LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 585 



own about forming it; but it is of great consequence that we should not 

 be prevented from forming such a desire by thinking the attainment im- 

 practicable, and that if we have the desire, we should know that the work 

 is not so irrevocably done as to be incapable of being altered. 



And indeed, if we examine closely, we shall find that this feeling, of our 

 being able to modify our own character if ice wish, is itself the feeling o;' 

 moral freedom Avhich we are conscious of. A person feels morally fre 

 who feels that his habits or his temptations are not his masters, but h 

 theirs; who, even in yielding to them, knows that he could resist; tha 

 were he desirous of altogether throwing them off, there would not be 

 required for that purpose a stronger desire than he knows himself to be 

 capable of feeling. It is of course necessaiy, to render our consciousness 

 of freedom complete, that we should have succeeded in making our char- 

 acter all we have hitherto attempted to make it; for if we have wished 

 and not attained, we have, to that extent, not power over our own charac- 

 ter ; we are not free. Or at least, we must feel that our wish, if not strong 

 enough to alter our character, is strong enough to. conquer our character 

 when the two are brought into conflict in any particular case of conduct. 

 And hence it is said with truth, that none but a pei'son of confirmed virtue 

 is completely free. 



The application of so improper a term as Necessity to the doctrine of 

 cause and effect in the matter of human character, seems to me one of the 

 most signal instances in philosophy of the abuse of terms, and its practical 

 consequences one of the most striking examples of the power of language 

 over our associations. The subject will never be generally understood 

 until that objectionable term is dropped. The free-will doctrine, by keep- 

 ing in view precisely that portion of the truth which the word Necessity 

 puts out of sight, namely the power of the mind to co-operate in the for-^ 

 mation of its own character, has given to its adherents a practical feel 

 ing much nearer to the truth than has generally (I believe) existed in th 

 minds of necessitarians. The latter may have had a stronger sense of the 

 importance of what human beings can do to shape the characters of one 

 another ; but the free-will doctrine has, I believe, fostered in its supporters 

 a much stronger spirit of self-culture. 



§ 4. There is still one fact which requires to be noticed (in addition to 

 the existence of a power of self-formation) before the doctrine of the cau- 

 sation of human actions can be freed from the confusion and misapprehen- 

 sions which surround it in many minds. When the will is said to be de- 

 termined by motiifiSy^ motive does not mean always, or solely, the antici- 

 pation of a pleasure or of a pain. I shall not here inquire whether it be 

 true that, in the commencement, all our voluntary actions are mere means 

 consciously employed to obtain some pleasure or avoid some pain. It is 

 at least certain that we gradually, through the influence of association, 

 come to desire the means without thinking of the end ; the action itself 

 becomes an object of desire, and is performed without reference to any 

 motive beyond itself. Thus far, it may still be objected that, the action 

 having through association, become pleasurable, we are, as much as be- 

 fore, moved to act by the anticipation of a pleasure, namely, the pleasure 

 of the action itself. But granting this, the matter does not end here. ^ As 

 we proceed in the formation of habits, and become accustomed to will a 

 particular act or a particular course of conduct because it is pleasui'able, 

 we at last continue to will it without any reference to its being pleasura- 



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