200 How Automatism differs CHAP. 



himself as only bringing new arguments for the old 

 Necessarian doctrine which has been extensively, 

 however erroneously, incorporated into theology. 

 This, however, is a misconception. Metaphysical 

 Necessarianism did not deny the existence of Will. 

 It may be said that a Will which is not free is a con- 

 tradiction in terms ; that to deny the freedom of the 

 Will is to deny its existence ; but this is mere rhetoric. 

 Will means the action of the Mind, as determined by 

 motives, towards the attainment of a purpose. The 

 older metaphysical Necessarians maintained that the 

 Will has no truly self-determining power : that its 

 determinations necessarily depend on whatever motive 

 happens at the moment to be the strongest. But 

 they did not deny the reality of voluntary action ; 

 and in affirming it they affirmed the spontaneous 

 belief of all men, that the Will is an agent, which is 

 able to act on the world of matter through muscular 

 motion ; in other words, that Consciousness, or Mind, 

 though not itself physical, is capable of becoming a 

 link in the chain of physical cause and effect ; or 

 when this was denied, as it was by Leibnitz, and 

 from a different point of view by Malebranche, 1 it 

 was denied by some theory which preserved the in- 

 dependent agency of Mind or Will. 



But Automatism, which is the doctrine of Physi- 



1 Leibnitz was a Necessarian. I do not know whether 

 Malebranche would have called himself so; but he also main- 

 tained the reality of the human Will, while denying its 

 efficiency in the world of matter. 



