volition, because there are no motives or causes to produce it. It is
simply the impossibility of an effect for the want of a cause: when we
speak of moral cause and effect, according to Edwards, we speak of
nothing different from physical cause and effect, except in the quality
of the terms--the relation of the terms is the same. The impossibility
of a given volition, therefore, when the appropriate motive is wanting,
is equal to the impossibility of freezing water in the sun of a summer's
noon-tide.[1]
When objects of volition are fairly presented, an inability to choose
them must lie in the state of the mind, sensitivity, desire, will, or
affections, for all these have the same meaning according to this
system. There is no volition of preference where there is no motive to
this effect; and there is no motive to this effect where the state of
the mind is not in correlation with the objects presented: on the
contrary, the volition which now takes place, is a volition of refusal.
Natural inability, as defined by this system, lies in the connexion
between the volition considered as an antecedent, and the effect
required. Thus I am naturally unable to walk, when, although I make the
volition, my limbs, through weakness or disease, do not obey. Any defect
in the powers or instrumentalities dependent for activity upon volition,
or any impediment which volition cannot surmount, constitutes natural
inability.[2] According to this system, I am not held responsible for
anything which, through natural inability, cannot be accomplished,
although the volition is made. But now let us suppose that there is no
defect in the powers or instrumentalities dependent for activity upon
volition, and no impediment which volition cannot surmount, so that
there need be only a volition in order to have the effect, and then the
natural ability is complete:--I will to walk, and I walk.
Now it is affirmed that a man is fairly responsible for the doing of
anything, and can be fairly urged to do it when all that is necessary
for the doing of it is a volition although there may be a moral
inability to the volition itself.
Nothing it seems to me can be more absurd than this distinction. If
liberty be essential to responsibility, liberty, as we have clearly
shown, can no more lie in the connexion between volition and its
effects, than in the connexion between volition and its motives. One is
just as necessary as the other. If it be granted to be absurd with the
first class of theologians to urge men to do right when they are
conceived to be totally unable to do right, it is equally so when they
are conceived to have only a natural ability to do right, because this
natural ability is of no avail without a corresponding moral ability. If
the volition take place, there is indeed nothing to prevent the action;
nay, "the very willing is the doing of it;" but then the volition as an
effect cannot take place without a cause; and to acknowledge a moral
inability, is nothing less than to acknowledge that there is no cause to
produce the required volition.
The condition of men as represented by the second class of theologians,
is not really different from their condition as represented by the first
class. The inability under both representations is a total inability. In
the utter impossibility of a right volition on these, is the utter
impossibility of any good deed.
When we have denied liberty, in denying a self-determining power, these
definitions in order to make out a _quasi_ liberty and ability, are
nothing but ingenious folly and plausible deception.
You tell the man, indeed, that he can if he will; and when he replies to
you, that on your own principles the required volition is impossible,
you refer him to the common notions of mankind. According to these, you
say a man is guilty when he forbears to do right, since nothing is
wanting to right-doing but a volition,--and guilty when he does wrong,
because he wills to do wrong. According to these common notions, too, a
man may fairly be persuaded to do right, when nothing is wanting but a
will to do right. But do we find this distinction of natural and moral
ability in the common notions of men? When nothing is required to the
performance of a deed but a volition, do men conceive of any inability
whatever? Do they not feel that the volition has a metaphysical
possibility as well as that the sequent of the volition has a physical
possibility? Have we not at least some reason to suspect that the
philosophy of responsibility, and the basis of rebuke and persuasion
lying in the common notions of men, are something widely different from
the scheme of a necessitated volition?
This last class of theologians, equally with the first, derive all the
force of their preaching from a philosophy, upon which they are
compelled to act, but which they stoutly deny. Let them carry out their
philosophy, and for preaching no place remains.
Preaching can produce good effects only by producing good volitions; and
good volitions can be produced only by good motives: but good motives
can exist under preaching only when the subjects of the preaching are
correlated with the state of mind. But by supposition this is not the
case, for the heart is totally depraved.
To urge the unregenerate man to put forth volitions in reference to his
regeneration, may consist with a self-determining power of will, but is
altogether irrelevant on this system. It is urging _him_ to do what _he_
cannot do; and indeed what all persuasion must fail to do _in him_ as a
mere passive subject. To assure him that the affair is quite easy,
because nothing is required of him but to will, is equivalent to
assuring him that the affair is quite easy, because it will be done when
he has done it. The man may reply, the affair would indeed be quite easy
if there existed in me a motive to produce the volition; but as there
does not, the volition is impossible. And as I cannot put forth the
volition without the motive, so neither can I make the motive which is
to produce the volition--for then an effect would make its cause. What I
cannot do for myself, I fear neither you, nor indeed an angel from
heaven will succeed in doing for me. You array the truths, and duties,
and prospects of religion before my mind, but they cannot take the
character of motives to influence my will, because they are not
agreeable to my heart.
