Lord Kames, who was a most sincere inquirer after truth, abandoned, in the last edition of his Essays on Morality and Natural Religion, the doctrine of a deceitful sense of liberty; and in so doing gave a rare example of candor and fairness as a reasoner. But I am

very doubtful if the alterations which he made in his scheme did not impair the merits which in its original concoction it possessed in point of consistency. The first edition of this work appeared when the author was in the full vigor of his faculties; the last, when he was approaching to fourscore.*

*One of the ablest of the living asserters of necessity, John Stuart Mill, acknowledges, and endeavours to correct, the fatalistic implications and tendencies of that doctrine, as generally received. We will give his own words:

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Though the doctrine of necessity, as stated by most who hold it, is very remote from fatalism, it is probable that most necessarians are fatalists, more or less, in their feelings. A fatalist believes, or half believes (for nobody is a consistent fatalist), not only that whatever is about to happen will be the infallible result of the causes which produce it (which is the true necessarian doctrine), but moreover that there is no use in struggling against it; that it will happen, however we may strive to prevent it. Now, a necessarian, believing that our actions follow from our characters, and that our characters follow from our organization, our education, and our circumstances, is apt to be, with more or less of consciousness on his part, a fatalist as to his own actions, and to believe that his nature is such, or that his education and circumstances have so moulded his character, that nothing can now prevent him from feeling and acting in a particular way, or at least that no effort of his own can hinder it. In the words of the sect [Robert Owen and his followers] which in our own day has so perseveringly inculcated, and so perversely misunderstood, this great doctrine, his character is formed for him, and not by him; there fore his wishing that it had been formed differently is of no use, - he has no power to alter it. But this is a grand error. He has, to a certain extent, a power to alter his character. Its being, in the ultimate resort, formed for him, is not inconsistent with its being, in part, formed by him as one of the intermediate agents His character is formed by his circum stances (including among these his particular organization); but his own desire to mould it in a particular way is one of those circumstances, and by no means one of the least influential. We cannot, indeed, directly will to be different from what we are. But did those who are supposed to have formed our characters directly will that we should be what we are? Their will had no direct power except over their own actions. They made us what they did make us, by willing, not the end, but the requisite means; and we, when our habits are not too inveterate, can, by similarly willing the requisite means, make ourselves different. If they could place us un der the influence of certain circumstances, we, in like manner, can place ourselves under the influence of other circumstances. We are exactly

SECTION III.

IS THE EVIDENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN FAVOR OF THE

SCHEME OF FREE WILL, OR OF THAT OF NECESSITY?

I. The Appeal to Consciousness.] It has been lately said, by a very ingenious and acute writer, that, "in the

as capable of making our own character, if we will, as others are of making it for us.

"Yes,' answers the Owenite, 'but these words, "if we will," surrender the whole point: since the will to alter our own character is given us, not by any efforts of ours, but by circumstances which we cannot help; it comes to us either from external causes, or not at all.' Most true: if the Owenite stops here, he is in a position from which nothing can expel him. Our character is formed by us, as well as for us; but the wish which induces us to attempt to form it is formed for us. And how? Not in general, by our organization or education, but by our experience, experience of the painful consequences of the character we previously had; or by some strong feeling of admiration or aspiration, accidentally aroused. But to think that we have no power, and to think that we shall not use our power unless we have a motive, are very different things, and have a very different effect upon the mind. A person who does not wish to alter his character cannot be the person who is supposed to feel discouraged or paralyzed by thinking himself unable to do it. The depressing effect of the fatalist doctrine can only be felt where there is a wish to do what that doctrine represents as impossible. It is of no consequence what we think forms our character when we have no desire of our own about forming it; but it is of great consequence that we should not be prevented from forming such a desire by thinking the attainment impracticable, and that, if we have the desire, we should know that the work is not so irrevocably done as to be incapable of being altered.

"The subject will never be generally understood, until that objectionable term [necessity] is dropped. The free-will doctrine, by keeping in view precisely that portion of the truth which the word necessity puts out of sight, namely, the power of the mind to coöperate in the formation of its own character, has given to its adherents a practical feeling much nearer to the truth than has generally, I believe, existed in the minds of necessarians. The latter may have had a stronger sense of the importance of what human beings can do to shape the characters of one another; but the free-will doctrine has, I believe, fostered, especially in the younger of its supporters, a much stronger spirit of self-culture."-System of Logic, Book VI. Chap. II. § 3.

