404 ON THF, GENERAL 



of motives being vested in itself, it is equally true that it is so far free to will, 

 as well as to act, or perform what it wills. 



If the distinction here offered had been properly attended to, we should, as 

 I am inclined to think, have had fewer opponents, in all ages, to the doctrine 

 of the freedom of the mind, or of the will as it is commonly denominated. 

 Among the chief of these opponents we may rank the Fatalists of ancient, 

 and the Necessarians of modern times. 



The general train of argument by which they have been led, and the ground 

 of its adoption, are not essentially different. Motives, volitions, and actions 

 are supposed by both sects to be of the same nature, in respect to relative 

 force and operation, as physical causes and effects ; and, consequently, the 

 same catenation, or necessary dependence of one fact upon another, which 

 marks the experienced train of events in the natural world, is conceived to 

 be perpetually taking place in the moral : " All voluntary actions," as Mr. 

 Hume observes, " being subjected to the same laws of necessity with the 

 operations of matter, and there being a continued chain of necessary causes 

 preordained, and predetermined, reaching from the original cause of all 

 to every single volition of every human being."* Or, as another writer upon 

 the same subject has expressed it, " The course of events, both moral and 

 physical, is fixed and immutable ; and thoughts, volitions, and actions pro- 

 ceed in one interrupted concatenation from the beginning to the end of time, 

 agreeably to the laws originally established by the great Creator." 



So that, under the same circumstances, the same motives must be produced 

 in the mind of every man, give rise to the same volitions, and be succeeded 

 by the same actions ; every one of these, to adopt the language of the Fatalists, 

 being equally a link of that 



golden everlasting chain 



Whose strong embrace holds heaven, and earth, and main. 



If it were not so, it is pretended that there could be no mutual dependence 

 or confidence between man and man. No person, from the appearance of one 

 action as performed by his neighbour, could infer a second, or form any 

 opinion of his character. And even the doctrine of divine prescience must 

 be entirely relinquishes ; since, without such a necessary and consecutive 

 connexion, it must be impossible for the Deity himself to foresee any future 

 event, or to know it otherwise than as it occurs at the moment. 



It was not my intention to have touched upon this controversy, but the prin- 

 ciples upon which it hinges are so closely blended with the subject before us, 

 that it is impossible altogether to elude it, though the remarks I propose to 

 offer shall be as brief and compressed as I am able to make them. 



In the first place, then, whatever be the necessary connexion between mo- 

 tives, volitions, and actions, it is by no means true that they are " subjected to 

 the same laws of necessity with the operations of matter." Let me support 

 this assertion by a reference to a few simple facts. A needle, or an iron ball, 

 placed between two magnets of equal power, will fall to neither of them, but 

 remain midway at rest for ever, suspended between equally contending attrac- 

 tions. Now, if the same laws of necessity control the moral as control the 

 physical world, a similar moral cause must produce a similar moral effect ; 

 and the traveller who, by accident, after having lost himself in a forest, should 

 meet with two roads running in opposite or different directions, and offering 

 in every respect an equal attraction, must, like the needle or bullet, remain 

 for ever at rest, because the motive to. take one course is just equipoised by 

 the motive to take the other. But can any man in his senses suppose he would 

 remain there for ever, and so starve himself between equally contending 

 attractions ? Or, rather, can any man suppose such a fact, provided the tra- 

 veller himself were in his senses ? Yet Montaigne, in support of this hy- 

 pothesis, has actually supposed such a fact, and has put forth the following 

 whimsical or facetious example : " Where the mind," says he, " is at the same 



Essays: On Liberty and Necessity, voS. iJ 



