THE INQUIRY INVOLVED IN A VICIOUS CIRCLE.
THE great doctrine of the Inquiry seems to go round in a vicious circle,
to run into an insignificant truism. This is a grave charge, I am aware,
and I have ventured to make it only after the most mature reflection:
and the justness of it, may be shown by a variety of considerations.
In the first place, when we ask, "what determines the will?" the author
replies, "it is the strongest motive;" and yet, according to his
definition, the strongest motive is that which determines the will.
Thus, says Edwards, "when I speak of the strongest motive, I have
respect to the whole that operates to induce a particular act of
volition, whether that be the strength of one thing alone, or of many
together." If we ask, then, what produces any particular act of
volition, we are told, it is the strongest motive; and if we inquire
what is the strongest motive, we are informed, it is the whole of that
which operated to produce that particular act of volition. What is this
but to inform us, that an act of volition is produced by that which
produces it?
It is taken for granted by President Edwards, that volition is an
effect, and consequently has a cause. The great question, according to
his work, is, what is this cause? He says it is the strongest motive; in
the definition of which he includes every thing that in any way
contributes to the production of volition; in other words, the strongest
motive is made to embrace every thing that acts as a cause of volition.
This is the way in which he explains himself, as well as the manner in
which he is understood by others. Thus, says the younger Edwards, "in
his explanation of his idea of motive, he mentions all agreeable objects
and views, all reasons and arguments, and all internal biases and
tempers, which have a tendency to volition; i. e. every _cause_ or
_occasion_ of volition," p. 104. Every reader of President Edwards must
be satisfied that this is a correct account of his definition of motive;
and this being the case, the whole amounts to just this proposition,
that volition is caused by that which causes it! He admits that it would
be hard, if not impossible, to enumerate all those things and
circumstances which aid in the production of volition; but still he is
quite sure, that the whole of that which operates to produce a volition
does actually produce it! Though he may have failed to show wherein
consists the strength of motives; yet he contends that the strongest
motive, or the cause of volition, is really and unquestionably the cause
of volition! Such is the great doctrine of the Inquiry.
If this is what the Inquiry means to establish, surely it rests upon
unassailable ground. Well may President Day assert, that "to say a
weaker motive prevails against a stronger one is to say, that that which
has the least influence has the greatest influence," p. 66. Now who
would deny this position of the learned president? Who would say, that
that which has the greatest influence has not the greatest influence?
Surely, this great doctrine is to the full as certain as the newly
discovered axiom of professor Villant, that "a thing is equal to
itself!"
President Day, following in the footsteps of Edwards, informs us that
the will is determined by the strongest motive; but how shall we know
what is the strongest motive? "The strength of a motive," says he, "is
not its prevailing, but the power by which it prevails. Yet we may very
properly measure _this power by the actual result!_" Thus are we gravely
informed that the will is determined by that which determines it.
Again. If we suppose there is a real strength in motives, that they
exert a positive influence in the production of volitions, then we
concede every thing to President Edwards. For, if motives are so many
forces acting upon the will, to say that the strongest will prevail, is
simply to say that it is the strongest. But if motives exert no positive
influence, then when we say that one is stronger than another, we must
be understood to use this expression in a metaphorical sense; we must
refer to some property of motives which we figuratively call their
strength, and of which we suppose one motive to possess a greater degree
than another. If this be so, what is this common property of motives,
which we call their strength? If they do not possess a real strength, if
they do not exert an efficient influence; but are merely said,
metaphorically speaking, to possess such power and to exert such
influence; then what becomes of the self-evidence which President
Edwards claims for his fundamental proposition motives exert a real
force, of course the strongest must prevail; but if they only have
something else about them, which we call their strength, it is not
self-evident that the motive which possesses this something else in the
highest degree must necessarily prevail. Hence, the great doctrine of
President Edwards is either a proposition whose truth arises out of the
very definition of the terms in which it is expressed, or it is utterly
destitute of that axiomatical certainty which he claims for it. In other
words, he has settled his great doctrine of the will by the mere force
of a definition; or he has left its foundations quite unsettled.
