well as all his creatures, to the control of causes which he is unable to resist. So completely does this scheme defeat the pious views in which it has sometimes originated. I say sometimes, for this very argument against the liberty of the will is employed by Spinoza; according to whom the free agency of man involves the absurd supposition of an imperium in imperio in the universe. Voltaire, too, who in his latter days, abandoning those principles for which he had before, when in the full vigor of his faculties, so zealously and eloquently contended, seems to have become a convert to the scheme of fatalism, has on one occasion had recourse to an argument against man's free agency, similar in substance to what is advanced by Spinoza in the passage now referred to. "En effet, il seroit bien singulier que toute la nature, tous les astres obéissent à des loix étérnelles, et qu'il y eut un petit animal haut de cinq pieds, qui en mépris de ces lois pût agir toujours comme il lui plairoit au seul gré de son caprice," -" Singular!" exclaims Dr. Beattie, after quoting the preceding sentence, "Aye, singular indeed—but not a whit more singular than that this same animal of five feet should perceive, and think, and read, and write, and speak; attributes which no astronomer of my acquaintance has ever supposed to belong to the planets, notwithstanding their brilliant appearance and stupendous magnitude." The reply is quite as good as the argument is entitled to.

SECTION III.

View of the Question given by Hobbes.

ACCORDING to the view of the subject that has now been taken, we are led to conclude, that man possesses a power over the determinations of his will:-and this is precisely the scheme of what is commonly called free will, in opposition to that of necessity.

But this power over the determinations of the will has been represented by some philosophers as an absurdity and impossibility. Liberty," we are told, "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 upon its determinations. 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 other being.'

Agreeably to this reasoning, Hobbes defines a free agent to be "he that can do if he will, and forbear if he will."§ The same definition has been adopted by Leibnitz, by Collins, by Gravesande, by Edwards, by Bonnet, and by all later necessitarians. It cannot be better expressed than in the words of Gravesande : "Facultas faciendi quod libuerit, quæcunque fuerit voluntatis determinatio."¶

Dr. Priestley ascribes this peculiar notion of free will to Hobbes as its author;' but it is in fact of much older date even among modern metaphysicians; coinciding exactly with the doctrine of thoses cholastic divines who contended for the Liberty of Spontaneity, in opposition to the liberty of indifference. It is, however, to Hobbes that the partizans of this opinion are indebted for the happiest and most popular illustration of it that has yet been given. "I conceive,' says he, "liberty to be ightly defined, the absence of all the impediments to action that are not contained

* Tractat. Polit. cap. ii. sect. 6. † Le Philosophe Ignorant, XIII. Essay on Truth, p. 360, 2d Ed. § Hobbes's Works, p. 484. Fol. Ed. Leibnitz has almost literally translated the words of Hobbes. "Proprie loquendo volumus agere; non vero volumus velle; alioqui dicere etiam possemus, velle nos habere voluntatem volendi, quod in infinitum abiret." (Leib. Op. T. I. p. 156.)

¶ Introd. ad Philosoph. sect. 115.

**"The doctrine of philosophical necessity," says Priestley, "is in reality a modern thing; not older, I believe, than Mr. Hobbes. Of the Calvinists, I believe Mr. Jonathan Edwards to be the first." (Illustrations of Philos. Necess. p. 195.) Supposing this statement to be correct, does not the very modern date of Hobbes's alleged discovery furnish a very strong presumption against it?

in the nature and intrinsical quality of the agent. As, for example, the water is said to descend freely, or to have liberty to descend by the channel of the river, because there is no impediment that way; but not across, because the banks are impediments. And though water cannot ascend, yet men never say it wants the liberty to ascend, but the faculty or power, because the impediment is in the nature of the water, and intrinsical. So also we say, he that is tied wants the liberty to go, because the impediment is not in him, but in his hands: whereas we say not so of him who is sick or lame, because the impediment is in himself.” *

According to Bonnet, "moral liberty is the power of the mind, to obey without constraint the impulse of the motives which act upon it." This definition, which is obviously the same in substance with that of Hobbes, is thus very justly, as well as acutely, animadverted on by Cuvier. "N'admettant aucune action sans motif, comme dit-il il n'y a aucun effet sans cause, Bonnet définit la Liberté Morale, le pouvoir de l'âme de suivre sans contrainte les motifs dont elle éprouve l'impulsion; il resout ainsi les objections que l'on tire de la prévision de Dieu; mais peut-être aussi detourne-t-il l'idée qu'on se fait d'ordinaire de la liberté. Malgré ces opinions, qui touchent au matérialisme et au fatalisme, Bonnet fut très réligieux." t

From this passage it appears, that the very ingenious writer was as completely aware as Clarke or Reid, of the unsoundness of the definition of moral liberty given by Hobbes and his followers; and that the ultimate tendency of the doctrine which limits the free agency of man to (what has been called) the liberty of spontaneity, was the same, though in a more disguised form, with that of fatalism. On points of this sort, I have always a peculiar satisfaction, when I am able to fortify my own conclusions by the opinions of writers educated under other forms of government, and other systems of religion. I need not say how much this satisfaction is increased when the writers, with whom I have the good fortune to agree, rank as high as Cuvier in the philosophical world.

