it is so far from being inconsistent with activity, that

activity may be the very effect which is produced. A cannonshot is said to

be passive, with respect to the charge of powder which impels it. But is

there no activity given to the ball? Is not the whirlwind active when it

tears up the forest?”(130) Not at all, in any sense pertaining to the

present controversy. The tremendous power, whatever it may be, which sets

the whirlwind in motion, is active; the wind itself is perfectly passive.

The air is acted on, and it merely _suffers_ a change of place. If it

tears up the forest, this is not because it exercises an active power, but

because it is body coming into contact with body, and both cannot occupy

the same space at one and the same time. It tears up the forest, not as an

agent, but as an instrument.

The same is true of the cannonball. This does not _act_; it merely

_moves_. It does not put forth a volition, or an exercise of power; it

merely suffers a change of place. In one word, there is no sort of

resemblance between an act of mind and the motion of body. This has no

active power, and cannot be made to act: it is passive, however, and may

be made to move. If the question were, Can a body be made to move? these

illustrations would be in point; but as it relates to the possibility of

causing the mind to put forth a volition, they are clearly irrelevant. And

if they were really apposite, they would only show that the mind may be

caused to act like a cannonball, a whirlwind, a clock, or any other piece

of machinery. This is the only kind of _action_ they serve to prove may be

caused; and such action, as it is called, has far more to do with

machinery than with human agency.

President Edwards also has recourse to false analogies. To select only one

instance: “It is no more a contradiction,” says he, “to suppose that

action may be the effect of some other cause besides the agent, or being

that acts, than to suppose that life may be the effect of some other cause

besides the being that lives.”(131) Now, as we are wholly passive in the

reception of life, so it may be wholly conferred upon us by the power and

agency of God. The very reason why we suppose an act cannot be caused is,

that it is a voluntary exercise of our own minds; whereas, if it were

caused, it would be a necessitated passive impression. How can it show the

fallacy of this position, to refer to the case of a caused life, in regard

to which, by universal consent, we do not and cannot act at all?

The younger Edwards asserts, that “to say that an agent that is acted upon

cannot act, is as groundless as to say that a body acted upon cannot

move.” Again: “My actions are _mine_; but in what sense can they be

properly called mine, if I be not the efficient cause of them?—Answer: my

thoughts and all my perceptions and feelings are _mine_; yet it will not

be pretended that I am the efficient cause of them.”(132) But in regard to

all our thoughts and feelings, we are, as we have seen, altogether

passive; and these are ours, because they are necessarily produced _in

us_. Is it only in this sense that our acts are ours? Are they ours only

because they are necessarily caused to exist in our minds? If so, then

indeed we understand these writers; but if they are not merely passive

impressions, why resort to states of the intelligence and the sensibility,

which are conceded to be passive, in order to illustrate the

reasonableness of their scheme, and to expose the unreasonableness of the

opposite doctrine? We admit that every passive impression is caused; but

the question is, Can the mind be caused to act? As we lay all the stress

on the _nature of an act_, as seen in the light of consciousness, what

does it signify to tell us that another thing, which possesses no such

nature, may be efficiently caused? All such illustrations overlook the

essential difference between action and passion, between _doing_ and

_suffering_.

Section VI.

The scheme of necessity is rendered plausible by a false phraseology.

The false psychology, of which we have spoken, has been greatly

strengthened and confirmed in its influences by the phraseology connected

with it. As Mr. Locke distinguished between will and desire, partially at

least, so he likewise distinguished a preference of the mind from a

volition. But President Edwards is not satisfied with this distinction.

“_The instance he mentions_,” says Edwards, “does not prove there is

anything else in _willing_ but merely preferring.”(133) This may be very

true; but is there nothing in willing, in _acting_, but merely

_preferring_? This last term, however it may be applied, seems better

adapted to express a state of the intelligence, than an act of the will.

Two objects are placed before the mind: one affects the sensibility in a

more agreeable manner than the other, and therefore the intelligence

pronounces that one is more to be desired than the other. This seems to be

precisely what is meant by the use of the term preference. One prefers an

orange to an apple, for instance, because the orange affects his

sensibility more agreeably than the apple; and the intelligence perceiving

this state of the sensibility, declares in favour of the orange. This

decision of the judgment is what is usually meant by the use of the term

preference, or choice. To prefer, is merely to judge, in view of desire,

which of two objects is more agreeable. But judging and desiring are, as

we have seen, both necessitated states of the mind. Why, then, apply the

term preference, or choice, to acts of the will? Why apply a term, which

seems to express merely a state of the intelligence, which all concede is

necessitated, to an act of the will? Is it not evident, that by such a use

of language the cause of necessity gains great apparent strength?

There is another way in which the language of the necessitarian deceives.

