CHAPTER II. 



OF LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 



1. THE question, whether the law of causality applies 

 in the same strict sense to human actions as to other pheno- 

 mena, is the celebrated controversy concerning the freedom of 

 the will : which, from at least as far back as the time of 

 Pelagius, has divided both the philosophical and the religious 

 world. The affirmative opinion is commonly called the doc- 

 trine of Necessity, as asserting human volitions and actions to 

 be necessary and inevitable. The negative maintains that the 

 will is not determined, like other phenomena, by antecedents, 

 but determines itself; that our volitions are not, properly 

 speaking, the effects of causes, or at least have no causes which 

 they uniformly and implicitly obey. 



I have already made it sufficiently apparent that the former 

 of these opinions is that which I consider the true one ; but 

 the misleading terms in which it is often expressed, and the 

 indistinct manner in which it is usually apprehended, have 

 both obstructed its reception, and perverted its influence when 

 received. The metaphysical theory of free will, as held by 

 philosophers, (for the practical feeling of it, common in a greater 

 or less degree to all mankind, is in no way inconsistent with 

 the contrary theory,) was invented because the supposed alter- 

 native of admitting human actions'to be necessary, was deemed 

 inconsistent with every one's instinctive consciousness, as well 

 as humiliating to the pride and even degrading to the moral 

 nature of man. Nor do I deny that the doctrine, as sometimes 

 held, is open to these imputations ; for the misapprehension in 

 which I shall be able to show that they originate, unfortunately 

 is not confined to the opponents of the doctrine, but par- 

 ticipated in by many, perhaps we might say by most, of its 

 supporters. 



VOL. ii. 27 



