tends to every action for which he is accountable. This power is given by his Maker, and at his pleasure whose gift it is it may be enlarged or diminished, continued or withdrawn. No power in the creature can be independent of the Creator. His hook is in its nose; he can give it line as far as he sees fit, and, when he pleases, can restrain it, or turn it whithersoever he will. Let this be always understood when we ascribe liberty to man, or to any created being. Supposing it therefore to be true, That man is a free agent, it may be true, at the same time, that his liberty may be impaired or lost, by disorder of body or mind, as in melancholy, or in madness; it may be impaired or lost by vicious habits; it may, in particular cases, be restrained by divine interposition. [271] We call man a free agent in the same way as we call him a reasonable agent. In many things he is not guided by reason, but by principles similar to those of the brutes. His reason is weak at best. It is liable to be impaired or lost, by his own fault, or by other means. In like manner, he may be a free agent, though his freedom of action may have many similar limita tions. The liberty I have described has been represented by some philosophers as inconceivable, and as involving an absurdity. "Liberty, they say, consists only in a power to act as we will; and it is impossible to conceive in any being a greater liberty than this. Hence it follows, that liberty does not extend to the determinations of the will, but only to the actions consequent to its determination, and depending upon the will. To say that we have power to will such an action, is to say, that we may will it, if we will. This supposes the will to be determined by a prior will; and, for the same reason, that will must be determined by a will prior to it, and so on in an infinite series of wills, which is absurd. To act freely, therefore, can mean nothing more than to act voluntarily; and this is all the liberty that can be conceived in man, or in any being." This reasoning-first, I think, advanced by Hobbes has been very generally adopted by the defenders of necessity. It is grounded upon a definition of liberty totally different from that which I have given, and therefore does not apply to moral liberty, as above defined.+ *To Hobbes is generally ascribed the honour of first enouncing the modern doctrine of Determinism, in contradistinction to the ancient doctrine of Fatalism; but most erroneously. Hobbes was not the author of this scheme of Necessity, nor is this scheme of Neces. sity itself modern.-H. But how does that definition avoid this ab surdity? See above, p. 599, note.-H. But it is said that this is the on.y liberty that is possible, that is conceivable, that does not involve an absurdity. [272] It is strange, indeed, if the word Liberty has no meaning but this one. I shall mention three, all very common. The objection applies to one of them, but to neither of the other two. Liberty is sometimes opposed to external force or confinement of the body. Sometimes it is opposed to obligation by law, or by lawful authority. Sometimes it is opposed to necessity. 1. It is opposed to confinement of the body by superior force. So we say a prisoner is set at liberty when his fetters are knocked off, and he is discharged from confinement. This is the liberty defined in the objection; and I grant that this liberty extends not to the will, neither does the confinement, because the will cannot be confined by external force. 2. Liberty is opposed to obligation by law, or lawful authority. This liberty is a right to act one way or another, in things which the law has neither commanded nor forbidden; and this liberty is meant when we speak of a man's natural liberty, his civil liberty, his Christian liberty. It is evident that this liberty, as well as the obligation opposed to it, extends to the will: For it is the will to obey that makes obedience; the will to transgress that makes a transgression of the law. Without will there can be neither obedience nor transgression. Law supposes a power to obey or to transgress; it does not take away this power, but proposes the motives of duty and of interest, leaving the power to yield to them, or to take the consequence of transgression.† 3. Liberty is opposed to Necessity, and in this sense it extends to the determinations of the will only, and not to what is consequent to the will. [273] *This is called the Liberty from Coaction or Violence-the Liberty of Spontaneity--Spontaneity-T Exo. In the present question, this species of liberty ought to be thrown altogether out of account: it is admitted by all parties; is common equally to brutes and men'; is not a peculiar quality of the will; and is, in fact, essential to it, for the will cannot possibly be forced. The greatest spontaneity is, in fact, the greatest necessity. Thus, a hungry horse, who turns of necessity to food, is said, on this he does so spontaneously; and, in general, the desire definition of liberty, to do so with freedom, because of happiness, which is the most necessary tendency, will, on this application of the term, be the most free. I may observe, that, among others, the definition of liberty, given by the celebrated advocate of moral freedom, Dr Samuel Clarke, is, in reality, only that of the liberty of Spontaneity-viz., "The power of selfmotion or action, which, in all animate agents, is spontaneity, is, in moral or rational agents, what we properly call liberty." (Fifth Reply to Leibnitz, (i.