' 



ON FREE-WILL, AND MANS AUTOMATI9 *\ 



According to this eminent authority, " the same 

 in the same circumstances will be followed by the same 

 action." * The doctrine of the uniform sequence of 

 motive and action explains all the mental facts of choice, 

 deliberation, self-determination, moral agency, responsi- 

 bility, "without the mysticism of free-will." Moreover, 

 the practice of mankind assumes the uniformity of motive 

 and action. It does not assume the opposite theory. 

 "No one ever supposes either that human actions arise 

 without motive, or that the same motives operate differ- 

 ently in the same circumstances." Hunger always impels 

 us to seek for food, the tender feeling seeks objects of 

 affection, anger prompts to revenge, the desire of fame 

 to live laborious days. Or, if these expected sequences' 

 fail to arise, we ascribe it, not to the failure of the 

 motives, but to their counteraction by other and more 

 powerful motives. 



Further, our expectation of men's behaviour depends 

 on the assumed regularity of sequence between motive 

 and action. All government which makes laws threat- 

 ening penalties for disobedience, assumes that motives 

 are the sole causes of actions, and that the regular opera- 

 tion of motives may be relied on. All theories of educa- 

 tion, of political economy, of society, all operations of 

 trade and all the intercourse of life postulate the reign 

 of law in the human mind ; and all statistics confirm the 

 assumption on the large scale, just as our accurate pre- 

 diction of the behaviour of those whose characters we 

 know, confirms it in individual cases. In fact, man can 



* The sequence is between motive and volition according to Mill, 

 between motive and action according to Bain ; but as the volition is 

 only an interposed link between the motive and the action which it 

 contemplates, there is no substantial difference between the two views. 

 The controversy, however, usually has to do with the first sequence, 

 which alone falls under the internal consciousness. 