The concessions contained in the last paragraph, considered as coming from a thorough-going necessitarian, are important. The modification in the understanding of the doctrine here proposed removes some of the purely psychological objections to it, but does not touch the moral objec tions. The doctrine is still as irreconcilable as ever with any intelligible acceptation of human accountability, or the moral government of God. And besides, when Mr. Mill asserts that "the feeling of moral freedom

controversy concerning liberty and necessity, the only question at issue between the disputants related to a matter of fact, on which they both appealed to the evidence of consciousness; namely, whether, all previous circumstances being the same, the choice of man be not also at all times the same." "" *

If the author of this observation had contented himself with saying that this question concerning the matter of fact, as ascertained by the evidence of consciousness, ought to have been considered as the only point at issue between the contending parties, I should most readily have subscribed to his proposition. Indeed, I have expressed myself very nearly to the same purpose in a former work. But if it is to be understood as an historical statement of the manner in which the controversy has always, or even most frequently, been carried on, I must beg leave to dissent from it very widely. How many arguments against the freedom of the will have been in all ages drawn from the prescience of the Deity! How many still continue to be drawn by very eminent divines from the doctrines of predestination and of eternal decrees! Has not Mr. Locke himself acknowledged the impression which the former of these considerations made on his mind? "I own," says he, "freely to you the weakness of my understanding; that though it be unquestionable that there is omnipotence and omniscience in God our Maker, and though I cannot have a clearer perception of any thing than that I am free, yet I cannot make freedom in man consistent with omnipotence and omniscience in God, though I am as fully persuaded of both as of any truth I most firmly assent to; and therefore I have long since given off the consideration of that question, resolving all into this

which we are conscious of" is nothing but a "feeling of our being able to modify our own character if we wish," he asserts what the advocates of free will will not admit to be true. If what we do depends on our wishing to do it, and our wishing to do it does not depend on ourselves, then nothing depends on ourselves, except to be the willing and active instruments of destiny. ED.

*

Edinburgh Review, Vol. XXVII. p. 226. [By Sir James Mackintosh ] ↑ Philosophy of the Human Mind, Part II. Chap. I. Sect. II.

short conclusion, that if it be possible for God to make a free agent, then man is free, though I see not the way of it."

A still more recent exception to the general assertion, which has given occasion to this section, occurs in Lord Kames's hypothesis of a deceitful sense of liberty, noticed above, as maintained in the first edition of his Essays on Morality and Natural Religion. Here, upon the faith of some subtile metaphysical reasonings, the very ingenious author adopts the scheme of necessity in direct opposition to the evidence which he candidly confesses that consciousness affords of our free agency. Even the latest advocates for necessity, Priestley and Belsham, as well as their predecessor, Collins himself, while they appealed (in the very words of the learned critic) to the evidence of consciousness in proof of the fact, that, all previous circumstances being the same, the choice of man is also at all times the same, yet thought it worth their while to strengthen this conclusion by calling to their aid the theological doctrines already mentioned. I cannot, therefore, see with what color of plausibility it can be said that "this matter of fact has been the only question at issue between the disputants."

It may, however, be regarded as one great step gained in this controversy, if it may henceforth be assumed as a principle agreed on by both parties, that this is the only question which can be philosophically stated on the subject, and that all arguments drawn from the attributes of the Deity are entirely foreign to the discussion. I shall accordingly devote this section to an examination of the fact, agreeably to the representation of it given by our modern necessitarians.

In what I have hitherto said upon the subject, I have proceeded on the supposition, that the doctrine of free will is consistent with the common feelings and belief of mankind. That "all our actions do now, in experience, seem to us to be free, exactly in the same manner as they would do upon the supposition of our being really free agents," is remarked by Clarke in his reply to Collins. "And consequently," he adds, "though

this alone does not amount to a strict demonstration of our being free, yet it leaves on the other side of the question nothing but a bare possibility of our being so framed by the Author of nature, as to be unavoidably deceived in this matter by every experience and every action we perform. The case is exactly the same," continues Dr. Clarke, "as in that notable question, whether the world exists or no. There is no demonstration of it from experience. There always remains a bare possibility that the Supreme Being may have so framed my mind as that I shall always necessarily be deceived in every one of my perceptions, as in a dream, though possibly there be no material world, nor any other creature whatsoever existing besides myself. Of this, I say, there always remains a bare possibility, and yet no man in his senses argues from thence that experience is no proof to us of the existence of things."

*Remarks, p. 19.

Cousin maintains liberty on the authority of consciousness. A free action is defined by him to be one "performed with the consciousness of power not to do it." He then proceeds to analyze a free action in order to ascertain precisely in what part it is free. According to him, the total action is resolvable into three elements, perfectly distinct: "1. The intellectual element, which is composed of the knowledge of the motives for and against, of deliberation, of preference, of choice. 2. The voluntary element, which consists in an internal act, namely, the resolution, the determination to do it. 3. The physical element, or external action.

The question now to be decided is, precisely in which of these three elements liberty is to be found, that is, the power of doing with the consciousness of being able not to do. Does this power of doing, while conscious of the power not to do, belong to the first element, the intellectual element of the free action? It does not; for it is not at the will of a man to judge that such or such a motive is preferable to another; we are not master of our preferences; we judge in this respect according to our intellectual nature, which has its necessary laws, without having the consciousness of being able to judge otherwise, and even with the consciousness of not being able to judge otherwise, than we do. It is not, then, in this element that we are to look for liberty. Still less is it in the third element, in the physical action; for this action supposes an external world, an organization corresponding to it, and, in this organization, a muscular system sound and suitable, without which the physical action would be impossible. When we accomplish it, we are conscious of acting, but under the condition of a theatre of which we have not the disposal, and of instruments of which we have but an imperfect disposal, which we can neither replace if they escape us, and they may do so every moment, nor repair if they are out of order or unfaithful, as is often the case, and which are subject to laws peculiar to themselves, over which we have no power, and which we