-xx. and First Answer to the Gentleman of Cam bridge.) This self motion, absolutely considered, is itself necessary. See below, note on p. 289. With this description of liberty also, the present question has no concern.-- H. This is variously denominated the Liberty from In every voluntary action, the determination of the will is the first part of the action, upon which alone the moral estimation of it depends. It has been made a question among philosophers, Whether, in every instance, this determination be the necessary consequence of the constitution of the person, and the circumstances in which he is placed; or whether he had not power, in many cases, to determine this way or that? imputed to him, whether it be good or bad. But, if another being was the cause of this determination, either by producing it immediately, or by means and instruments under his direction, then the determination is the act and deed of that being, and is solely imputable to him. But it is said "That nothing is in our power but what depends upon the will, and therefore, the will itself cannot be in our I answer-That this is a fallacy arising from taking a common saying in a sense which it never was intended to convey, and in a sense contrary to what it necessarily implies. [274] This has, by some, been called the philo-power." sophical notion of liberty and necessity; but it is by no means peculiar to philosophers. The lowest of the vulgar have, in all ages, been prone to have recourse to this necessity, to exculpate themselves or their friends in what they do wrong, though, in the general tenor of their conduct, they act upon the contrary principle.* In common life, when men speak of what is, or is not, in a man's power, they attend only to the external and visible effects, which only can be perceived, and which only can affect them. Of these, it is true that nothing is in a man's power but what depends upon his will, and this is all that is meant by this common saying. But this is so far from excluding his will from being in his power, that it necessarily implies it. For to say that what depends upon the will is in a man's power, but the will is not in his power, is to say that the end is in his power, but the means necessary to that end are not in his power, which is a Whether this notion of moral liberty be conceivable or not, every man must judge for himself. To me there appears no difficulty in conceiving it. I consider the determination of the will as an effect. This effect must have a cause which had power to produce it; and the cause must be either the person himself, whose will it is, or some other being. The first is as easily conceived as the last. If the person was the cause of that determination of his own will, he was free in that action, and it is justly Necessity-Moral Liberty-Philosophical LibertyEssential Liberty-Formal Liberty-Liberty of Indif. ference-Liberty of Opposition, &c. The terms ArEQUσION, AUTOTçaria, Arbitrium, Liberum Arbi-sarily implied, and, therefore, always undertrium, Free Will, though properly limited to the Liberty from Necessity, have not always been applied so as to discriminate it from the Liberty of Spon. taneity.-H. So Agamemnon :- Ἐγὼ δ' οὐκ αἴτιός είμι, ̓Αλλὰ Ζεὺς καὶ Μοῖρα καὶ ἠεροφοῖτις Εριννύς. This is a favourite topic with Lucian.-H. To conceive a free act, is to conceive an act which, being a cause, is not itself an effect; in other words, to conceive an absolute commencement. But is such by us conceivable ?-H. Only if he were not determined to that determination. But is the person an original undetermined cause of the determination of his will? If he be not, then is he not a free agent, and the scheme of Necessity is admitted. If he be, in the first place, it is im. possible to conceive the possibility of this; and, in the second, if the fact, though inconceivable, be allowed, it is impossible to see how a cause, undetermined by any motive, can be a rational, moral, and accountable, cause. There is no conceivable medium between Fatalism and Casuism; and the contradictory schemes of Liberty and Necessity themselves are in. conceivable. For, as we cannot compass in thought an undetermined cause-an absolute commencementthe fundamental hypothesis of the one; so we can as little think an infinite series of determined causes-of relative commencements-the fundamental hypothesis of the other. The champions of the opposite doctrines are thus at once resistless in assault, and impotent in defence. Each is hewn down, and appears to die under the home-thrusts of his adversary; but each again recovers life from the very death of his antagonist, and, to borrow a simile, both are like the heroes in Valhalla, ready in a moment to amuse themselves anew in the same bloodless and interminable conflict. The doctrine of Moral Liberty cannot be made conceivable, for we can only conceive the determined and the relative. As already stated, all that can be done, is to shew-1°, That, for the fact of Liberty, contradiction." In many propositions which we express universally, there is an exception neces stood. Thus, when we say that all things depend upon God, God himself is necessarily excepted. In like manner, when we say, that all that is in our power depends upon the will, the will itself is necessarily excepted: for, if the will be not, nothing else can be in our power. Every