LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 681 



of those inquii'ies is owing to a wrong choice of methods, how far to want 

 of skill in the application of right ones ; and what degree of ultimate suc- 

 cess may be attained or hoped for by a better choice or more careful em- 

 ployment of logical processes appropriate to the case. In other words, 

 whether moral sciences exist, or can exist ; to what degree of perfection 

 they are susceptible of being carried ; and by what selection or adaptation 

 of the methods brought to view in the previous part of this work that de- 

 gree of perfection is attainable. 



At the threshold of this inquiry we are met by an objection, which, if 

 not removed, would be fatal to the attempt to treat human conduct as a 

 subject of science. Are the actions of human beings, like all other natural 

 events, subject to invariable laws ? Does that constancy of causation, which 

 is the foundation of every scientific theory of successive phenomena, really 

 obtain among them ? This is often denied ; and for the sake of systematic 

 completeness, if not from any very urgent practical necessity, the question 

 should receive a deliberate answer in this place. We shall devote to the 

 subject a chapter apart. 



CHAPTER II. 



/) , , OF LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. , , , ^ 



flf'K A^^Av. ac-^r"^s j-o,i>jii^-f *-•> '^'^« A^ 4 V co-»"«-'*'~r . 



§ 1. The question, whether the law of causality applies in the same strict 

 sense to human actions as to other phenomena, is the celebrated contro- 

 versy concerning the f i-eedom of the will ; which, from at least as far back 

 as the time of Pelagius, has divided both the philosophical and the relig- 

 ious world. The affirmative opinion is commonly called the doctrine of 

 Necessity, as_ji§serUng hiLmanjvo^^^ ni 



.evi table . The negative maintains that the will is not determined, like oth-l 

 er 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 usu- 

 ally apprehended, have both obstructed its reception, and perverted its in- 

 fluence Avhen 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 alternative of admitting human actions 

 to be necessary was deemed inconsistent with every one's instinctive con- 

 sciousness, 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 oppo- 

 nents of the doctrine, but is participated in by many, perhaps we might 

 say by most, of its supporters. 



§ 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 character and disposition of the individual, the 

 manner in which he will act might be unerringly inferred ; that if we knew 



