tinguishable 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, 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 propoO • Inquiry, p. 17.

sition 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 phy sician. 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 emplatic No, will come up from its profoundest depths. But your redoubtable logicians are not satisfied to rely on such testi

mony 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, and he then shows that this is true of volition in particular. 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 compietes 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 pr.rts.

If the huge frame of the earth, with all its teeming population and productions, could rise up out of nothing, he argues, † Id., part i, sec. iv.

Inquiry, part i, sec. iii.