You indeed mean well; but do you not perceive that on your own
principles all your zeal and eloquence must necessarily have an opposite
effect from what you intend? My affections not being in correlation with
these subjects, the more you urge them, the more intense becomes my
sense of the most disagreeable, or my positive refusal; and this, my
good friends, by a necessity which holds us all alike in an inevitable
and ever-during chain.
It is plainly impossible to escape from this conclusion, and yet
maintain the philosophy. All efforts of this kind, made by appealing to
the common sentiments of mankind, we have seen are self-contradictory.
It will not do to press forward the philosophy until involved in
difficulty and perplexity, and then to step aside and borrow arguments
from another system which is assumed to be overthrown. There is no
necessity more absolute and sovereign, than a logical necessity.[3]
XVIII. The cardinal principles of Edwards's system in the sections we
have been examining, from which the above consequences are deduced, are
the three following:
1. The will is always determined by the strongest motive.
2. The strongest motive is always "the most agreeable."
3. The will is necessarily determined.
I shall close this part of the present treatise with a brief examination
of the reasoning by which he endeavours to establish these points.
The reasoning by which the first point is aimed to be established, is
the general reasoning respecting cause and effect. Volition is an
effect, and must have a cause. Its cause is the motive lying in the
correlation of mind and object. When several physical causes conflict
with each other, we call that the strongest which prevails and produces
its appropriate effects, to the exclusion of the others. So also where
there are several moral causes or motives conflicting with each other,
we call that the strongest which prevails. Where a physical cause is not
opposed by any other force, it of course produces its effect; and in
this case we do not say the _strongest_ cause produces the effect,
because there is no comparison. So also there are cases in which there
is but one moral cause or motive present, when there being no
comparison, we cannot affirm that the volition is determined by the
_strongest_ motive: the doing of something may be entirely agreeable,
and the not doing of it may be utterly disagreeable: in this case the
motive is only for the doing of it. But wherever the case contains a
comparison of causes or of motives, it must be true that the effect
which actually takes place, is produced by the strongest cause or
motive. This indeed is nothing more than a truism, or a mere postulate,
as if we should say,--let a cause or motive producing effects be called
the strongest. It may be represented, also, as a _petitio principii_, or
reasoning in a circle,--since the proof that the will is determined by
the strongest motive is no other than the fact that it is determined. It
may be stated thus: The will is determined by the strongest motive. How
do you know this? Because it is determined. How does this prove it?
Because that which determines it must be the strongest.[4]
Edwards assumes, also, that motive is the cause of volition. This
assumption he afterwards endeavours indirectly to sustain, when he
argues against a self-determining will. If the will do not cause its own
volitions, then it must follow that motive is the cause. The argument
against a self-determining will we are about to take up.
2. _The strongest motive is always the most agreeable_. Edwards
maintains that the motive which always prevails to cause volition, has
this characteristic,--that it is the most agreeable or pleasant at the
time, and that volition itself is nothing but the sense of the most
agreeable. If there should be but one motive present to the mind, as in
that case there would be no comparison, we presume he would only say
that the will is determined by _the agreeable_.
But how are we to know whether the motive of every volition has this
characteristic of agreeableness, or of most agreeableness, as the case
may be? We can know it only by consulting our consciousness. If,
whenever we will, we find the sense of the most agreeable identified
with the volition, and if we are conscious of no power of willing, save
under this condition of willing what is most agreeable to us, then
certainly there remains no farther question on this point. The
determination of consciousness is final. Whether such be the
determination of consciousness, we are hereafter to consider.
Does Edwards appeal to consciousness?
He does,--but without formally announcing it. The following passage is
an appeal to consciousness, and contains Edwards's whole thought on this
subject: "There is scarcely a plainer and more universal dictate of the
sense and experience of mankind, than that when men act voluntarily, and
do what they please, then they do what suits them best, or what is most
_agreeable to them_. To say that they do what _pleases_ them, but yet
what is not _agreeable_ to them, is the same thing as to say, they do
what they please, but do not act their pleasure; and that is to say,
that they do what they please, and yet do not what they please." (p.
25.) Motives differ widely, intrinsically considered. Some are in
accordance with reason and conscience; some are opposed to reason and
conscience. Some are wise; some are foolish. Some are good; some are
bad. But whatever may be their intrinsic properties, they all have this
characteristic of agreeableness when they cause volition; and it is by
this characteristic that their strength is measured. The appeal,
however, which is made to sustain this, is made in a way to beg the very
point in question. Will not every one admit, that "when men act
_voluntarily and do what they please_, they do what suits them best, and
what is most agreeable to them?" Yes. Is it not a palpable
contradiction, to say that men "do what pleases them," and yet do "what
is not agreeable to them," according to the ordinary use of these words?