The language he employs often represents the facts of nature, but not

facts as they would be, if his system were true. Hence, when this system

is attacked, its advocates repel the attack by the use of words which

truly represent nature, but not their errors. This gives great

plausibility to their apologies. Thus, when it is objected that the scheme

of necessity “makes men no more than mere machines,” they are always ready

to reply, “that notwithstanding this doctrine, man is entirely, perfectly,

and unspeakably different from a machine.” But how? Is it because his

volitions, as they are called, are not necessarily determined by causes?

No. Is it because his will may be loose from the influence of motives? No.

Is it because he may follow the strongest motive, or may not follow it?

No. Nothing of the kind is hinted. How does the man, then, differ so

entirely from a machine? Why, “in that he has reason and understanding,

with a faculty of will, and so is capable of volition and choice.” True, a

machine has no reason or understanding; but suppose it had, would it be a

person? By no means. We have seen that the understanding, or the

intelligence, is necessarily determined; all its states are necessitated

as completely as the movements of a machine. This constitutes an essential

likeness, and it is what is always meant, when it is said that necessity

makes men mere machines. But it seems that man also has “a faculty of

will, and so is capable of volition or choice.”(134) Yes, he can _act_.

Now this language means something according to the system of nature; but

what does it mean according to the system of necessity? It merely means

that the human mind is susceptible of being necessitated to undergo a

change by the “power and action of a cause,” which the advocates of that

system are pleased to call an act. They never hint that we are not

machines, because we have any power by which we are exempt from the most

absolute dominion of causes. They never hint that we are not machines,

because our volitions, or acts, are not as necessarily produced in us, as

the motions of a clock are produced in it. Now, if this scheme were true,

there would be no such things as acts or volitions in us: all the

phenomena of our minds would be passive impressions, like our judgments

and feelings. When they speak of the will, then, which is capable of

volitions, or acts, they deceive by using the language of nature, and not

of their false scheme.

Section VII.

The scheme of necessity originates in a false method, and terminates in a

false religion.

This system, as we have seen, has been built up, not by an analysis of the

phenomena of the human mind, but by means of universal abstractions and

truisms. It takes its rise, not from the facts of nature, but from the

conceptions of the intellect. In other words, instead of anatomizing the

world which God has made so as to exhibit the actual plan according to

which it has been constituted, it sets out from certain identical

propositions, such as that every effect must have a cause, and proceeds to

inform us how the world _must_ have been constituted. This “usual method

of discovery and proof,” as Bacon says, “by first establishing the most

general propositions, then applying and proving the intermediate axioms

according to these, is the parent of error and the calamity of every

science.” Nowhere, it is believed, can a more striking illustration of the

truth of these pregnant words be found, than in the method adopted by

necessitarians. They begin with the universal proposition, that every

effect must have a cause, as a self-evident truth, and then proceed, not

to examine and discover how the world is made, but to demonstrate how it

_must_ have been constructed. This is not to “interpret,” it is to

“anticipate” nature.

By this high _a priori_ method the freedom of the human mind is

demonstrated, as we have seen, to be an impossibility, and the

accountability of man a dream. Man is not responsible for sin, or rather,

there is no such thing as moral good and evil in the lower world; since

God, the only efficient fountain of all things and events, is the sole

responsible author of all evil as well as of all good. Such, as we have

seen, are the inevitable logical consequences of this boasted scheme of

necessity.

But we have clearly shown, we trust, that the grand demonstration of the

necessitarian is a sophism, whose apparent force is owing to a variety of

causes:—First, it seeks out, and lays its foundation in, a false

psychology; identifying the feelings, or affections, and the will.

Secondly, by viewing the opposite scheme through the medium of this false

psychology, it reduces its main position to the pitiful absurdity that a

thing may produce itself, or arise out of nothing, and bring itself into

existence; and then demolishes this absurdity by logic! Thirdly, it

reduces itself to the truism, that a thing is always as it is; and being

entrenched in this stronghold, it gathers around itself all the common

sense and all the reason of mankind, as well it may, and looks down with

sovereign contempt on the feeble attacks of its adversaries. Fourthly, it

fortifies itself by a multitude of false conceptions, arising from a hasty

application of its universal truism, and not from a severe inspection and

analysis of things. Fifthly, it decorates itself in false analogies, and

thereby assumes the imposing appearance of truth. Sixthly, it clothes

itself in deceptive and ambiguous phraseology, by which it speaks the

language of truth to the ear, but not to the sense. And, seventhly, it

takes its rise in a false method, and terminates in a false religion.

These are some of the hidden mysteries of the scheme of necessity; which

having been detected and exposed, we do not hesitate to pronounce it a

grand imposition on the reason of mankind. As such, we set aside this

stupendous sophism, whose dark shadow has so long rested on the beauty of

the world, obscuring the intrinsic majesty and glory of the infinite

goodness therein displayed. We put away and repudiate this vast assemblage

of errors, which has so sadly perplexed our mental vision, and so

frightfully distorted the real proportions of the world, as to lead

philosophers, such as Kant and others, to pronounce a Theodicy impossible.

