424 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



which the word Necessity puts out of sight, namely the power 

 of the mind to co-operate 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 in its supporters a much stronger spirit of self- culture. 



4. There is still one fact which requires to be noticed 

 (in addition to the existence of a power of self-formation) 

 before the doctrine of the causation of human actions can be 

 freed from the confusion and misapprehensions which sur- 



round it in many minds. , When the will is said to be deter 

 mined by motives, a motive does not mean always, or solely, 



k.the anticipation of a pleasure or of a pain. I shall not here 

 inquire whether it be true that, in the commencement, all our 

 voluntary actions are mere means consciously employed to 

 obtain some pleasure, or avoid some pain. It is at least 

 certain that we gradually, through the influence of association, 

 come to desire the means without thinking of the end : the 

 action itself becomes an object of desire, and is performed 

 without reference to any motive beyond itself. Thus far, it 

 may still be objected, that, the action having through associa 

 tion become pleasurable, we are, as much as before, moved to 

 act by the anticipation of a pleasure, namely the pleasure of 

 the action itself. But granting this, the matter does not end 

 here. As we proceed in the formation of habits, and become 

 accustomed to will a particular act or a particular course of 

 conduct because it is pleasurable, we at last continue to will it 

 without any reference to its being pleasurable. Although, 

 from some change in us or in our circumstances, we have 

 ceased to find any pleasure in the action, or perhaps to antici 

 pate any pleasure as the consequence of it, we still continue to 

 desire the action, and consequently to do it. In this manner 

 it is that habits of hurtful excess continue to be practised 

 although they have ceased to be pleasurable ; and in this 

 manner also it is that the habit of willing to persevere in the 