In order to judge how far the reasoning of Hobbes is in this instance satisfactory, it is necessary to attend to the various significations of the word liberty; for the sense in which Hobbes has defined it is only one of its acceptations, and by no means the sense in which it ought to be employed in this controversy.

1. Liberty is opposed to confinement of the body by superior force, as when a person is shut up in a prison. It is in this sense that Hobbes uses the word; for he tells us, that liberty consists only in a power to act as we will. And if the word had no other acceptation, the objection now stated would be a valid one; for as the will cannot be confined by any external force, neither can we with propriety ascribe to the will that species of liberty which is opposed to such confinement.

2. Liberty is opposed to the restraints on human conduct arising from law and government; as when we say, that, by entering into a political society, a man gives up part of his natural liberty. In this sense liberty undoubtedly extends to the determinations of the will; and the very obligations which are opposed to it proceed on the supposition that the will is free. The establishment of law does not abridge this freedom, but, on the contrary, it takes for granted that we have it in our power to obey or to transgress; proposing to us on the one hand, the motives of duty and of interest; and setting before us, on the other, the consequences of wilful transgression.

3. Liberty is opposed to necessity; and it is in this sense the word is employed, when we say that man is a free and accountable being, and that the connexion between motives and actions is not a necessary connexion, like that between cause and effect. This species of liberty has been called by some moral liberty.

That there is nothing inconceivable in this idea, appears, I hope, sufficiently from what has been already said. And indeed it is so far from being a metaphysical refinement or subtlety, that the common sense of mankind pronounces men to be accountable for their conduct, only in so far as they are understood to be morally free. Whence is it that we consider the pain of the rack as an alleviation of the falsehoods extorted from the criminal? Plainly because the motives presented to him are supposed to be such as no ordinary degree of self-command is able to resist. And if we were only satisfied that these motives were perfectly irresistible, we would not ascribe to him any guilt at all.

* Treatise of Liberty and Necessity.

† Biographie Universelle, à Paris, 1812. Article Bonnet. Reid on the Active Powers, pp. 272, 273. Quarto Ed.

As an additional confirmation of Hobbes's doctrine, it has been urged, that human laws require no more to constitute a crime but that it be voluntary; and hence it has been inferred, that the criminality consists in the determination of the will, whether that determination be free or necessary.

The case just referred to affords a sufficient refutation of this argument. The confession of the criminal is surely voluntary in the strict acceptation of that term ; and yet we consider his guilt as alleviated, in the same proportion in which we suppose his moral liberty to be abridged.

It is true that in most cases human laws require no more to constitute a crime, but that it be voluntary; because in general, motives are placed beyond the cognizance of earthly tribunals. But, in a moral view, merit and demerit suppose not only actions to be voluntary, but the agent to be possessed of moral liberty. And even earthly tribunals judge on the same principle, wherever it can be made appear that the person accused was deprived of the power of self-government by insanity, or by some accidental paroxysm of passion.

I shall only mention one other argument in favor of the scheme of necessity; and I have reserved for it the last place, as it has been proposed with all the confidence of mathematical demonstration by a writer of no less note than Mr. Belsham. It is in the form of a reductio ad absurdum; and its more immediate object is to expose to ridicule the consequences which necessarily flow from the doctrine of free will.

The argument is this," According to the hypothesis of free will, the essence of virtue and vice consists in liberty; for example, benevolence without liberty is no virtue malignity without liberty is no vice. Both are equally in a neutral state. Add a portion of liberty to both, benevolence instantly becomes an eminent virtue, and malignity an odious vice. That is, IF TO EQUALS YOU ADD EQUALS, THE WHOLES WILL BE UNEQUAL; than which nothing can be more absurd.”

On this reasoning, to which it would be unjust to deny the merit of complete originality, I have no comment to offer. I have quoted it chiefly as a specimen of the logical and mathematical skill of the present advocates for the doctrine of philosophical necessity. In this point of view, it forms an amusing contrast to the lofty pretensions of a sect, which prides itself not only on its superiority to vulgar prejudices, but on its sagacity in detecting a fraud so successfully practised on the rest of mankind, by the author of their moral constitution.

