LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 523 



and paralyzing to our desire i)f excellence if wo thought otherwise. 

 But neither is any such mysterious compulsion now supposed, by the 

 best philosophical authorities, to be exercised by anij cause over its 

 eft'ect. Tliose who tliirik lliat causes draw their etlects alter them by a 

 mystical tie, are right in believing tliat the relation between volitions 

 and their antecedents is of another nature. But they should go 

 further, and admit that this is also true of all other elVects and their an- 

 tecedents. If such a lie is considered to be involved in the word ne- 

 cessity, the doctrine is not true of human actions ; but neither is it then 

 true of inanimate objects. It would be more correct to say that mat- 

 ter is not bound by necessity than that mind is so. 



That the free-will j)hilosophers, being mostly of the school which 

 rejects Hume's and Brown's analysis of Cause and Efl'ect, should miss 

 their way for want of the light which that analysis attbrds, cannot sur- 

 prise us. The wonder is, tliat the necessarians, who usually admit that 

 philosophical theory, should in practice etpially lose sight of it. The 

 very same mi.sconce])tion of the doctrine called Philosophical Neces- 

 sity, which prevents the opposite party from recognizing its truth, I 

 believe to exist more or less obscurely in the minds of most necessa- 

 rians, however they may in words disavow it. I am much mistaken 

 if they habitually feel that the necessity which they recogTiizi; in actions 

 is but uniformity of order, and capability of being predicted. They 

 have a feeling as if there were at bottom a stronger tit; between the 

 volitions and their causes : as if, when they asserted that our will is 

 governed by the balance of motives, they meant something more co- 

 gent than if they had only said, that whoever knew the motives, and 

 our habitual susceptibilities to them, could predict how we should will 

 to act. They commit, in opposition to their own philosophical system, 

 the verj' same mistake which their adversaries commit in obedience 

 to theirs; and in consequence do really in some instances (I speak 

 from personal experience) suffer those depressing consetjuences, which 

 their opponents eiToneously impute to the doctrine itself. 



§ 3. I am inclined to think that this error is almost wholly an effect 

 of the associations with a word; and tliat it wouhl be prevented by 

 forbearing to em])loy, for the expression of the simple fact of causa- 

 tion, so extremely inappropriate a term as Necessity. That word, in 

 its other acceptaticjns, involves much more than mere uniformity of 

 Becpience ; it implies in-esistibleness. Ap|)lied to the will, it only 

 means that the given cause will be followed by the effect, subject to 

 all possibilities of counteraction by other cau.ses : but in common use 

 it stands for the operation of those causes exclusively, which are sup- 

 posed too powerful to be counteracted at all. When we say that all 

 human acticnjs take place of necessity, we only mean that they will 

 certaiidv happen if nothing prevents: — when wc say that dying of 

 want, to those who cannot get food, is a necessity, we mean that it will 

 certainly happen whatever may be done to pn-vent it. Tiie applica- 

 tion of the same term to the agencies on which human actions depend, 

 as is used to express those agencies of nature which are really uncon- 

 trollable, cannot fail, when habitual, to create a feeling of uncontroUa- 

 bleness in the former also. This however is a mere illusion. Thero 

 are physical sequences which we call necessary, as dc^ath for want of 

 food or air ; there are others which are not said to be necessary, as 



