418 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



2. Correctly conceived, the doctrine called Philosophical 

 Necessity is simply this : that, given the motives which are 

 present to an individual's mind, and given likewise the cha- 

 racter and disposition of the individual, the manner in which 

 he will act might he unerringly inferred : that if we knew the 

 person thoroughly, and knew all the inducements which are 

 acting upon him, we could foretell his conduct with as much 

 certainty as we can predict any physical event. This proposi- 

 tion I take to he a mere interpretation of universal experience, 

 a statement in words of what every one is internally con- 

 vinced of. No one who believed that he knew thoroughly the 

 circumstances of any case, and the characters of the different 

 persons concerned, would hesitate to foretell how all of them 

 would act. Whatever degree of douht he may in fact feel, 

 arises from the uncertainty whether he really knows the cir- 

 cumstances, or the character of some one or other of the 

 persons, with the degree of accuracy required : hut by no 

 means from thinking that if he did know these things, there 

 could be any uncertainty what the conduct would be. Nor 

 does this full assurance conflict in the smallest degree with 

 what is called our feeling of freedom. We do not feel our- 

 selves the less free, because those to whom we are intimately 

 known are well assured how we shall will to act in a particular 

 case. We often, on the contrary, regard the doubt what our 

 conduct will be, as a mark of ignorance of our character, and 

 sometimes even resent it as an imputation. The religious 

 metaphysicians who have asserted the freedom of the will, 

 have always maintained it to be consistent with divine fore- 

 knowledge of our actions : and if with divine, then with any 

 other foreknowledge. We may be free, and yet another 

 may have reason to be perfectly certain what use we shall 

 make of our freedom. It is not, therefore, the doctrine that 

 our volitions and actions are invariable consequents of our 

 antecedent states of mind, that is either contradicted by our 

 consciousness, or felt to be degrading. 



But the doctrine of causation, when considered as obtaining 

 between our volitions and their antecedents, is almost uni- 

 versally conceived as involving more than this. Many do not 