effect must be in the power of its cause. The determination of the will is an effect, and, therefore, must be in the power of its cause, whether that cause be the agent himself, or some other being. From what has been said in this chapter, I hope the notion of moral liberty will be distinctly understood, and that it appears that this notion is neither inconceivable, nor involves any absurdity or contradiction. [275] we have, immediately or mediately, the evidence of consciousness; and, 2°, That there are, among the phænomena of mind, many facts which we must admit as actual, but of whose possibility we are wholly unable to form any notion. I may merely observe, that the fact of Motion can be shewn to be impossible, on grounds not less strong than those on which it is attempted to disprove the fact of Liberty; to say nothing of many contradictories, neither of which can be thought, but one of which must, on the laws of Contradiction and Excluded Middle, necessarily be. This philosophy-the Philosophy of the Conditioned-has not, however, either in itself, or in relation to its consequences, as yet been deve loped.-H. See above p. 599, note.-H. CHAPTER II. itself, or in some other being. The change, whether it be of thought, of will, or of motion, is the effect. Active power, therefore, OF THE WORDS cause and effeCT, ACTION, is a quality in the cause, which enables it to AND ACTIVE POWER. THE writings upon Liberty and Necessity have been much darkened by the ambiguity of the words used in reasoning upon that subject. The words cause and effect, action and active power, liberty and necessity, are related to each other: The meaning of one determines the meaning of the rest. When we attempt to define them, we can only do it by synonymous words which need definition as much. There is a strict sense in which those words must be used, if we speak and reason clearly about moral liberty; but to keep to this strict sense is difficult, because, in all languages, they have, by custom, got a great latitude of signification. As we cannot reason about moral liberty without using those ambiguous words, it is proper to point out, as distinctly as possible, their proper and original meaning in which they ought to be understood in treating of this subject, and to shew from what causes they have become so ambiguous in all languages as to darken and embarrass our reasonings upon it. Everything that begins to exist, must have a cause of its existence, which had power to give it existence. And everything that undergoes any change, must have some cause of that change. That neither existence, nor any mode of existence, can begin without an efficient cause, is a principle that appears very early in the mind of man; and it is so universal, and so firmly rooted in human nature, that the most determined scepticism cannot eradicate it. [276] It is upon this principle that we ground the rational belief of a deity. But that is not the only use to which we apply it. Every man's conduct is governed by it, every day, and almost every hour, of his life. And if it were possible for any man to root out this principle from his mind, he must give up everything that is called common prudence, and be fit only to be confined as insane. produce the effect. And the exertion of that active power in producing the effect, is called action, agency, efficiency. In order to the production of any effect, there must be in the cause, not only power, but the exertion of that power; for power that is not exerted produces no effect. All that is necessary to the production of any effect, is power in an efficient cause to produce the effect, and the exertion of that power; for it is a contradiction to say, that the cause has power to produce the effect, and exerts that power, and yet the effect is not produced. The effect cannot be in his power unless all the means necessary to its production be in his power. [277] It is no less a contradiction to say, that a cause has power to produce a certain effect, but that he cannot exert that power; for power which cannot be exerted is no power, and is a contradiction in terms. To prevent mistake, it is proper to observe, That a being may have a power at one time which it has not at another. It may commonly have a power, which, at a particular time, it has not. Thus, a man may commonly have power to walk or to run; but he has not this power when asleep, or when he is confined by superior force. In common language, he may be said to have a power which he cannot then exert. But this popular expression means only that he commonly has this power, and will have it when the cause is removed which at present deprives him of it; for, when we speak strictly and philosophically, it is a contradiction to say that he has this power, at that moment when he is deprived of it. These, think, are necessary consequences from the principle first mentionedThat every change which happens in nature must have an efficient cause which had power to produce it. Another principle, which appears very early in the mind of man, is, That we are efficient causes in our deliberate and voluntary actions. We are conscious of making an exertion, sometimes with difficulty, in order to proFrom this principle it follows, That every-duce certain effects. An exertion made dething which undergoes any change, must either be the efficient cause of that change in itself, or it must be changed by some other being. In