582 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



the person thoroughly, and knew all the inducements which are acting upon 

 liim, we could foretell his conduct with as much certainty as we can pre- 

 dict any physical event. This proposition I take to be a mere interpreta- 

 tion of universal experience, a statement in words of what every one is in- 

 ternally convinced of. No one who beheved that he knew thoroughly the 

 circumstances of any case, and the characters of the different persons con- 

 cerned, would hesitate to foretell how all of them would act. Whatever 

 degree of doubt he may in fact feel, arises from the uncertainty whether he 

 really knows the circumstances, or the character of some one or other of 

 the persons, with the degree of accuracy required ; but 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 ourselves 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 foreknowledge 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 universally conceived as involving 

 more than this. Many do not believe, and very few practically feel, that 

 there is nothing in causation but invariable, certain, and unconditional se- 

 quence. There are few to whom mere constancy of succession appears a 

 sufficiently stringent bond of union for so peculiar a relation as that of 

 cause and effect. Even if the reason repudiates, the imagination retains, 

 the feeling of some more intimate connection, of sorne_f)eculiar tie, or mys- 

 terious constraint exercised by the antecedent over the consequent. Now 

 this it is which, considered as applying to the human will, conflicts with 

 our consciousness, and revolts our feelings. We are certain that, in the 

 X case of our volitions, there is not this mysterious constraint. We know 

 that we are not compelled, as by a magical spell, to obey any particular 

 motive. We feel, that if we wistied to-^'ove that we have the power of 

 resisting the motive, we could do so (that wish being, it needs scarcely be 

 observed, a new antecedent^; and it would be humiliating to our pride, and 

 (what is of more importance) paralyzing to our desire of excellence, if we 

 thought otherwise. But neither is any such mysterious compulsion now 

 supposed, by the best philosophical authorities, to be exercised by any oth- 

 er cause over its effect. Those who think that causes draw their effects af- 

 ter them by a mystical tie, are right in believing that the relation between 

 volitions and their antecedents is of another nature. But they should go 

 farther, and admit that this is also true of all other effects and their ante- 

 cedents. If such a tie is considered to be involved in the word Necessity, 

 the doctrine is not true of human actions ; but neither is it then true of in- 

 animate objects. It would be more correct to say that matter is not bound 

 by necessity, than that mind is so. . 



That the free-will metaphysicians, beii^g mostly of the school' which re- 