Motives, as they are called, are different from each other in nature and
in kind; and hence, it were absurd to compare them in degree. "The
strongest motive," therefore, is a mode of expression which can have no
intelligible meaning, unless it be used with reference to the influence
which motives are supposed to exert over the mind. This is the sense in
which it clearly seems to be used by Edwards. The distinguishing
property of a motive, according to his definition, is nothing in the
nature of the motive itself; it consists in its adaptedness "to move or
excite the mind to volition;" nor indeed could he find any other way of
measuring or determining what he calls the strength of motives, since
they are so diverse in their own nature from each other. He could not
have given any plausible definition of the strength of motives, if he
had looked at them as they are in themselves; and hence, he was under
the necessity of defining it, by a reference to the "degree of tendency
or _advantage_ they have to move or excite the will." Thus, according to
the Inquiry, the will is determined by the strongest motive; and yet we
can form no intelligible idea of what is meant by the strongest motive,
unless we conceive it to be that which determines the will. The matter
will not be mended, by alleging that the strongest motive is not defined
to be that which actually determines the will, but that which has the
greatest degree of previous tendency or advantage, to excite or move it;
for we cannot know what motive has this greatest degree of previous
tendency or advantage, except by observing what motive actually does
determine the will.
This leads us to another view of the same subject. The strength of a
motive, as President Edwards properly remarks, depends upon the state of
the mind to which it is addressed. Hence, in a great majority of cases,
we can know nothing about the relative strength of motives, except from
the actual influence which they exert over the mind of the individual
upon whom they are brought to bear. This shows that the universal
proposition, that the will is _always_ determined by the strongest
motive, can be known to be true, only by assuming that the strongest
motive is that by which the will is determined.
The same thing may be made to appear from another point of view. It has
been well said by the philosopher of Malmsbury, "that experience
concludeth nothing universally." From experience we can pronounce, only
in so far as we have observed, and no farther. But the proposition, that
the will is always determined by the strongest motive, is a universal
proposition; and hence, if true at all, its truth could not have been
learnt from observation and experience. It must depend upon the very
definition of the terms in which it is expressed. We cannot say that the
will is in all cases determined by the strongest motive, unless we
include in the very idea and definition of the strongest motive, that it
is such that it determines the will. President Edwards not only does,
but he must necessarily, go around in this circle, in order to give any
degree of clearness and certainty to his doctrine.
That President Edwards goes around in this vicious circle, may be shown
in another way. "It appears from these things," says he, "that in some
sense, _the will always follows the last dictate of the understanding_.
But then the _understanding_ must be taken in a large sense, as
including the whole faculty of perception or apprehension, and not
merely what is called reason or judgment. If by the last dictate of the
understanding is meant what reason declares to be best, or most for the
person's happiness, taking in the whole of its duration, it is not true,
that the will always follows the last dictate of the understanding," p.
25. In this place, President Edwards gives no distinct idea of what he
means by the last dictate of the understanding, which the will is said
to follow in all cases. But in the eighth volume of his works, that
dictate of the understanding which the will is said to follow, is called
the "practical judgment;" and this is defined to be, "that judgment
which men make of things that prevail, so as to determine their actions
and govern their practice." Here again are we informed, that the will
always follows the practical judgment, and that the practical judgment
is that which men make of things that prevail, so as to determine the
will.
The Inquiry itself furnishes abundant evidence, that I have done its
author no injustice. "I have chosen," says he, "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. If strict propriety of speech be insisted on, it may
more properly be said, that the _voluntary action_, which is the
immediate consequence of the mind's choice, is determined by that which
appears most agreeable, than the choice itself." After all, then, it
seems that choice itself, or volition, is not determined by that which
appears the most agreeable; because, in reality, the sense of the most
agreeable and volition are one and the same thing. But surely, if we
cannot distinguish between choice and the sense of the most agreeable,
then to say that the one always is as the other, is only to say that a
thing is always as it is. Edwards saw the absurdity of saying that a
thing is determined by itself; but he does not seem to have seen how
insignificant is the proposition, that a thing is always as it is, and
not otherwise; and hence this is the form in which he has chosen to
present the great leading idea of his work on the will. And henceforth
we are to understand, that the preference of the mind is always as that
which appears most agreeable to the mind; or, in other words, that the
preference or choice of the mind is always as the choice of the mind.
This is not all. President Edwards himself has frequently reduced the
fundamental doctrine of the Inquiry to an identical proposition. It is
well known, that "to be determined by the strongest motive," "to follow
the greatest apparent good," "to do what is most agreeable," or "what
pleases most," are all different modes of expression employed by him to
set forth the same fundamental doctrine. In speaking of this doctrine,
he says: "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 not what is 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." Most assuredly, if to deny the leading proposition of the
Inquiry, is to deny that men do what they please when they do what they
please; then to affirm it, is only to advance the insignificant truism,
that men do what they please when they do what they please. It seems to
me, that after President Edwards had reduced his fundamental proposition
to such a truism, he might very well have spared himself the three
hundred pages that follow.