the first case, it is said to have active power, and to act in producing that change. In the second case, it is merely passive, or is acted upon, and the active power is in that being only which produces the change. The name of a cause and of an agent, is properly given to that being only, which, by its active power, produces some change in liberately and voluntarily, in order to produce an effect, implies a conviction that the effect is in our power. No man can deliberately attempt what he does not believe to be in his power. The language of all mankind, and their ordinary conduct in life, demonstrate that they have a conviction of some active power in themselves to produce certain motions in their own and in other bodies, and to regulate and direct their own thoughts. This conviction we have SO early in life, that we have no remembrance | reflection. They maintain, therefore, that when, or in what way, we acquired it. [278] a Cause is only something prior to the effect, That such a conviction is at first the ne- and constantly conjoined with it. This is cessary result of our constitution, and that Mr Hume's notion of a cause, and seems it can never be entirely obliterated, is, I to be adopted by Dr Priestley," who says, think, acknowledged by one of the most zeal- "That a cause cannot be defined to be any ous defenders of Necessity. "Free Dis- thing, but such previous circumstances as cussion, &c.," p 298. "Such are the in- are constantly followed by a certain effect, fluences to which all mankind, without dis- the constancy of the result making us continction, are exposed that they necessarily clude that there must be a sufficient reason, refer actions (I mean refer them ultimately) in the nature of the things, why it should first of all to themselves and others; and it be produced in those circumstances." is a long time before they begin to consider [Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity, p. 11.] themselves and others as instruments in the hand of a superior agent. Consequently, the associations which refer actions to themselves get so confirmed that they are never entirely obliterated; and therefore the common language, and the common feelings, of mankind, will be adapted to the first, the limited and imperfect, or rather erroneous, view of things." It is very probable that the very conception or idea of active power, and of efficient causes, is derived from our voluntary exertions in producing effects; and that, if we were not conscious of such exertion, we should have no conception at all of a cause, or of active power, and consequently no conviction of the necessity of a cause of every change which we observe in nature.+ It is certain that we can conceive no kind of active power but what is similar or analogous to that which we attribute to ourselves; that is, a power which is exerted by will and with understanding. Our notion, even of Almighty power, is derived from the notion of human power, by removing from the former those imperfections and limitations to which the latter is subjected. [279] It may be difficult to explain the origin of our conceptions and belief concerning efficient causes and active power. The common theory, that all our ideas are ideas of Sensation or Reflection, and that all our belief is a perception of the agreement or the disagreement of those ideas, appears to be repugnant, both to the idea of an efficient cause, and to the belief of its necessity. An attachment to that theory has led some philosophers to deny that we have any conception of an efficient cause, or of active power, because efficiency and active power are not ideas, either of sensation or *Priestley.-H. If this were the case, our notion of causality would be of an empirical derivation, and without the quality of universality and necessity. This doctrine is also at variance with the account given of the notion above, (p. 455, sq. et alibi,) where it is viewed as an original and native principle. See p. 323, and note*. It is true, however, that the consciousness of our own efficiency illuminates the dark notion of ausality, founded, as I conceive, in our impotence to conceive the possibility of an absolute commencement, and raises it from the vague and negative into the precise and positive notion of power.-H. But theory ought to stoop to fact, and not fact to theory. Every man who understands the language knows that neither priority, nor constant conjunction, nor both taken together, imply efficiency. Every man, free from prejudice, must assent to what Cicero has said: Itaque non sic causa intelligi debet, ut quod cuique antecedat, id i causa sit, sed quod cuique efficienter antecedat, [De Fato, c. 15.] The very dispute, whether we have the conception of an efficient cause, shews that we have. For, though men may dispute about things which have no existence, they cannot dispute about things of which they have no conception. [280] What has been said in this chapter is intended to shew-That the conception of causes, of action and of active power, in the strict and proper sense of these words, is found in the minds of all men very early, even in the dawn of their rational life. It is therefore probable, that, in all languages, the words by which these conceptions were expressed were at first distinct and unambiguous, yet it is certain that, among the most enlightened nations, these words are applied to so many things of different natures, and