LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 489 



actions which flow from them, must be reckoned not 

 only likings and aversions, but also purposes. It is 

 only when our purposes have become independent of 

 the feelings of pain or pleasure from which they ori- 

 ginally took their rise, that we are said to have a con- 

 firmed character. " A character," says Novalis, "is 

 a completely fashioned will:" and the will, once so 

 fashioned, may be steady and constant, when the pas- 

 sive susceptibilities of pleasure and pain are greatly 

 weakened, or materially changed. 



With the corrections and explanations now given, 

 the doctrine of the causation of our volitions by mo- 

 tives, and of motives by the desirable objects offered 

 to us, combined with our particular susceptibilities of 

 desire, may be considered, I hope, as sufficiently 

 established ; and I shall henceforth assume its truth 

 without any further discussion. 



