ON SENSORIAL VISION. 417 



him, if we would not reduce him to a machine. So far 

 then, and to this extent, I do not see how it is possible 

 not to recognize an original causation, or at least one 

 which it is morally, intellectually, and logically impos- 

 sible for us to find an antecedent for by any power of 

 merely human inquiry. But still there arises this other 

 and further question What determines the will in cases 

 where a variety of modes of action exist ; all, so far as 

 we can see, equally open to choice? Mr Mill here 

 refers us to the associative principle; and refers the 

 moral position of the individual to the education or 

 early discipline of this associating principle, by which 

 it may be habituated to suggest right and virtuous 

 courses of action among the many possible ones more 

 readily, more powerfully, and more suggestively (if one 

 may tautologize so far) than those of a contrary nature. 

 It is very evident that with the greatest rectitude of in- 

 tention, if a course of action the most conducive to the 

 interests of good do not suggest itself, or be not sug- 

 gested from without, the course actually adopted may 

 be one less so. It is then to the suggestive principle, 

 whatever that be, and however it may act, that we must 

 look for much that is determinant and decisive of our 

 volition when carried out into action, even when the 

 choice has been made between right and wrong in the 

 abstract ; and the u way in which thoughts come into 

 our minds" is part and parcel of the nature and mode 

 of action of that principle if it be not merely another 

 form of words for the same thing. Of course this is a 

 subject so obscure and so mysterious, that it is quite 



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