Certainly.
But the point in question is, whether men, acting voluntarily, always do
what is pleasing to them: and this point Edwards assumes. He assumes it
here, and he assumes it throughout his treatise. We have seen that, in
his psychology, he identifies will and desire or the affections:--hence
volition is the prevailing desire or affection, and the object which
moves the _desire_ must of course appear _desirable_, or agreeable, or
pleasant; for they have the same meaning. If men always will what they
most desire, and desire what they will, then of course when they act
voluntarily, they do what they please; and when they do what they
please, they do what suits them best and is most agreeable to them.
Edwards runs the changes of these words with great plausibility, and we
must say deceives himself as well as others. The great point,--whether
will and desire are one,--whether the volition is as the most
agreeable,--he takes up at the beginning as an unquestionable fact, and
adheres to throughout as such; but he never once attempts an analysis of
consciousness in relation to it, adequate and satisfactory. His
psychology is an assumption.
3. The will is necessarily determined.
How does Edwards prove this? 1. On the general connexion of causes and
effects. Causes necessarily produce effects, unless resisted and
overcome by opposing forces; but where several causes are acting in
opposition, the strongest will necessarily prevail, and produce its
appropriate effects.
Now, Edwards affirms that the nature of the connexion between motives
and volitions is the same with that of any other causes and effects. The
difference is merely in the terms: and when he calls the necessity which
characterizes the connexion of motive and volition "a moral necessity,"
he refers not to the connexion itself, but only to the terms connected.
In this reasoning he plainly assumes that the connexion between cause
and effect in general, is a necessary connexion; that is, all causation
is necessary. A contingent, self-determining cause, in his system, is
characterized as an absurdity. Hence he lays himself open to all the
consequences of a universal and absolute necessity.
2. He also endeavours to prove the necessity of volition by a method of
approximation. (p. 33.) He here grants, for the sake of the argument,
that the will may oppose the strongest motive in a given case; but then
he contends that it is supposable that the strength of the motive may be
increased beyond the strength of the will to resist, and that at this
point, on the general law of causation, the determination of the will
must be considered necessary. "Whatever power," he remarks, "men may be
supposed to have to surmount difficulties, yet that power is not
infinite." If the power of the man is finite, that of the motive may be
supposed to be infinite: hence the resistance of the man must at last be
necessarily overcome. This reasoning seems plausible at first; but a
little examination, I think, will show it to be fallacious. Edwards does
not determine the strength of motives by inspecting their intrinsic
qualities, but only by observing their degrees of agreeableness. But
agreeableness, by his own representation, is relative,--relative to the
will or sensitivity. A motive of infinite strength would be a motive of
infinite agreeableness, and could be known to be such only by an
infinite sense of agreeableness in the man. The same of course must hold
true of any motive less than infinite: and universally, whatever be the
degree of strength of the motive, there must be in the man an affection
of corresponding intensity. Now, if there be a power of resistance in
the will to any motive, which is tending strongly to determine it, this
power of resistance, according to Edwards, must consist of a sense of
agreeableness opposing the other motive, which is likewise a sense of
agreeableness: and the question is simply, which shall predominate and
become a sense of the most agreeable. It is plain that if the first be
increased, the second may be supposed to be increased likewise; if the
first can become infinite, the second can become infinite likewise: and
hence the power of resistance may be supposed always to meet the motive
required to be resisted, and a point of necessary determination may
never be reached.
If Edwards should choose to throw us upon the strength of motives
intrinsically considered, then the answer is ready. There are motives of
infinite strength, thus considered, which men are continually resisting:
for example, the motive which urges them to obey and love God, and seek
the salvation of their souls.
III.
AN EXAMINATION OF THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST A SELF-DETERMINING AND
CONTINGENT WILL.
Edwards's first and great argument against a self-determining will, is
given in part II. sec. 1, of his work, and is as follows:
The will,--or the soul, or man, by the faculty of willing, effects every
thing within its power as a cause, by acts of choice. "The will
determines which way the hands and feet shall move, by an act of choice;
and there is no other way of the will's determining, directing, or
commanding any thing at all." Hence, if the will determines itself, it
does it by an act of choice; "and if it has itself under its command,
and determines itself in its own actions, it doubtless does it in the
same way that it determines other things which are under its command."
