freely admit, proceed from what quarter of the universe it may; yet do we insist that it can no more be produced in us by an extraneous agency than it can grow up out of the earth, or drop down out of the clouds of heaven. That which is produced in us by such an agency, be it what it may, is not our virtue, nor is any praise therefor due to us.. To mistake such effects or passive impressions for virtue, is to mistake phantoms for things, shadows for substances, and dreams for realities.

SECTION IV.

The scheme of necessity seems to be inconsistent with the reality of moral distinctions, not because we confound natural and moral necessity, but because it is really inconsistent therewith.

Let us then look at this matter, and see if we are really so deplorably blinded by the ambiguity of a word, that we cannot contemplate the glory of the scheme of moral necessity as it is in itself. The distinction between these two things, natural and moral necessity, is certainly a clear and a broad one. Let us see, then, if we may not find our way along the line of this distinction, without that darkness and confusion by which our judg ment is supposed to be so sadly misled and perverted.

It is on all sides conceded, that natural necessity is inconsistent with the good or ill desert of human actions. If a man were commanded, for example, to leap over a mountain, or to lift the earth from its centre, he would be justly excusable for the nonperformance of such things, because they lie beyond the range of his natural power. "There is here a limit to our power," as Dr. Chalmers says, "beyond which we cannot do that which we please to do; and there are many thousand such limits."* This is natural necessity, in one of its branches. It circumscribes and binds our natural power. It limits the external sphere beyond which the effects or consequences of our volitions cannot be projected. It reaches not to the interior sphere of the will itself, and has no more to do with its freedom than has the influence of the stars. We may please to do a thing, nay, we may freely will it, and yet a natural necessity may cut off and prevent the external consequence of the act.

Again, if by a superior force, a man's limbs or external Institutes of Theology, part iii, chap. i.

bodily organs should be used as instruments of good or evil, without his concurrence or consent, he would be excusable for the consequences of such use. of such use. This is the other branch of natural necessity. It is evident that it has no relation to the freedom or to the acts of the will, but only to the external movements of the body. It interferes merely with that external freedom of bodily motion, about which we heard so much in the first chapter of this work, and which the advocates of necessity Lave, for the most part, so industriously laboured to pass off upon the world for the liberty of the will itself. As this natural necessity, then, trenches not upon the interior sphere of the will, so it merely excuses for the performance or non-performance of external actions. It leaves the great question with respect to man's accountability for the acts of the will itself, from which his external actions proceed, wholly untouched and undetermined.

Far different is the case with respect to moral necessity. This acts directly upon the will itself, and absolutely controls all its movements. Within its own sphere it is conceded to be "as absolute as natural necessity," and "as sure as fatalism.”+ It absolutely and unconditionally determines the will at all times, and in all cases. Yet we are told that we are accountable for all the acts thus produced in us, because they are the acts of our own wills! Nothing is done against our wills, as in the case of natural necessity; (they should rather say, against the external effects of our wills;) but our wills always follow, and we are accountable therefor, though they cannot but follow. Moral necessity is not irresistible, because this implies resistance, and our wills never resist that which makes us willing. It is only invincible; and invincible it is indeed, since with the mighty, sovereign power of the Almighty it controls all the thoughts, and feelings, and volitions of the human mind. Now we see this scheme as it is in itself, in all its nakedness, just as it is presented to us by its own most able and enlightened defenders. And seeing it thus removed from all contact with the scheme of natural necessity, we ask, whether agents can be justly held accountable for acts thus determined and controlled by the power of God, or by those invincible causes which his omnipotence marshalleth?

President Edwards.

† Dr. Chalmers.

We speak not of external acts; and hence we lay aside the whole scheme of natural necessity. We speak of the acts of the will; and we ask, if these be not free from the dominion of inoral necessity, from necessitating causes over which we have no control, can we be accountable for them? Can we be to praise or to blame for them? Can they be our virtue or our vice? These questions, we think, we may safely submit to the impartial decision of every unbiassed mind. And to such minds we shall leave it to determine, whether the scheme of moral necessity has owed its hold upon the reason of man to a dark confusion of words and things, or whether its glory has been obscured by the misconception of its opponents?

In conclusion, we shall simply lay down, in a few brief propositions, what we trust has now been seen in relation to the nature of virtue and vice-1. No necessitated act of the mind can be its virtue or its vice. 2. In order that any act of the will should partake of a moral nature, it must be free from the dominion of causes over which it has no control, or from whose influence it cannot depart. 3. Virtue and vice lie not in the passive state of the sensibility, nor in any other necessitated states of the mind, but in acts of the will, and in habits formed by a repetition of such free voluntary acts. Whatever else may be said in relation to the nature of virtue and of vice, and to the distinction between them, these things appear to be clearly true; and if so, then the scheme of moral necessity is utterly 'nconsistent with their existence, and saps the very foundation of all moral distinctions.

CHAPTER IV.

THE MORAL WORLD NOT CONSTITUTED ACCORDING TO THE SCHEME OF
NECESSITY.

I made him just and right;

Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all the ethereal powers

And spirits, both them who stood and them who fail'd;
Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.-MILTON.

WE have already witnessed the strange inconsistencies into which the most learned and ingenious men have fallen, in their attempts to reconcile the doctrine of necessity with the accountability of man, and the glory of God. Having involved themselves in that scheme, on what has appeared to them conclusive evidence, they have seemed to struggle in vain to force their way out into the clear and open light of nature. They have seemed to torment themselves, and to confound others, in their gigantic efforts to extricate themselves from a dark labyrinth, out of which there is absolutely no escape. Let us see, then, if we may not refute the pretended demonstration in favour of necessity, and thereby restore the mind to that internal satisfaction which it so earnestly desires, and which it so constantly seeks in a perfect unity and harmony of principle.

SECTION I.

The scheme of necessity is based on a false psychology.

There are three great leading faculties or attributes of the human mind; namely, the intelligence, the sensibility, and the will. By means of these we think, we feel, and we act. Now, the phenomena of thinking, feeling, and acting, will be found, on examination, to possess different characteristics; of which wo must form clear and fixed conceptions, if we would extricate the philosophy of the will from the obscurity and confusion in which it has been so long involved. Let us proceed then to examine them, to interrogate our consciousness in relation to them.

Suppose, for example, that an apple is placed before me. I fix iny attention upon it, and consider its form: it is round. This judgment, or decision of the mind, in relation to the form. of the apple, is a state of the intelligence. It does not depend on any effort of mine, whether it shall appear round to me or not: I could not possibly come to any other conclusion if I would I could as soon think it as large as the globe as believe it to be square, or of any other form than round. Hence this judgment, this decision, this state of the intelligence, is necessitated. The same thing is true of all the other perceptions or states of the intelligence. M. Cousin has truly said: "Undoubtedly different intellects, or the same intellect at different periods of its existence, may sometimes pass different judgments in regard to the same thing. Sometimes it may be deceived; it will judge that which is false to be true, the good to be bad, the beautiful to be ugly, and the reverse: but at the moment when it judges that a proposition is true or false, an action good or bad, a form beautiful or ugly, at that moment it is not in the power of the intellect to pass any other judgment than that it passes. It obeys laws it did not make. It yields to motives which determine it independent of the will. In a word, the phenomenon of intelligence, comprehending, judging, knowing, thinking, whatever name be given to it, is marked with the characteristic of necessity."*

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 iny attention on the apple: the desire is 0 Psychology, p. 247.