LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 425 



course which he has chosen, does not desert the moral hero, 

 even when the reward, however real, which he doubtless receives 

 from the consciousness of well-doing, is anything but an 

 equivalent for the sufferings he undergoes, or the wishes which 

 he may have to renounce. 



A habit of willing is commonly called a purpose ; and 

 among the causes of our volitions, and of the actions which 

 flow from them, must be reckoned not only likings and aver- 

 sions, but also purposes. It is only when our purposes have 

 become independent of the feelings of pain or pleasure from 

 which they originally took their rise, that we are said to have 

 a confirmed character. "A character," says Novalis, "is a 

 completely fashioned will :" and the will, once so fashioned, 

 may be steady and constant, when the passive susceptibilities of 

 pleasure and pain are greatly weakened, or materially changed. 



With the corrections and explanations now given, the 

 doctrine of the causation of our volitions by motives, and of 

 motives by the desirable objects offered to us, combined with 

 our particular susceptibilities of desire, may be considered, 

 I hope, as sufficiently established for the purposes of this 

 treatise.* 



* Some arguments and explanations, supplementary to those in the text, 

 will be found in An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, chap. 



