MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 



709 



then, it would follow, that it matters not what means 

 f hilc**pb- are employed, or whether any are employed at all. 

 v """"""' There could be no such thing as acting with wisdom 

 or prudence, if we did not see an established connection 

 between certain actions or events in the shape of means, 

 and others which depend upon them, as their conse- 

 quents. 



We apprehend it is time to close this discussion. We 

 readily admit that the scheme of necessity which we 

 have adopted, has often been abused and perverted by 

 bad men to the worst of purposes : the Turkish view 

 of predestination is neither more nor less than a gross 

 abuse of the doctrine of necessity : and it is certain that 

 ignorant religionists have perverted it in the same way 

 in many Christian countries. We have endeavoured to 

 vindicate the doctrine from such misconceptions : and 

 though we readily admit that there are many difficulties 

 on the subject of moral agency, which we cannot pretend 

 to explain, yet we think there are fewer on the scheme 

 of necessity, when rightly understood, than on the ge- 

 nerally received views of liberty. 



Our readers will thank us for presenting them with the 

 opinion of" a very acute writer on this subject, who con- 

 veys much weighty matter in small compass, and states 

 tome important considerations which ought to be taken 

 into view by disputant! on both sides of the question. 

 " So far as these necessarians maintain the certain in- 

 of moral motive* as the natural and sufficient 

 whereby human actions, and even human 

 are brought into that continued chain of 

 cause* and effects, which, taking its beginning in the 

 operations of the infinite mind, cannot but be fully un- 

 derstood by him ; to far they do service to the cause of 

 truth ; placing the great and glorious doctrines of fore- 

 knowledge and providence absolute foreknowledge, 

 universal providence, upon a firm and philosophical 

 foundation." Thus far we profess ourselves the advo- 

 for necessity, and we assent fully to the following 

 vations, which are both just and profound. " But 

 they go beyond this, when they would represent 

 moral motives at arising from a physi- 

 cal necessity, the very same which excites and governs 

 the motion* of the inanimate creationhere they con- 

 found nature's distinctions, and contradict the very 

 principle* they would seem to have established. The 

 source of their mistake is this, that they imagine si- 

 militude between thing* which admit of no compari- 

 sonbetween the influence of a moral motive upon 

 the mind, and that of mechanical force upon mat- 

 ter. A moral motive and a mechanical force are both 

 indeed came*, and equally certain cause* each of its 

 proper effect; but they are cause* in very different 

 sen*** of the word, and derive their energy from the 

 KM* opposite principles. Force is only another name 

 for an tfficient case ; it is that which impresses motion 



upon body, the passive recipient of a foreign impulse. 

 A moral motive i* what i* more significantly called the 

 Jimal cause, and can have no influence but with a being 

 that proposes to itself an end, choose* means, and thus 

 put* itself in action. It i* true, that while this is my 

 end, and while I conceive these to be the means, a 

 definite act will a* certainly follow that definite choice 

 and judgment of my mind, provided I be free from 

 all external restraint and impediment, as a determinate 

 motion will be excited in a body by a force applied in 

 a given direction. There i* in both cases an equal cer- 

 tainty of the eflect ; but the principle of the certainty 

 in the one case and in the other is entirely different, 

 which difference necessarily arises from the different 



nature of final and efficient causes. Every cause, ex- 

 cept it be the will of the supreme deity, acting to the Philoi ph)- 

 first production of substances every cause, I say, ex- '"""Y"" 

 cept this acting in this singular instance, produces its 

 effect by acting upon something ; and whatever be the 

 cause that acts, the principle of certainty lies in a ca- 

 pacity in the thing on which it acts, of being affected 

 by that action. Now, the capacity which force, or an 

 efficient cause, requires in the object of its action, is ab- 

 solute inertness. But intelligence and liberty consti- 

 tute the capacity of being influenced by a final cause 

 by a moral motive ; and to this very liberty does this 

 sort of cause owe its whole efficacy, the whole certain- 

 ty of its operation ; which certainty never can disprove 

 the existence of that liberty upon which it is itself 

 founded, and of which it affords the highest evidence." 

 The following observations also by the same author, 

 on the general aspect of the question, are both mode- 

 rate and judicious, and highly deserving of the atten- 

 tion of every one who engages in this controversy. 

 " The liberty of man and the foreknowledge of God 

 are equally certain, although the proof of each rests on 

 different principles. Our feelings prove to every one 

 of us that we are free : reason and revelation teach us 

 that the Deity knows and governs all things that 

 even ' the thoughts of man he understandeth long be- 

 fore,' long before the thoughts arise long before the 

 man himself is born who is to think them. Now, when 

 two distinct propositions are separately proved, each 

 by its proper evidence, it is not a reason for denying 

 either, that the human mind, upon the first hasty view, 

 imagines a repugnance, and may perhaps find a difficulty 

 in connecting them, even after the distinct proof of 

 each is clearly perceived and understood. There is 

 a wide difference between a paradox and a contradic- 

 tion. Both, indeed, consist of two distinct proposi- 

 tions, and so far only are they alike : for of the two 

 parts of contradiction the one or the other must neces- 

 sarily be false ; of a paradox, both are often true, and 

 yet when proved to be true, may continue paradoxical. 

 This is the necessary consequence of our partial view 

 of things. An intellect to which nothing should be pa- 

 radoxical would be infinite. It may naturally be sup- 

 posed that paradoxes must abound the most in meta- 

 physics and divinity, for nJio can find out God unit 

 perfection ? Yet they occur in other subjects ; and any 

 one who should refuse his assent to propositions sepa- 

 rately proved, because when connected they may have 

 been paradoxical, would, in many instances, be justly 

 laughed to scorn by the masters of those sciences which 

 make the highest pretension* to certainty and demon- 

 stration. In all these cases there is generally in the 

 nature of things a limit to each of the two contrasted 

 propositions, beyond which neither can be extended 

 without implying the falsehood of the other, and 

 changing the paradox into a contradiction ; and the 

 whole difficulty of perceiving the connection and agree- 

 ment between such propositions arises from this cir- 

 cumstance, that, by some inattention of the mind, these 

 limit* are overlooked. Thus, in the case before us, 

 we must not imagine such an arbitrary exercise of God's 

 power over the minds and wills of subordinate agents, 

 as should convert rational beings into mere machines, 

 and leave the deity charged with the follies and the 

 crimes of men, which was the error of the Calvinists : 

 nor must we, on the other hand, set up such a liberty 

 of created beings, as, necessarily precluding the divine 

 foreknowledge of human actions, should take the go- 

 vernment of the moral world out of the hands of God, 



Biahop 