We put them aside utterly, in order that we may proceed to vindicate the

glory of God, as manifested in the constitution and government of the

moral world.

Chapter V.

The Relation Between The Human Will And The Divine Agency.

Thou art the source and centre of all minds,

Their only point of rest, eternal Word!

From Thee departing, they are lost and rove

At random, without honour, hope, or peace.

From Thee is all that soothes the life of man,—

His high endeavour and his glad success,

His strength to suffer and his will to serve.—COWPER.

And God proclaim’d from heaven, and by an oath

Confirm’d, that each should answer for himself;

And as his own peculiar work should be

Done by his proper self, should live or die.—POLLOK.

The evils of haste and precipitancy in the formation of opinions are,

perhaps, nowhere more deplorably exhibited, than in regard to the relation

between human and divine agency. Indeed, so many rash judgments have been

put forth on this important subject, that the very act of approaching it

has come to be invested, in the minds of many persons, with the character

of rashness and presumption. Hence the frequent warnings to turn our

attention from it, as a subject lying beyond the range of all sober

speculation, and as unsuited to the investigation of our finite minds. If

this be a wise conclusion, it would be well to leave it to support itself,

instead of attempting to bolster it up with the reasons frequently given

for it.

Section I.

General view of the relation between the divine and the human power.

It is frequently said, for example, that it is impossible to reconcile the

agency of God with that of man; because we do not know how the divine

power operates upon the human mind. But, if we examine the subject

closely, we shall find that the manner in which the Spirit of God

operates, is not what we want to know, in order to remove the great

difficulty in question. If such knowledge were possessed in the greatest

possible perfection, we have no reason to believe that our insight into

the relation between the human and the divine power would be at all

improved. For aught we can see, our notions on this point would remain as

dim and feeble as if we possessed no such knowledge. If we could

ascertain, however, precisely what is done by the power of man, then we

should see whether there be any real inconsistency or conflict between

them or not. This is the point on which we need to be enlightened, in

order to clear up the difficulty in question; and on this point the most

satisfactory light may be attained. If we must wait to understand the

_modus operandi_ of the divine Spirit, before we can dispel the clouds and

darkness which his influence casts over the free-agency of man, then must

we indeed defer this great mystery to another state of being, and perhaps

forever. Those who have looked in this direction for light, may well

deplore our inability to see it. But let us look in the right direction:

let us consider, not the _modus operandi_ of the divine power, but the

effects produced by it, and then, perhaps, we may behold the beautiful

harmony subsisting between the agency of God and the freedom of man.

The reason why the views of most persons concerning this relation are so

vague and indistinct is, that they do not possess a sufficiently clear and

perfect analysis of the human mind. The powers and susceptibilities of the

mind, as well as the laws which govern its phenomena, seem blended

together in their minds in one confused mass; and hence the relations they

bear to each other, and to the divine agency, are as dim and fluctuating

as an ill-remembered dream. In this confusion of laws and phenomena, of

powers and susceptibilities, of facts and fancies, it is no wonder that so

many crude conceptions and vague hypotheses have sprung up and prevailed

concerning the great difficulty under consideration. In the dim twilight

of mental science, which has shown all things distorted and nothing in its

true proportions, it is no wonder that the beautiful order and perspective

of the moral world should have been concealed from our eyes. It was to

have been expected, that every attempt to delineate this order, would,

under such circumstances, prove premature, and aggravate rather than

lessen the apparent disorders prevailing in the spiritual world.

Accordingly, such attempts generally terminate, either in the denial of

the free-agency of man, or of the sovereignty of God; and those who have

maintained both of these tenets in reality, as well as in name, have

usually refused to allow themselves to be troubled by the apparent

contradictions in which they are involved. While they recognise the two

spheres of the human and of the divine agency, they have left them so

shadowy and indistinct, and so distorted from their real proportions, that

they have inevitably seemed to clash with each other. Hence, to describe

these two spheres with clearness and precision, and to determine the

precise point at which they come into contact without intersecting each

other, is still a desideratum in the science of theology. We shall

endeavour to define the human power and the divine sovereignty, and to

exhibit the harmony subsisting between them, in such a manner as to

supply, in some small degree at least, this great _desideratum_ which has

so long been the reproach of the most sublime of all the sciences.

But this is not to be done by planting ourselves upon any one particular

platform, and dogmatizing from thence, as if that particular point of view

necessarily presented us with every possible phase of the truth. There has

been, indeed, so much of this one-sided, exclusive, and dogmatizing spirit

manifested in relation to the subject in question, as to give a great

appearance of truth to the assertion of an ingenious writer, that inasmuch

as different minds contemplate the divine and human agency from different

points of view, the predominant or leading idea presented to them can

never be the same; and hence they can never agree in the same

representation of the complex whole. The one, says he, “necessarily gives

a greater prominence to the divine agency, and the other to the scope and

influence of the human will, and consequently they pronounce different

judgments; just as a man who views a spherical surface from the inside

will forever affirm it to be concave, while he who contemplates it from

the outside will as obstinately assert that it is convex.” But although

this has been the usual method of treating the subject in question, such

weakness and dogmatizing is self-imposed, and not an inevitable condition

of the human mind. We may learn wisdom from the errors of the past, no

less than from its most triumphant and glorious discoveries.

