Bishop Butler* says, 'If, in considering our state of trial, we go on to observe how mankind behave under it, we shall find that some have so little sense of it, that they scarce look beyond the passing day; they are so taken up with present gratifications as to have in a manner no feeling of consequences, no regard to their future ease or fortune in this life, any more than to their happiness in another. Some appear to be blinded and deceived by inordinate passion in their worldly concerns as well as in religion; others are not deceived, but, as it were, forcibly carried away by the little passions, against their better judgment and feeble resolutions, too, of acting better; and there are men, and truly there are not a few, who shamelessly avow, not their interest, but their mere will and pleasure to be their law of life; and who, in open defiance of every thing that is reasonable, will go on in a course of vicious extravagance, foreseeing with no remorse and little fear that it will be their temporal ruin; and some of them under the apprehension of the consequences of wickedness in another state. And to speak in the most moderate way, human creatures are not only continually liable to go wrong voluntarily, but we see likewise that they often actually do so with respect to their temporal interests as well as with respect to religion.' Daily experience, indeed, shows, that in different persons the various feelings and talents of the mind are active in different degrees. This kind of fatalism is certain, and founded in nature, and even in the Supreme Being himself; for perfection and infinite goodness and infinite justice inhere in the nature of God, and he cannot desire evil. So also the feelings proper to man, according to nature, must desire the common welfare. It is therefore not astonishing that the philosophers of China, Hindostan, and Greece, the eastern and western Christians, and the followers of Mahomet, have blended a certain kind of fatalism with their religious opinions. Indeed, it cannot be dangerous to insist on such a fatalism in so far as it exists. Christ, his apostles, and the fathers of the church have done so. A proverb of Solo mon is, the Lord gives wisdom; ' according to Christianity, The tree is known by its fruit ;'* St. Paul says, ' And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son; that he might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called and whom he called, them he also justified and whom he justified, them he also glorified.' † And again: 'Who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive?'‡ St. Augustin taught openly and distinctly our dependance on God, and commanded the preaching of this truth. As no one,' says he, can give to himself life, so nobody can give to himself understanding.' He calls gifts of God, all good qualities, as the fear of God, charity, faith, obedience, justice, veracity. He says, || that God has not distributed in an equal manner noble sentiments any more than temporal good, as health, strength, riches, honors, the gifts of arts and sciences. I declare then that I believe in that fatalism or in that determinate arrangement by the Creator, according to which the nature of man, his fundamental dispositions of body and mind, their relations and dependence on organization, are fixed. Man in this life can never be an angel. I believe farther in a certain kind of Necessity. The doctrine of necessity has also occupied many minds; it nas been admitted by some and denied by others. It is necessary to come to a clear understanding about the meaning of the word. I take it as the principle of causation, or in the sense of the relation between cause and effect. This principle is admitted in the physical and intellectual world; but in the moral operations of the mind it is not sufficiently attended to. Yet there is no moral effect without a moral cause, any more than a physical or intellectual *Mat. xii. 33. † Rom. viii. 28-30. 1 Cor. iv. 7. event without an adequate cause. The principle of causation in the moral world is expressed by the connexion between motives and actions. It seems to me surprising, that this connexion should have been theoretically questioned, while every human being is daily dependent upon its truth. It is perceived in all our projects, in the direction of our family, in the regulations of the government, and in every social proceeding. Motives are proposed whenever we wish to produce actions. Without the law of causation in the moral world there would be no foresight of events, and no science of politics. One might act reasonably or unreasonably, justly or unjustly, well or ill, because he acts without motive. Such a state is contradictory in itself, and in this supposition all institutions which implicate the happiness of mankind would be useless. Education, morality, religion, reward and punishment should all be inefficient, man being determined by no motive. And we might expect from every one hatred and perfidy as well as friendship and fidelity, vice as well as virtue. Such a state is merely speculative, whilst in reality man is