256 INDUCTION. 



experience, that we have the power of causing effects. Volition, therefore, 

 it is asserted, is something more than an unconditional antecedent ; it is a 

 cause, in a different sense from that in which physical phenomena are said 

 to cause one another : it is an Efficient Cause. From this the transition is 

 easy to the further doctrine, that Volition is the sole Efficient Cause of all 

 phenomena. " It is inconceivable that dead force could continue unsup- 

 ported for a moment beyond its creation. We can not even conceive of 

 change or phenomena without the energy of a mind." " The word action " 

 itself, says another writer of the same school, " has no real significance ex- 

 cept when applied to the doings of an intelligent agent. Let any one con- 

 ceive, if he can, of any power, energy, or force inherent in a lump of mat- 

 ter." Phenomena may have the semblance of being produced by phys- 

 ical causes, but they are in reality produced, say these writers, by the im- 

 mediate agency of mind. All things which do not proceed from a human 

 (or, I suppose, an animal) will proceed, they say, directly from divine will. 

 The earth is not moved by the combination of a centripetal and a pro- 

 jectile force ; this is but a mode of speaking, which serves to facilitate our 

 conceptions. It is moved by the direct volition of an omnipotent Being, in 

 a path coinciding with that which we deduce from the hypothesis of these 

 two forces. 



As I have so often observed, the general question of the existence of Ef- 

 ficient Causes does not fall within the limits of our subject ; but a theory 

 which represents them as capable of being subjects of human knowledge, 

 and which passes off as efficient causes what are only physical or phenom- 

 enal causes, belongs as much to Logic as to metaphysics, and is a fit sub- 

 ject for discussion here. 



To my apprehension, a volition is not an efficient, but simply a physical 

 cause. Our will causes our bodily actions in the same sense, and in no 

 other, in which cold causes ice, or a spark causes an explosion of gunpow- 

 der. The volition, a state of our mind, is the aiitecedent; the motion of 

 our limbs in conformity to the volition, is the consequent. This sequence 

 I conceive to be not a subject of direct consciousness, in the sense intend- 

 ed by the theory. The antecedent, indeed, and the consequent, are sub- 

 jects of consciousness. But the connection between them is a subject of 

 experience. I can not admit that our consciousness of the volition con- 

 tains in itself any a 'priori knowledge that the muscular motion will fol- 

 low. If our nerves of motion were paralyzed, or our muscles stiff and in- 

 flexible, and had been so all our lives, I do not see the slightest ground for 

 supposing that we should ever (unless by information from other people) 

 have known any thing of volition as a physical power, or been conscious of 

 any tendency in feelings of our mind to produce motions of our body, or of 

 other bodies. I will not undertake to say whether we should in that case 

 have had the physical feeling which I suppose is meant when these writers 

 speak of " consciousness of effort :" I see no reason why we should not ; 

 since that physical feeling is probably a state of nervous sensation begin- 

 ning and ending in the brain, without involving the motory apparatus: 

 but we certainly should not have designated it by any term equivalent to 

 effort, since effort implies consciously aiming at an end, which we should 

 not only in that case have had no reason to do, but could not even have 

 had the idea of doing. If conscious at all of this peculiar sensation, we 

 should have been conscious of it, I conceive, only as a kind of uneasiness, 

 accompanying our feelings of desire. 



It is well argued by Sir William Hamilton against the theory in question, 