In the discussion of this subject, it is true that opposite parties have

confined themselves to first appearances too much, and rested on one-sided

views. But are we necessarily tied down to such inadequate conceptions?

The causes which separate men in opinion, and the obstacles which keep

them asunder, are indeed powerful; but we hope they do not form an eternal

barrier between the wise and good. In regard to doctrines so fundamental

and so vital as the divine sovereignty and human freedom, it is to be

hoped that all good men will some day unite, and perfectly harmonize with

each other.

As we are rational beings, so we are not tied down to that appearance of

things which is presented to one particular point of view. If this were

the case, the science of astronomy would never have had an existence. Even

the phenomena of that noble science are almost inconceivably different

from those presented to the mind of man at his particular point of view.

From the small shining objects which are brought to our knowledge by the

sense of sight, the reason rises to the true dimensions of those

tremendous worlds. And after the human mind has thus furnished itself with

the facts of the solar system, it has proceeded but a small way toward a

knowledge of the system itself. It has also to deduce the laws of the

material world from its first appearances, and, armed with these, it must

transport itself from the earth to the true centre of the system, from

which its wonderful order and beauty may be contemplated, and revealed to

the world. Then these innumerable twinkling points of light, which sparkle

in the heavens like so many atoms, become to the eye of reason the

stupendous suns and centres of other worlds and systems.

If we should judge from first appearances, indeed, if we could not

emancipate ourselves from phenomena as they are exhibited to us from one

particular point of view, then should we never escape the conclusion, that

the earth is the fixed centre of the universe, around which its countless

myriads of worlds perform their eternal revolutions. But, fortunately, we

are subject to no such miserable bondage. The mind of man has already

raised itself from the planet to which his body is confined, and, planting

itself on the true centre of the system, has beheld the sublime scheme

planned by the infinite reason, and executed by the almighty power of the

Divine Architect. Surely the mind which can do, and has done, all this,

has the capacity to understand, place it where you will, that although the

inside of a sphere is concave, the outside may be convex; as well as some

other things which may perhaps have been placed beyond its power, without

due consideration. But in every attempt to emancipate ourselves from first

appearances, and to reach a knowledge of the truth, “not as reflected

under a single angle,” but as seen in all its fulness and beauty, it is

indispensable to contemplate it on all sides, and to mark the precise

boundaries of all its phases.

Hence we shall not plant ourselves on the fact of man’s power alone, and,

viewing the subject exclusively from thence, enlarge the sphere of human

agency to such an extent as to shut the divine agency quite out of the

intellectual and moral world. Nor, on the other hand, shall we permit

ourselves to become so completely absorbed in the contemplation of the

majesty of God, to dwell so warmly on his infinite sovereignty and the

littleness of man, as to cause the sphere of human power to dwindle down

to a mere point, and entirely disappear. We shall endeavour to find the

true medium between these two extreme opinions. That such a medium exists

_somewhere_, will not be denied by many persons. The only question will

be, as to where and how the line should be drawn to strike out this

medium. In most systems of theology, this line is not drawn at all, but

left completely in the dark. We are shown some things on both sides of

this line, but we are not shown the line itself. We are made to see, for

example, the fact of human existence as something distinct from God, that

we may not err with Spinoza, in reducing man to a mere fugitive mode of

the Divine Being, to a mere shadow and a dream. And on the other side, we

are made to contemplate the omnipotence of God, that we may not call in

question his sovereignty and dominion over the moral world. But between

these two positions, on which the light of truth has thus been made to

fall, there is a tract of dark and unexplored territory, a _terra

incognita_, which remains to be completely surveyed and delineated, before

we can see the beauty of the whole scene. In the attempt to map out this

region, to define the precise boundary of that _imperium in imperio_, of

which Spinoza and others entertained so great a horror, we should

endeavour to follow the wise maxim of Bacon, “to despise nothing, and to

admire nothing.”

In other words, we should endeavour to “prove all things, and to hold fast

that which is good,” without yielding a blind veneration to received

dogmas, or a blind admiration to the seductive charms of novelty. Hence,

we shall first stand on the same platform with Pelagius, and endeavour to

view the subject with his eyes; to see all that he saw, as well as to

correct the errors of his observation. And having done this, we shall then

transport ourselves to the platform of Augustine, and contemplate the

subject from his point of view, so as to possess ourselves of his great

truths, and also to correct the errors of his observation. Having finished

these processes, it will not be found difficult to combine the truths of

these two conflicting schemes in a complete and harmonious system, which

shall exhibit both the human and the divine elements of religion in their

true proportions and just relations to each other.