subjected to the law of causation like the rest of nature. This state alone has been professed by ancient philosophers and legislators, and is supposed by religion and moral doctrines, which furnish the nobler motives to direct man in his actions. But I do not believe in Necessity as irresistibility. It is positive, that the mental faculties are innate; that their manifestations depend on cerebral organs (Fatality;) and that without power we cannot act (Necessity.) The adversaries of Phrenology object, that, therefore, all actions must be unavoidable and irresistible, and that there is no responsibility. It is a fact that without power we cannot act, but it is also a fact that the power being given we need not act. Neither in animals nor in man are all the faculties active at the same moment and irresistible. It constantly happens that one power acts while the others are quiescent, and that one deed rather than another is done. If this were not, it should be the height of cruelty to punish animals to prevent peculiar actions. If a dog be punished for having eaten under certain circumstances, do we not see that though hungry, he will not touch a bit under the same occasion? And is it not precisely so with man? He has a great number of faculties, but are they always active, are they irresistible? We can walk, dance and sing, but are we constantly forced to do so? Who does not often feel within himself a wish for something or an inclination to do some act which he combats by other motives? Indubitably then, neither animals nor man are irresistibly forced to act; St. Augustin long ago said,* God in giving the power does not inflict the irresistibility.' Man then is free and accountable; how far? Free will, or liberty and responsibility. Some philosophers attributed to man an unbounded liberty; they made him independent of every natural law, so to say, his own creator, and his will the sole cause of his actions; nay, they gave him an absolute liberty without motives. Such a liberty, however, in a created being is contradictory, and all that can be said in favor of it, is destitute of signification. Being free is the reverse of being forced, and free will or liberty is the opposite of irresistibility. The whole constitution of man, though determined by the Creator, does not exclude liberty, deliberation, choice, preference and action, from certain motives and to certain ends. All this is matter of experience universally acknowledged, and every man must every moment be conscious of it. Liberty belongs to the constitution of man. Some moralists, with Dr. Price, maintain that understanding is necessary to establish free will, others derive it from an innate moral sense which is everlasting with truth and reason. My view of free will or liberty is as follows. It consists in the possibility of doing or of not doing any thing, and in the faculty of know * Lib. de litera et spiritu, c. 31. ing motives and of determining one's self according to them. Three things then must be considered in liberty: will, the plurality of motives, and the influence of the will upon the instruments which perform the actions. The first object to be considered is the meaning of the word Will. I have already stated, and repeat for the sake of clearness, that many authors confound will with the propensities, inclinations, or concupiscences, and therefore deny the existence of free-will. Internal satisfaction and free-will, however, are very different things. Satisfaction accompanies the fulfilling of every desire. The sheep and tiger do not act freely, because they are pleased, the one with grazing, and the other with tearing his prey in pieces. Each faculty of animal life being active, gives a desire or an inclination which man and animals experience involuntarily. They are forced to feel hunger if the nerves of that sense act in a certain manner; they must see, if the light strikes the retina of their eyes, &c. Man, then, has neither any power upon accidental external impressions, nor over the existence of internal feelings. He must feel an inclination if its appropriate organ be excited; and not master of this, he cannot be answerable for it. But inclinations, propensities, or desires, are not will, because man and animals often have these, and yet will not. A hungry dog, for example, which has been beaten, occasionally refuses the food offered to him; he is hungry, he wants, but wills not to eat. It is the same with man. How often are we all obliged to act against our inclinations! Thus, experience proves not only that the faculties do not act irresistibly either in man or in animals, or, in other words, that there exists liberty or freedom, but also that inclinations are not yet will. Freedom, however, presupposes will. How then is will origin ated? To have will, to decide for or against, I must evidently know what has passed or is to happen; I must compare : hence, will begins with the perceptive and reflective faculties, i. e. with understanding; the will of every animal is therefore proportionate to its understanding. Man has the greatest freedom, because his will |