x from the old Necessarianism. 201 



cal, as distinguished from Metaphysical, Necessity in 

 mental action, denies to Mind any agency, or causa- 

 tive power, whatever ; Automatism teaches that 

 the supposed agency of Mind is an illusion ; that the 

 agents in what is believed to be mental action are 

 only currents in the nerves of the brain; that all 

 such action goes on as if in unconsciousness ; and 

 that Consciousness is related to the nervous apparatus 

 of the brain, only as music to the instrument which 

 produces it. 



Now, if this theory is shown to be possibly false, 

 and certainly unproved and impossible to be proved, 

 all arguments from the side of dynamical science, 

 against the possibility of mental self-determination 

 and Moral Freedom, disappear. The dynamical argu- 

 ment against Freedom is that the intervention of such 

 an agent as a free Will in the world of matter would 

 involve either the creation or the destruction of 

 energy, and would thus be inconsistent with the law 

 of its conservation ; but this argument is equally 

 good against any agency whatever of Mind or Will 

 in the world of matter, and is consequently no special 

 objection to the agency of a free self -determining 

 AVill. From a physical point of view the difficulty 

 of the action of Will on matter is the same in the 

 case of the merest beast that ever tore fruit off a tree 

 under the impulse of hunger, as in that of man when 

 acting with the most deliberate wisdom ; and in both, 

 it appears to be as nearly proved as the nature of the 

 case allows, that Consciousness, or Mind, in the form 



