126 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 



though, to estimate it properly, is beyond the reach of 

 biological and still more of merely physical science. To 

 read and measure human nature, and consciousness which 

 reflects it, belongs to psychology to psychology, aided 

 by the sciences which are ministrant and subsidiary to 

 it ; and to psychology, consequently, we are referred by 

 Bain and Mill for a true theory of human nature, as well 

 as to know the opinion of science on the question of the 

 freedom of the will. 



From the point of view of psychology, we have a 

 picture of man different from the physicist's or natural- 

 .ist's; and we have a more satisfactory application of 

 scientific method to investigate and explain his actions. 

 According to Bain and Mill, the most eminent pyscho- 

 logists who have discussed the present question, our 

 volitions are determined by conscious motives, by pro- 

 spective pleasures and pains, even though there always 

 is a physical counterpart to each consciously felt fact. 

 There is that uniformity of sequence between motive 

 and volition, if not between character and conduct, which, 

 wherever it exists, marks a proper field for scientific 

 inquiry. According to Mill, " a volition is a moral effect 

 which follows the corresponding moral causes as certainly 

 and as invariably as physical effects follow their physical 

 causes." And the moral antecedents or causes are, he 

 tells us, "desires, aversions, habits, and dispositions, 

 combined with outward circumstances suited to call 

 those internal incentives into action. All these, again, 

 are effects of causes, those of them which are mental 

 being consequences of education and of other moral and 

 physical influences." And the same doctrine of the 

 uniformity of sequence between motive and action is laid 

 down with much clearness, accompanied by a masterly 

 psychological analysis, in the writings of Professor Bain. 



