182 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY. [pt. ii. 



But it is said that consciousness declares tlie Will to be 

 free ; and therefore that any attempt to disprove its freedom 

 by reasoning is suicidal, since all such reasoning must end 

 by inipnc^riing tlie veracity of that consciousness on which 

 its own data are ultimately based. An ingenious argument 

 truly, the conclusion whereof would be more readily ad- 

 mitted, if its premise were true. Consciousness, which is 

 so confidently appealed to as establishing by its infallible 

 verdict the doctrine of free-will, in fact says nothing about 

 the matter. That volitions are uncaused, is a proposition 

 altogether too indirect for consciousness to sit in judgment 

 upon, and it can neither be proved nor disproved by simple 

 introspection. It would have been equally appropriate for the 

 mediaeval astronomer to appeal to consciousness as testifying 

 to the revolution of the sun about the earth. As Mr. Bain 

 observes, "it is a great stretch of asseveration to call the 

 construction of an enormous theory an act of consciousness 

 so simple that we cannot make a slip in performing it." * 

 Consciousness tells us only that we will. By observation 

 and experience — not by the simple and direct interrogation 

 of consciousness — we know that, circumstances permitting, 

 our volitions may be accomplished. With the exception, 

 therefore, of those theological fatalists who assert that 

 human actions are determined by an external constraining 

 power, it is the universal opinion that men can voluntarily 

 determine their own actions; and this is just what the much- 

 abused testimony of consciousness amounts to. This is all that 

 it means to anyone not mystified by metaphysics ; the non- 

 causation of volitions being a theorem so far from obvious 

 to a great many men, that it requires considerable explana- 

 tion to make them understand it. By the testimony of 

 consciousness, as thus interpreted, the assertors of the 

 lawlessness of volition are not helped in the least. The 

 question at issue between them and their opponents is, not 



* The E'inutioiis and tlie Will, 1st edit. p. 563. 