Section II.

The Pelagian platform, or view of the relation between the divine and the

human power.

The doctrine of Pelagius was developed from his own personal experience,

and moulded, in a great measure, by his opposition to the scheme of

Augustine. According to the historian, Neander, as well as to the

testimony of Augustine himself, the life of Pelagius was, from beginning

to end, one “earnest moral effort.” As his character was gradually formed

by his own continued and unremitted exertions, without any sudden or

violent revolution in his views or feelings, so the great fact of human

agency presented itself to his individual consciousness with unclouded

lustre. This fact was the great central position from which his whole

scheme developed itself. And, as the history of his opinion shows, he was

led to give a still greater predominance to this fact, in consequence of

his opposition to the system of Augustine, by which it seemed to him to be

subverted, and the interests of morality threatened.

The great fact of free-will, of whose existence he was so well assured by

his own consciousness, was so imperfectly interpreted by him, that he was

led to exclude other great facts from his system, which might have been

perfectly harmonized with his central position. Thus, as Neander well

says, he denied the operation of the divine power in the renovation of the

soul,(135) because he could not reconcile its influence with the

free-agency of man. This was the weak point in the philosophy of Pelagius,

as it has been in the system of thousands who have lived since his time.

To reject the one of two facts, both of which rest upon clear and

unequivocal evidence, is an error which has been condemned by Butler and

Burlamaqui, as well as by many other celebrated philosophers. But this

error, so far as we know, has been by no one more finely reproved than by

Professor Hodge, of Princeton. “If the evidence of the constant revolution

of the earth round its axis,” says he, “were presented to a man, it would

certainly be unreasonable in him to deny the fact, merely because he could

not reconcile it with the stability of everything on the earth’s surface.

Or if he saw two rays of light made to produce darkness, must he resist

the evidence of his senses, because he knows that two candles give more

light than one? Men do not act thus irrationally in physical

investigations. They let each fact stand upon its own evidence. They

strive to reconcile them, and are happy when they succeed. But they do not

get rid of difficulties by denying facts.

“If in the department of physical knowledge we are obliged to act upon the

principle of receiving every fact upon its own evidence, even when unable

to reconcile one with another, it is not wonderful that this necessity

should be imposed upon us in those departments of knowledge which are less

within the limits of our powers. It is certainly irrational for a man to

reject all the evidence of the spirituality of the soul, because he cannot

reconcile this doctrine with the fact that a disease of the body disorders

the mind. Must I do violence to my nature in denying the proof of design

afforded by the human body, because I cannot account for the occasional

occurrence of deformities of structure? Must I harden my heart against all

the evidence of the benevolence of God, which streams upon me in a flood

of light from all his works, because I may not know how to reconcile that

benevolence with the existence of evil? Must I deny my free-agency, the

most intimate of all convictions, because I cannot see the consistency

between the freeness of an act and the frequency of its occurrence? May I

deny that I am a moral being, the very glory of my nature, because I

cannot change my character at will?”(136)

If this judicious sentiment had been observed by speculatists, it had been

well for philosophy, and still better for religion. The heresy of

Pelagius, and the countless forms of kindred errors, would not have

infested human thought. But this sentiment, however just in itself, or

however elegantly expressed, should not be permitted to inspire our minds

with a feeling of despair. It should teach us caution, but not

despondency; it should extinguish presumption, but not hope. For if “we

strive to reconcile the facts” of the natural world, “and are happy when

we succeed,” how much more solicitous should we be to succeed in such an

attempt to shut up and seal the very fountains of religious error?

Nothing is more wonderful to my mind, than that Pelagius should have such

followers as Reimarus and Lessing, not to mention hundreds of others, who

deny the _possibility_ of a divine influence, because it seems to them to

conflict with the intellectual and moral nature of man.(137) To assert, as

these philosophers do, that the power of God cannot act upon the human

mind without infringing upon its freedom, betrays, as we venture to

affirm, a profound and astonishing ignorance of the whole doctrine of

free-agency. It proceeds on the amazing supposition that the will is the

only power of the human mind, and that volitions are the only phenomena

ever manifested therein; so that God cannot act upon it at all, unless it

be to produce volitions. But is it true, that God must do all things

within us, or he can do nothing? that if he produce a change in our mental

state, then he must produce all conceivable changes therein? In order to

refute so rash a conclusion, and explode the wild supposition on which it

is based, it will be necessary to recur to the threefold distinction of

the intelligence, the sensibility, and the will, already referred to.

