CHAPTEE IV. 



ON FREE-WILL, AND MAN'S AUTOMATISM. 



1. UNDERLYING the whole question of man's capacity 

 for virtue or for improvement in virtue, affecting the 

 question. of his moral responsibility, that of the justice 

 or injustice of civil punishments, and in some degree 

 affecting the question of the reality of virtue itself on 

 the central point of the merit or demerit of our charac- 

 ters and actions, is the deeper question of moral freedom 

 or free-agency ; the old and still-debated controversy of 

 free-will, which has ever divided philosophers and 

 theologians, which was discussed resultlessly by the 

 metaphysical fallen angels, on the " hill retired " in the 

 infernal abodes; the great question whether we or our 

 wills have any directive control over our volitions and 

 actions, or whether these are not in all cases the proper 

 resultant of motive forces within us which produce them 

 independently of ourselves or our wills, which are 

 merged the one as part and the other as total in 

 the forces themselves. The latter is the conclusion of 

 Science, of psychological as distinct from physical 

 science; the arguments in support of which theory, as 

 well as the necessary qualifications, we propose to give 

 in what follows. 



And, happily, in treating the subject we may now, 

 in great degree, keep clear of its old accompanying 



