LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 481 



as a mark of ignorance of our character, and some- 

 times even resent it as an imputation. It has never 

 been admitted by the religious philosophers who ad- 

 vocated the free-will doctrine, that we must feel not 

 free because God foreknows our actions. 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 con- 

 sciousness, 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 prac- 

 tically feel, that there is nothing in causation but in- 

 variable, certain, and unconditional sequence. There 

 are few to whom mere constancy of succession ap- 

 pears a sufficiently stringent bond of union for so 

 peculiar a relation as that of cause and effect. Even 

 if the reason repudiates, imagination retains, the 

 feeling of some more intimate connexion, of some 

 peculiar tie, or mysterious 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 feel- 

 ings. We are certain that, in the case of our voli- 

 tions, 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 

 wished to prove that we have the power of resisting 

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

 scarcely be observed, a new antecedent;} ^nd it would 

 be humiliating to our pride and paralyzing to our 

 desire of excellence if we thought otherwise. But 



VOL. II. 2 I 