If the foregoing remarks be well founded, the only two opinions which, in the actual state of metaphysical science, ought to be stated in contrast, are that of liberty (or free will) on the one side, and that of necessity on the other. As to the liberty of spontaneity, (which expresses a fact altogether foreign to the point in question,) I can conceive no motive for inventing such a phrase, but a desire, in some writers, to veil the scheme of necessity from their readers, under a language less revolting to the sentiments of mankind; and in others, an anxiety to banish it as far as possible from their own thoughts, by substituting, instead of the terms in which it is commonly expressed, a circumlocution which seems, on a superficial view, to concede something to the advocates for liberty.

The phrase liberty of indifference, which has been so frequently substituted (particularly since the time of Leibnitz) for the older, simpler, and much more intelligible phrase of free will, is, in my opinion, not less objectionable than the liberty of spontaneity. It certainly conveys but a very inadequate notion of the thing meant;-the power, to wit, of choice or election; and that not only among things indifferent, but (a fortiori) between right and wrong, good and evil.

The distinction between physical and moral necessity I conceive to be not less frivolous than those to which the foregoing animadversions relate. On this point I agree with Diderot's assertion in a passage to be quoted afterwards, that the word necessity (as it ought to be understood in this dispute) admits but of one interpretation.

*Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, by Thomas Belsham, pp. 258,259.

Both phrases are favorite expressions with Lord Kames in his discussions on this subject. See in particular the Appendix to his Essay on Liberty and Necessity, in the last edition of his Essays on Morality and Natural Religion.

SECTION IV.

Argument for Necessity, proposed by Leibnitz.

It is well known to all who have any acquaintance with the history of modern philosophy, that one of the fundamental principles of the Leibnitzian system is, "that nothing exists without a sufficient reason why it should be so, and not otherwise." Of this principle the following succinct account is given by Leibnitz himself in his controversial correspondence with Dr. Clarke :-" The great foundation of mathematics is the principle of contradiction or identity; that is, that a proposition cannot be true and false at the same time. But in order to proceed from mathematics to natural philosophy, another principle is requisite, (as I have observed in my Theodicæa,) I mean the principle of the sufficient reason; or, in other words, that nothing happens without a reason why it should be so rather than otherwise. And accordingly, Archimedes was obliged, in his book De Equilibrio, to take for granted, that if there be a balance in which every thing is alike on both sides, and if equal weights are hung on the two ends of that balance, the whole will be at rest. It is because no reason can be given why one side should weigh down rather than the other. Now by this single principle of the sufficient reason may be demonstrated the Being of a God, and all the other parts of metaphysics or natural theology; and even in some measure those physical truths that are independent upon mathematics, such as the dynamical principles, or the principles of force."

Some of the inferences deduced by Leibnitz from this almost gratuitous assumption are so paradoxical, that one cannot help wondering he was not staggered about its certainty. Not only was he led to conclude that the mind is necessarily determined in all its elections by the greatest apparent good, insomuch that it would be impossible for it to make a choice between two things perfectly alike; but he had the boldness to extend this conclusion to the Deity, and to assert, that two things perfectly alike could not have been produced even by Divine Power. It was upon this ground that he rejected a vacuum, because all the parts of it would be perfectly like to each other; and that he also rejected the supposition of atoms, or similar particles of matter, and ascribed to each particle a monad, or active principle, by which it is discriminated from every other particle. The application of his principle, however, on which he evidently valued himself the most, was that to which I have already alluded, the demonstrative evidence with which he conceived it to establish the impossibility of free agency, not only in man, but in any other intelligent being;* a conclusion which, under whatever form of words it may be disguised, is liable to every objection which can be urged against the system of Spinoza.

With respect to the principle from which these important consequences were deduced, it is observable, that it is stated by Leibnitz in terms so general and vague, as to extend to all the different departments of our knowledge; for he tells us that there must be a sufficient reason for every existence, for every event, and for every

The following comment on this part of the Leibnitzian system is from the pen of one of his greatest admirers, Charles Bonnet.-"Cette métaphysique transcendante deviendra un peu plus intelligible, si l'on fait attention, qu'en vertu du principe de la raison suffisante, tout est nécessairement lié dans l'univers. Toutes les actions des êtres simples sont harmoniques, ou subordonées les unes aux autres.. L'exercice actuel de l'activité d'une monade donnée, est déterminé par l'exercice actuel de l'activité des monades auxquelles elle corresponde immédiatement. Cette correspondence continue d'un point quelconque de l'univers jusqu'à ses extrémités. Representez vous les ondes circulaires et concentriques qu'une pierre excite dans une eau dormante. Elles vont toujours en s'élargissant et en s'affoiblissant.

