486 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



position from which nothing can expel him. Our cha- 

 racter is formed by us as well as for us ; but the wish 

 which induces us to attempt to form it is formed for 

 us : and how ? not, in general, by our organization or 

 education, but by our experience ; experience of the 

 painful consequences of the character we previously 

 had : or by some strong feeling of admiration or aspira- 

 tion, accidentally aroused. But to think that we have 

 no power of altering our characters, and to think that 

 we shall not use our power unless we have a motive, 

 are very different things, and have a very different 

 effect upon the mind. A person who does not wish to 

 alter his character, cannot be the person who is sup- 

 posed to feel discouraged or paralyzed by thinking him- 

 self unable to do it. The depressing effect of the 

 fatalist doctrine can only be felt where there is a wish 

 to do what that doctrine represents as impossible. It 

 is of no consequence what we think forms our charac- 

 ter when we have no desire of our 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 impracticable, and that if we have the 

 desire, we should know that the work is not so irrevo- 

 cably 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 cha- 

 racter if we wish, is itself the feeling of moral freedom 

 which we are conscious of. A person feels morally 

 free, who feels that his habits or his temptations are not 

 his masters, but he theirs: who even in yielding to them 

 knows that he could resist ; that were he, for any reason, 

 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 necessary, to render our consciousness of free- 