In the perception of truth, as we have seen, the intelligence is perfectly

passive. Every state of the intelligence is as completely necessitated as

is the affirmation that two and two are equal to four. The decisions of

the intelligence, then, are not free acts; indeed, they are not acts at

all, in the proper sense of the word. They are passive states of the

intellect. They are usually called acts, it is true; and this use of

language is, no doubt, one of the causes which has given rise to so many

errors and delusions in regard to moral and accountable agency. With every

decision or state of the intelligence, with every perception of truth by

it, there is intimately associated, it is true, an act of the mind, a

state of the will, a volition, by which the attention is directed to the

subject under consideration; and it is this intimate association in which

the two states or mental phenomena seem blended into one, which has led so

many to regard the passive susceptibility, called the intelligence, as an

active power, and its states as free acts of the mind. A more correct

analysis, a finer discrimination of the real facts of consciousness, must

prevail on this subject, before light can be let in upon the philosophy of

free and accountable agency. The dividing knife must be struck between the

two _phenomena_ in question, between an active state of the will and the

passive states of the intelligence, and the obstinate association be

severed in our imagination, before the truth can be seen otherwise than

through distorting films of error.

As every state of the intelligence is necessitated, so God may act upon

this department of our mental frame without infringing upon the nature of

man in the slightest possible degree. As the law of necessity is the law

of the intelligence, so God may absolutely necessitate its states, by the

presentation of truth, or by his direct and irresistible agency in

connexion with the truth, without doing violence to the laws of our

intellectual and moral nature. Nay, in so acting, he proceeds in perfect

conformity with those laws. Hence, no matter how deep a human soul may be

sunk in ignorance and stupidity, God may flash the light of truth into it,

in perfect accordance with the laws of its nature. And, as has been well

said, “The first effect of the divine power in the new, as in the old

creation, is light.”

This is not all. Every state of the sensibility is a passive impression, a

necessitated phenomenon of the human mind. No matter what fact, or what

truth, may be present to the mind, either by its own voluntary attention

or by the agency of God, or by the coöperation of both, the impression it

makes upon the sensibility is beyond the control of the will, except by

refusing to give the attention of the mind to it. Hence, although truth

may be vividly impressed upon the intelligence, although the glories of

heaven and the terrors of hell may be made to shine into it, yet the

sensibility may remain unaffected by them. It may be dead. Hence, God may

act upon this, may cause it to melt with sorrow or to glow with love,

without doing violence to any law of our moral nature. There is no

difficulty, then, in conceiving that the second effect of the divine power

in the new creation is “a new heart.”

Having done all this, he may well call on us to “work out our salvation

with fear and trembling, for God worketh in us to will and to do of his

own good pleasure.” We have seen that the state of the will, that a

volition is not necessitated by the intelligence or by the sensibility;

and, hence, it may “obey the heavenly vision,” or it may “resist and do

despite to the Spirit of grace.” If it obey, then the vivifying light and

genial shower have not fallen upon the soul in vain. The free-will

coalesces with the renovated intelligence and sensibility, and the man

“has root in himself.” The blossom gradually yields to the fruit, and the

germ of true holiness is formed in the soul. This consists in the

voluntary exercise of the mind, in obedience to the knowledge and the love

of God, and in the permanent habit formed by the repetition of such

exercises. Hence, in the great theandric work of regeneration, we see the

part which is performed by God, and the part which proceeds from man.

This shows an absolute dependence of the soul upon the agency of God. For

without knowledge the mind can no more perform its duty than the eye can

see without light; and without a feeling of love to God, it is as

impossible for it to render a spiritual obedience, as it would be for a

bird to fly in a vacuum. Yet this dependence, absolute as it is, does not

impair the free-agency of man. For divine grace supplies, and must supply,

the indispensable conditions of holiness; but it does not produce holiness

itself. It does not produce holiness itself, because, as we have seen, a

necessary holiness is a contradiction in terms.

Is it not evident, then, that those who assert the impossibility of a

divine influence, on the ground that it would destroy the free-agency of

man, have proceeded on a wonderful confusion of the phenomena of the human

mind? Is it not evident that they have confounded those states of the

intelligence and the sensibility, which are marked over with the

characteristics of necessity, with those states of the will which

inevitably suggest the ideas of freedom and accountability? But, strange

as it may seem, the philosophers who thus shut the influence of the Divine

Being out of the spiritual world, because they cannot reconcile it with

the moral agency of man, do not always deny the influence of created

beings over the mind. On the contrary, it is no uncommon thing to see

philosophers and theologians, who begin by denying the influence of the

Divine Spirit upon the human mind, in order to save the freedom of the

latter, end by subjecting it to the most absolute dominion of facts; and

circumstances, and motives.

Section III.

The Augustinian Platform, or view of the relation between the divine

agency and the human.

The doctrine of Augustine, like that of Pelagius, was developed from the

individual experience and consciousness of its author. The difference

between them was, that the sensible experience of the one furnished him

with only the human element of religion, which was unduly magnified by

him; while the divine element was the great prominent fact in the

consciousness of the other, who accordingly rendered it too exclusive in

the formation of his views. The one elevated the human element of religion

at the expense of the divine; the other permitted the majesty of the

divine to overshadow the human, and cause it to disappear.

