MBF.RTY AND NKCESSITV, 531 



ble to moral and social scit'iiro must have been described by implica- 

 tion, if 1 have succeeded in enumerating and cluiracteri/intr tliosc^ of 

 science in general. It otdy remains to examine which of those 

 methods are more especially suited to the various branches of mf)ral 

 inquiry ; under what peculiar facilities or diHiculties they are there 

 employed ; how far the unsatisfactory state of those incpiiries is owing 

 to a wrong choice of methods, how far to want of skill in tlu^ aj)plica- 

 tion of right ones ; and what degree of ultimate succt'ss may he at- 

 tained or hoped for, by a better choice or m()re cart^ful emj)loyment of 

 logical processes appropriate to the case. In other woids, whetlier 

 moral sciences exist, or can exist ; to what degi-ee of perfection they 

 are susceptible of being carried ; and by what selection or adaptation 

 of the methods brought to view in the previous part of this work, that 

 degree of perfection is attainable. 



At the threshold of this inquiry we are met by an objection, which, 

 if not removed, would be fatal to the attempt to treat human conduct 

 as a subject of science. Are the actions of man, hke all other natural 

 events, subject to invariable laws 1 Does that constancy of causation, 

 which is the foundation of every scientific theory of successive; phe- 

 nomena, really obtain among them ? This is often denied ; and 

 for the sake of systematic completeness, if not from any very urgent 

 practical necessity, the question .should receive a deliberate answer in 

 this place. We shall devote to the subject a chapter apart. 



CHAPTER 11. 



OF LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 



§ 1. The question, whether the law of causality applies in the same 

 strict sense to human actions as to other phenomena, is the celebrated 

 controversy concerning the freedom of the will ; which, from at least as 

 far back as the time of Pelagius, has divided both the philosophical 

 and the religious world. The affirmative oj)inion is commonly called 

 the doctrine of Necessity, as asserting human volitions and actions to 

 be necessary and inevitable. The negative maintains that the will is 

 not determined, like other phenomena, by antecedents, but determines 

 itself; that our volitions are not, properly speaking, the effects of 

 causes, or at least have no causes which they uniformly and implicitly 

 obey. 



I have already made it sufficiently appear that the former of theso 

 opinions is that which I (M)nsider the truti one; but the jnisleading 

 terms in which it is often csxpressed, and the indistinct manner in which 

 it is usually apprehended, have both obstructed its reception, and per- 

 verted its influence when received. The metaphysical theory of free 

 will, as held by philosophers (for the practical feeling (»f it, common in 

 a greater or h-'ss degree to all mankind, is in no way inconsistent with 

 the contrary theory), was invented becaust; the supposed alternaliv«M)f 

 admitting human actions to be ncre.tsari/, was deem(;d inconsistent with 

 every one's instinctive consciousness, aa well as humiliating to the pride 

 3V 