Again, he says: "It is manifest that no acts of the will are contingent,
in such sense as to be without all necessity, or so as not to be
necessary with a necessity of consequence and connection; because every
act of the will is some way connected with the understanding, and is as
the greatest apparent good is, in the manner which has already been
explained; namely, that the soul always wills or chooses that, which in
the present view of the mind, considered in the whole of that view, and
all that belongs to it, appears most agreeable. Because, as we observed
before, 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_."
Thus, the great fundamental doctrine of the Inquiry is reduced by
Edwards himself to the barren truism, that men do actually choose what
they choose; a proposition which the boldest advocate of free-agency
would hardly dare to call in question. After labouring through a whole
section to establish this position, the author concludes by saying,
"These things may serve, I hope, in some measure to illustrate and
confirm the position laid down in the beginning of this section: viz.
That the will is always determined by the strongest motive, or by the
view of the mind which has the greatest previous tendency to excite
volition. But whether I have been so happy as rightly to explain the
thing wherein consists the strength of motives, or not, _yet my failing
in this will not overthrow the position itself; which carries much of
its own evidence along with it, and is a point of chief importance to
the purpose of the ensuing discourse:_ and the truth of it I hope will
appear _with great clearness_, before I have finished what I have to say
on the subject of human liberty." Truly the position in question, as it
is explained by the author himself, carries not only much, but all, of
its own evidence along with it. Who can deny that a man always does what
he pleases, when he does what he pleases? This truth appears with just
as great clearness at the beginning, as it does at the conclusion, of
the celebrated Inquiry of the author. It is invested in a flood of
light, which can neither be increased by argument, nor obscured by
sophistry.
From the foregoing remarks, it appears, I think, that the fundamental
doctrine of the Inquiry is a barren truism, or a vicious circle. If
Edwards understood the import of his own doctrine, when he reduced it to
the form that a man does what he pleases when he does what he pleases,
it is certainly a truism; and if this is all his famous doctrine amounts
to, it can have no bearing whatever upon the question as to the cause of
volition; for whether the mind be the cause of its own volitions, or
whether the strongest motive always causes them, or whether they have no
causes at all, it is equally and unalterably true, that every man does
what he pleases when he does what he pleases. There is no possible form
of the doctrine of free-agency or contingency, however wild, which is at
all inconsistent with such a truism.
Edwards is not always consistent with himself. He sometimes represents
the greatest apparent good, or sense of the most agreeable, as the cause
of volition; and then his doctrine assumes the form, that the will is
determined by the strongest motive, or the greatest apparent good. And
yet he sometimes identifies a sense of the most agreeable with the
choice itself; and then his doctrine assumes the form that the choice of
the mind is always as the choice of the mind; and to deny it is a plain
contradiction in terms.
From the fact that Edwards has gone round in a circle, it has been
concluded that he has begged the question; but how, or wherein he has
begged it, is a point which has not been sufficiently noticed. The very
authors who have uttered this complaint, have granted him the very thing
for which he has begged. If volition is an _effect_, if it has a
_cause_, then most unquestionably the cause of volition is the cause of
volition. Admit that volition is an effect, as so many libertarians have
done, and then his definition of motive, which includes every cause of
volition, places his doctrine upon an immutable foundation. We might as
well heave at the everlasting mountains as to try to shake it.
Admit that volition is an effect, and what can we say? Can we say, that
the strongest motive may exist, and yet no volition may follow from it?
To this the necessitarian would instantly reply, that it any thing
exists, and no volition follows thereupon, it is evidently not the cause
of volition, and consequently is not the strongest motive; for this,
according to the definition, includes every cause of volition: it is
indeed absurd, to suppose that an effect should not proceed from its
cause: This is the ground taken both by President Edwards and President
Day. It is absurd, says the latter, to suppose that a weaker motive, or
any thing else, can prevail over the stronger--and why? Because the
strongest motive is that which prevails. "If it be said," he continues,
"that _something else_ gives the weaker motive a superiority over the
stronger; _then this something else is itself a motive_, and the united
influence of the two is greater than that of the third," p. 66. Thus,
say what we will, we can never escape this admirable net of words, that
the will is determined by that which determines it.
I do not intend, then, to engage in the hopeless task, of admitting
volition to be an effect, and yet striving to extricate it from "the
mechanism of cause and effect." This ground has long since been occupied
by much abler persons than myself; and if they have failed of success,
falling into innumerable inconsistencies, it is because, on such ground,
success is impossible; and that notwithstanding their transcendant
abilities, they have been fated to contradict themselves.