LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 487 



dom complete, that we should actually have made our 

 character all we have hitherto wished to make it ; for 

 if we have wished, and not attained, we have not power 

 over our own character, 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. 



The application of so improper a term as Neces- 

 sity 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 exam- 

 ples 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 keeping 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 

 formation of its own character, has given to its ad- 

 herents a practical feeling much nearer to the truth 

 than has generally (I believe) existed in the minds of 

 necessarians. 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, especially in the 

 younger of 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 causation of 

 human actions can be freed from the confusion and 

 misapprehensions which surround it in many minds. 

 When the will is said to be determined by motives, a 