used in so vague a manner, that it is very difficult to reason about them distinctly. This phænomenon, at first view, seems very unaccountable. But a little reflection may satisfy us, that it is a natural consequence of the slow and gradual progress of human knowledge. And since the ambiguity of these words has so great influence upon our reasoning about moral liberty, and furnishes the strongest objections against it, it is not foreign to our subject to shew whence it arises. When we know the causes that have produced this ambiguity, we shall be less in danger of being misled by it, and the proper and strict meaning of the words will more evidently appear. [281] The same doctrine has found an advocate in Dr Thomas Brown. In this theory, the phænomenon to be saved is silently or in effect evacuated of its principal quality—the quality of Necessity; for the real problem is to explain how it is that we cannot but think that all which begins to be has not an ab. solute but only a relative commencement. These philosophers do not anatomize but truncate.-H. 66 Savages," says the Abbé Raynal, "wherever they see motion which they cannot account for, there they suppose a soul." All men may be considered as savages in this respect, until they are capable of instruction, and of using their faculties in a more perfect manner than savages do. The rational conversations of birds and beasts in Esop's "Fables" do not shock the belief of children. They have that probability in them which we require in an epic poem. Poets give us a great deal of pleasure, by clothing every object with intellectual and moral attributes, in metaphor and in other figures. May not the pleasure which we take in this poetical language, arise, in part, from its correspondence with our earliest sentiments? [282] However this may be, the Abbe Raynal's observation is sufficiently confirmed, both from fact, and from the structure of all languages. Rude nations do really believe sun, moon, and stars, earth, sea, and air, fountains and lakes, to have understanding and active power. To pay homage to them and implore their favour, is a kind of idolatry natural to savages. All languages carry in their structure the marks of their being formed when this belief prevailed. The distinction of verbs and participles into active and passive, which is found in all languages, must have been originally intended to distinguish what is really active from what is merely passive; and, in all languages, we find active verbs applied to those objects, in which, according to the Abbé Raynal's observation, savages suppose a soul. Thus we say, the sun rises and sets, and comes to the meridian; the moon changes; the sea ebbs and flows; the winds blow. Languages were formed by men who believed these objects to have life and active power in themselves. It was therefore proper and natural to express their motions and changes by active verbs. There is no surer way of tracing the sentiments of nations before they have records, than by the structure of their language, which, notwithstanding the changes produced in it by time, will always retain some signatures of the thoughts of those by whom it was invented. When we find the same sentiments indicated in the structure of all languages, those sentiments must have been common to the human species when languages were invented. [283] When a few of superior intellectual abilities find leisure for speculation, they begin to philosophize, and soon discover that many of those objects which, at first, they believed to be intelligent and active, are really lifeless and passive. This is a very important discovery. It elevates the mind, emancipates from many vulgar superstitions, and invites to farther discoveries of the same kind. As philosophy advances, life and activity in natural objects retires, and leaves them dead and inactive. Instead of moving voluntarily, we find them to be moved necessarily; instead of acting, we find them to be acted upon; and nature appears as one great machine, where one wheel is turned by another, that by a third; and how far this necessary succession may reach, the philosopher does not know. The weakness of human reason makes men prone, when they leave one extreme, to rush into the opposite; and thus philosophy, even in its infancy, may lead men from idolatry and polytheism into atheism, and from ascribing active power to inanimate beings, to conclude all things to be carried on by necessity. Whatever origin we ascribe to the doctrines of atheism and of fatal necessity, it is certain that both may be traced almost as far back as philosophy; and both appear to be the opposites of the earliest sentiments of men. It must have been by the observation and reasoning of the speculative few, that those objects were discovered to be inanimate and inactive, to which the many ascribed life and activity. But while the few are convinced of this, they must speak the language of the many, in order to be understood. So we see that, when the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, which agrees with vulgar prejudice and with vulgar language, has been universally rejected by philosophers, they continue to use the phraseology that is grounded upon it, not only in speaking to the vulgar, but in speaking to one another. They say, The sun rises and sets, and moves annually through all the signs of the zodiac, while they believe that he never leaves his place. [284] |