But if the will determines its choice by its choice, then of course we
have an infinite series of choices, or we have a first choice which is
not determined by a choice,--"which brings us directly to a
contradiction; for it supposes an act of the will preceding the first
act in the whole train, directing and determining the rest; or a free
act of the will before the first free act of the will: or else we must
come at last to an act of the will determining the consequent acts,
wherein the will is not self-determined, and so is not a free act, in
this notion of freedom." (p. 43.)
This reasoning, and all that follows in the attempt to meet various
evasions, as Edwards terms them, of the advocates of a self-determining
will, depend mainly upon the assumption, that if the will determines
itself, it must determine itself by an act of choice; that is, inasmuch
as those acts of the will, or of the soul, considered in its power of
willing, or in its personal activity, by which effects are produced out
of the activity or will itself, are produced by acts of choice, for
example, walking and talking, rising up and sitting down: therefore, if
the soul, in the power of willing, cause volitions, it must cause them
by volitions. The causative act by which the soul causes volitions, must
itself be a volition. This assumption Edwards does not even attempt to
sustain, but takes for granted that it is of unquestionable validity. If
the assumption be of unquestionable validity, then his position is
impregnable; for nothing can be more palpably absurd than the will
determining volitions by volitions, in an interminable series.
Before directly meeting the assumption, I remark, that if it be valid,
it is fatal to all causality. Will is simply cause; volition is effect.
I affirm that the will is the sole and adequate cause of volition.
Edwards replies: if will is the cause of volition, then, to cause it, it
must put forth a causative act; but the only act of will is volition
itself: hence if it cause its own volitions, it must cause them by
volitions.
Now take any other cause: there must be some effect which according to
the general views of men stands directly connected with it as its
effect. The effect is called the phenomenon, or that by which the cause
manifests itself. But how does the cause produce the phenomenon? By a
causative act:--but this causative act, according to Edwards's
reasoning, must itself be an effect or phenomenon. Then this effect
comes between the cause, and what was at first considered the immediate
effect but the effect in question must likewise be caused by a causative
act; and this causative act, again, being an effect, must have another
causative act before it; and so on, _ad infinitum_. We have here then an
infinite series of causative acts--an absurdity of the same kind, with
an infinite series of volitions.
It follows from this, that there can be no cause whatever. An infinite
series of causative acts, without any first, being, according to this
reasoning, the consequence of supposing a cause to cause its own acts,
it must therefore follow, that a cause does not cause its own acts, but
that they must be caused by some cause out of the cause. But the cause
out of the cause which causes the causative acts in question, must cause
these causative acts in the other cause by a causative act of its
own:--but the same difficulties occur in relation to the second cause as
in relation to the first; it cannot cause its own acts, and they must
therefore be caused out of itself by some other cause; and so on, _ad
infinitum_. We have here again the absurdity of an infinite series of
causative acts; and also, the absurdity of an infinite series of causes
without a first cause. Otherwise, we must come to a first cause which
causes its own acts, without an act of causation; but this is
impossible, according to the reasoning of Edwards. As, therefore, there
cannot be a cause causing its own acts, and inasmuch as the denial of
this leads to the absurdities above mentioned, we are driven to the
conclusion, that there is no cause whatever. Every cause must either
cause its own acts, or its acts must be caused out of itself. Neither of
these is possible; therefore, there is no cause.
Take the will itself as an illustration of this last consequence. The
will is cause; the volition, effect. But the will does not cause its own
volition; the volition is caused by the motive. But the motive, as a
cause, must put forth a causative act in the production of a volition.
If the motive determine the will, then there must be an act of the
motive to determine the will. To determine, to cause, is to do, is to
act. But what determines the act of the motive determining the act of
the will or volition If it determine its own act, or cause its own act,
then it must do this by a previous act, according to the principle of
this reasoning; and this again by another previous act; and so on, _ad
infinitum_.
Take any other cause, and the reasoning must be the same.
It may be said in reply to the above, that volition is an effect
altogether peculiar. It implies selection or determination in one
direction rather than in another, and therefore that in inquiring after
its cause, we inquire not merely after the energy which makes it
existent, but also after the cause of its particular determination in
one direction rather than in another. "The question is not so much, how
a spirit endowed with activity comes to _act_, as why it exerts _such_
an act, and not another; or why it acts with a particular determination?
If activity of nature be the cause why a spirit (the soul of man, for
instance) acts and does not lie still; yet that alone is not the cause
why its action is thus and thus limited, directed and determined." (p.
58.)
Every phenomenon or effect is particular and limited. It must
necessarily be one thing and not another, be in one place and not in
another, have certain characteristics and not others; and the cause
which determines the phenomenon, may be supposed to determine likewise
all its properties. The cause of a particular motion, for example, must,
in producing the motion, give it likewise a particular direction.