"Mais, l'état actuel d'une monade est nécessairement détérminé par son état antécédent; celui-ci par un état qui a precéde, ainsi en remontant jusqu'à l'instant de la création.

“Ainsi le passé, le présent, et le futur ne forment dans la même monade qu'une seul chaîne, Notre philosophe disoit ingénieusement, que le présent est toujours gros de l'avenir.

"Il disoit encore que l'Eternel Géométre resolvoit sans cesse ce problême; l'état d'une monade etant donné, en détérminer l'état passé, présent, et futur de tout l'univers."-Bonnet, Tome VIII. pp. 303, 304, 305.

truth. This use of the word reason is so extremely equivocal, that it is quite impossible to annex any precise idea to the proposition. Of this it is unnecessary to produce any other proof than the application which is here made of it to things so very different as existences, events, and truths; in all of which cases it must of necessity have different meanings. It would be a vain attempt, therefore, to combat the maxim in the form in which it is generally appealed to. Nor indeed can we either adopt or reject it, without considering particularly how far it holds in the various instances to which it may be applied.

The multifarious discussions, however, of a physical,* a metaphysical, and a theological nature, necessarily involved in so detailed an examination, would, in the present times, (even if this were a proper place for introducing them) be equally useless and uninteresting. The peculiar opinions of Leibnitz on most questions connected with these sciences have already fallen into complete neglect. But as the maxim still continues to be quoted by the latest advocates for the scheme of necessity, it may not be altogether superfluous to observe, that, when understood to refer to the changes which take place in the material universe, it coincides entirely with the common maxim, that "every change implies the operation of a cause," and that it is in consequence of its intuitive evidence in this particular case, that so many have been led to acquiesce in it in the unlimited terms in which Leibnitz has announced it. One thing will be readily granted, that the maxim, when applied to the determinations of intelligent and moral agents, is not quite so obvious and indispu table as when applied to the changes that take place in things altogether inanimate and passive.

What then, it may be asked, induced Leibnitz, in the enunciation of his maxim, to depart from the form in which it has generally been stated, and to substitute, instead of the word cause the word reason, which is certainly not only the more unusual, but the more ambiguous expression of the two? Was it not evidently a perception of the impropriety of calling the motives from which we act the causes of our actions; or at least of the inconsistency of this language with the common ideas and feelings of mankind? The word reason is here much less suspicious, and much more likely to pass current without examination. It was therefore with no small dexterity that Leibnitz contrived to express his general principles in such a manner, that the impropriety of his language should be most apparent in that case in which the proposition is instantaneously admitted by every reader as self-evident; and to adapt it, in its most precise and definite shape, to the case in which it was in the greatest danger of undergoing a severe scrutiny. In this respect he has managed his argument with more address than Collins, or Edwards, or Hume, all of whom have applied the maxim to mind, in the very same words in which it is usually applied to inanimate matter.

Let us examine, therefore, Leibnitz's principle as applicable to the determinations of the will, and consider what it implies, and how far it is agreeable to fact. And for this purpose it is necessary to attend to the various senses in which it may be understood; for although it is in this case that the author's expressions are the least exceptionable, they are yet far from being limited to one interpretation.

1. When it is said, that for every voluntary action there must have been a sufficient reason, the proposition may be understood merely to imply that every such action must have had a cause. And we may remark by the way, that this is the only interpretation of which the proposition admits, if the word reason be used in the same sense in which alone Leibnitz's maxim is applicable to inanimate matter. But in this sense of the proposition it does not at all affect the question about liberty and necessity; for it only implies that the action is an effect, which either proceeded from the free will of the agent (in which case he may justly be said to be the cause

* One of the happiest applications of this principle in physics that I know of, is in D'Alembert's Demonstration of the Composition of Forces, where the only axiom which he assumes is this,-that," if a body be acted upon by three equal forces, in directions forming equal angles with each other, it will necessarily remain at rest, there existing no sufficient reason why it should move in one direction rather than another." The same principle too, is assumed in the ingenious reasoning employed by Stevinus, to prove" that a chain laid on an inclined plane, with a part of it hanging over at top in a perpendicular line, will be in equilibrio, if the two ends of the chain reach down to exactly the same level."-See Mr. Playfair's Dissertation in the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica, Part i. pp. 64, 65.