The causes which induced Augustine to take this sublime but one-sided view

of religion may be easily understood. In the early part of his life, he

abandoned himself to vicious excesses; being hurried away, to use a

metaphor, by the violence of his appetites and passions. His conscience,

no doubt, often reproved him for such a course of life, and gave rise to

many resolutions of amendment. But experience taught him that he could not

transform and mould his own character at pleasure. He lacked those views

of truth, and those feelings of reverence and love to God, without which

true obedience is impossible. Hence he struggled in vain. He felt his own

impotency. He still yielded to the importunities of appetite and passion.

Of a sudden, however, he finds his views of divine things changed, and his

religious sensibilities awakened. He knows this marvellous transformation

is not effected by himself. He ascribes it, and he truly ascribes it, to

the power of God; by which he has been brought from a region of darkness

to light. Old things had passed away, and all things become new.

But now observe the precise manner in which the error of Augustine takes

its rise in his mind. He, too, as well as Pelagius, confounds the passive

susceptibility of the heart with a voluntary state of the will. The

intelligence and the sensibility are the only elements in his psychology;

the states of them, which are necessitated, constitute all the phenomena

of the human mind. Holiness, according to him, consists in a feeling of

love to God. He knows this is derived from the divine agency; and hence he

concludes, that the whole work of conversion is due to God, and no part of

it is performed by himself. I know, says he, that I did not make myself

love God, by which he means a feeling of love; and this he takes to be

true holiness, which has been wrought in his heart by the power of God.

“Love is the fulfilling of the law; but love to God is not shed abroad in

our hearts by the law, but by the Holy Ghost.” He is sure the whole work

is from God, because he is sure that the intelligence and the sensibility

are the whole of man. How many excellent persons are there, who, taking

their stand upon the same platform of a false psychology, proceed to

dogmatize with Augustine as confidently as if the only possible ground of

difference from them was a want of the religious experience of the

Christian consciousness, by which they have been so eminently blessed. We

deny not the reality of their Christian experience; but we do doubt the

accuracy of their interpretation of it.

Thus, the complex fact of consciousness, consisting in a state of the

sensibility and a state of the will, was viewed from opposite points by

Pelagius and Augustine. The voluntary phase of it was seen by Pelagius,

and hence he became an exclusive and one-sided advocate of free-agency;

the passive side was beheld by Augustine, and hence he became a one-sided

and exclusive advocate of divine grace. If we would possess the truth, and

the whole truth, we must view it on all sides, and give a better

interpretation of the natural consciousness of the one, as well as the

supernatural consciousness of the other, than they themselves were enabled

to give. Then shall we not instinctively turn to one-sided views of

revelation. Then shall we not always repeat with Pelagius, “Work out your

own salvation with fear and trembling,” nor always exclaim with Augustine,

that “God worketh in us to will and to do of his good pleasure;” but we

shall with equal freedom and readiness approach and appropriate both

branches of the truth.

Section IV.

The views of those who, in later times, have symbolized with Augustine.

Those divines who have adopted, in the main, the same leading views with

Augustine, have generally admitted the fact of free-agency; but, because

they could not reconcile it with their leading tenet, they have, as we

have seen, explained it away. The only freedom which they allow to man,

pertains, as we have shown, not to the will at all, but only to the

external sphere of the body. They have maintained the great fact in words,

but rejected it in substance. Though they have seen the absurdity of

rejecting one fact because they could not reconcile it with another, yet

their internal struggle after a unity and harmony of principle has induced

them to deny, in reality, what they have seemed to themselves to preserve

and maintain. We have seen, in the first chapter of this work, in what

manner this has been done by them; it now remains to take a view of the

subject, in connexion with the point under consideration.

The man who confounds the sensibility with the will should, indeed, have

no difficulty in reconciling the divine agency with the human. If the

state of the mind in willing is purely passive, like a state of the mind

in feeling; then to say that it is produced by the power of God, would

create no difficulty whatever. Hence, the great difficulty of reconciling

the human with the divine agency, which has puzzled and perplexed so many,

should not exist for one who identifies the will with the sensibility; and

it would exist for no one holding this psychology, if there were not more

in the operations of his nature than in the developments of his system.

Perhaps no one ever more completely lost sight of the true characteristic

of the manifestations of the will, by thrusting them behind the phenomena

of the sensibility, than President Edwards; and hence the difficulty in

question seemed to have no existence for him. So far from troubling

himself about the line which separates the human agency from the divine,

he calmly and quietly speaks as if such a line had no existence. According

to his view, the divine agency encircles all, and man is merely the

subject of its influence. It is true, he uses the terms active and

actions, as applicable to man and his exertions; but yet he regards his

very acts, his volitions, as being produced by God. “In efficacious

grace,” says he, “God does all, and we do all. God produces all, and we

act all. For that is what he produces; namely, our own acts.” Now I think

Edwards could not have used such language, if he had attached any other

idea to the term act, than what really belongs to it when it is applied,

as it often is, to the passive states of the intelligence and the

sensibility. An _act_ of the intellect, or an _act_ of the affections, may

be produced by the power of God; but not an act of the will. For, as the

Princeton Review well says, “a necessary volition is an absurdity, a thing

inconceivable.”

