THE LIMITS OF HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 297 



numerous other considerations of various degrees of cogency, 

 more or less intimately related to each other ; the aggregate of 

 which, like that of the mutually-supporting outworks round a 

 citadel, adds enormously to the strength of the position, though 

 each independently might be inefficient for its defence. 



I. It is supported by the very existence of the idea symbolized 

 in the word choice ; an idea which we could not entertain, if we 

 did not find something answerable to it in our own subjective 

 experience. For in external nature there is nothing that can be 

 truly termed "choice." If a piece of iron be brought within the 

 sphere of attraction of two magnets placed on opposite sides of it, 

 one near but feeble, the other strong but remote, we feel assured 

 that it will be drawn towards the one which makes the stronger 

 pull upon it; and we take its motion in one or the other direction, 

 as the indication of the superior tractive force of the magnet 

 towards which it tends. To use the word " choice " in such a 

 case — to say that the iron chooses towards which of the magnets 

 it shall move, — would be felt by every one a misapplication of the 

 term. The same would be the case as regards any other action 

 determined by physical causation. And yet on the determinist 

 doctrine, if I am attracted by the temptation of an immediate 

 but immoral pleasure, and am deterred from it either by a sense 

 of duty or by the fear of the remote consequences of the sin, I 

 have no more " choice " as to the course I shall take, than has 

 the piece of iron that is attracted in opposite directions by two 

 magnets. Now my contention is, not merely that I have a choice, 

 but that the very existence of an idea which can be derived from 

 no other source than human experience, confirms the testimony of 

 my own consciousness to that effect.* And the like confirmation 

 is afforded by the familiar reply, " I have no choice,'' in cases in 

 which we feel it to be a necessity (whether physical or moral) that 

 we should take a particular line of action. 



That in making our choice, and in acting upon it, we are 

 determined by the "preponderance of motives," I do not call in 

 question ; the self-determining power of the will seeming to me 



* The case Feems to me exnctly parallel to that of the notion of force, 

 which is based on our own consciousness of ejfort in originating or in resisting 

 motion. 