It is scarcely necessary to add, that in causing all real human agency to

disappear before the divine sovereignty, Edwards merely reproduced the

opinion of Calvin; which he endeavoured to establish, not by a fierce,

unreasoning dogmatism, but upon the principles of reason and philosophy.

“The apostle,” says Calvin, “ascribes everything to the Lord’s mercy, _and

leaves nothing to our wills or exertions_.”(138) He even contends, that to

“suppose man to be a coöperator with God, so that the validity of election

depends on his consent,” is to make the “will of man superior to the

counsel of God;”(139) as if there were no possible medium between nothing

and omnipotence.

Section V.

The danger of mistaking distorted for exalted views of the divine

sovereignty.

There is no danger, it is true, that we shall ever form too exalted

conceptions of the divine majesty. All notions must fall infinitely below

the sublime reality. But we may proceed in the wrong direction, by making

it our immediate aim and object to exalt the sovereignty of God. An object

so vast and overwhelming as the divine omnipotence, cannot fail to

transport the imagination, and to fill the soul with wonder. Hence, in our

passionate, but always feeble, endeavours to grasp so wonderful an object,

our vision may be disturbed by our emotions, and the glory of God badly

reflected in our minds. Our utmost exertions may thus end, not in exalted,

but in distorted views of the divine sovereignty. Is it not better, then,

for feeble creatures like ourselves, to aim simply to acquire a knowledge

of the truth, which, we may depend upon it, will not fail to exhibit the

divine sovereignty in its most beautiful lights?

If such be our object, we shall find, we think, that God is the author of

our spiritual views in religion, as well as those genuine feelings of

reverence and love, without which obedience is impossible; and that man

himself is the author of the volitions by which his obedience is

consummated. This shows the precise point at which the divine agency

ceases, and human agency begins; the precise point at which the sphere of

human power comes into contact with the sphere of omnipotence, without

intersecting it and without being annihilated by it. It shows at once the

absolute dependence of man upon God, without a denial of his free and

accountable agency; and it asserts the latter, without excluding the

Divine Being from the affairs of the moral world. It renders unto Cæsar

the things which are Cæsar’s, and unto God the things which are God’s. At

the same time that it combines and harmonizes these truths, it shows the

errors of the opposite extremes, and places the doctrines of human and

divine agency upon a solid and enduring basis, by preventing each from

excluding the other.

In all our inquiries, truth, and truth alone, should be our grand object.

All by-ends and contracted purposes, all party schemes and sectarian zeal,

will be almost sure to defeat their own objects, by seeking them with _too

direct and exclusive an aim_. These, even when noble and praiseworthy,

must be sought and reached, if reached at all, by seeking and finding the

truth. Thus, for instance, would we exalt the sovereignty of God, then

must we not directly seek to exalt that sovereignty, but put away from us

all the forced contrivances and factitious lights which have been invented

for that purpose. It is the light of truth alone, sought for its own sake,

and therefore clearly seen, that can reveal the sublime proportions, and

the intrinsic moral loveliness, of this awful attribute of the Divine

Being. On the other hand, would we vindicate the freedom of man, and break

into atoms the iron law of necessity, which is supposed to bind him to the

dust, then again must we seek the truth without reference to this

particular aim or object. We must study the great advocates of that law

with as great earnestness and fairness as its adversaries. For it is by

the light of truth alone, that the real position man occupies in the moral

world, or the orbit his power moves in, can be clearly seen, free from the

manifold illusions of error; and until it be thus seen, the liberty of the

human mind can never be successfully and triumphantly vindicated. If we

would understand these things, then, we must struggle to rise above the

foggy atmosphere and the refracted lights of prejudice, into the bright

region of eternal truth.

Chapter VI.

The Existence Of Moral Evil, Or Sin, Reconciled With The Holiness Of God.

One doubt remains,

That wrings me sorely, if I solve it not.

The world, indeed, is even so forlorn

Of all good, as thou speakest it, and so swarms

With every evil. Yet, beseech thee, point

The cause out to me, that myself may see

And unto others show it: for in heaven

One places it, and one on earth below.—DANTE.

Theology teaches that God is a being of infinite perfections. Hence, it is

concluded, that if he had so chosen, he might have secured the world

against the possibility of evil; and this naturally gives rise to the

inquiry, why he did not thus secure it? Why he did not preserve the moral

universe, as he had created it, free from the least impress or

overshadowing of evil? Why he permitted the beauty of the world to become

disfigured, as it has been, by the dark invasion and ravages of sin? This

great question has, in all ages, agitated and disturbed the human mind,

and been a prolific source of atheistic doubts and scepticism. It has

been, indeed, a dark and perplexing enigma to the eye of faith itself.