LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 525 



Yes (answers the Owenitc), but these words, " if we will," surrender 

 the whole point : since the will to alter our own cliaracter is given us, 

 not by any efforts of ours, but by circumstances which we cannot lu^ln ; 

 it comes to us eitlicr from external causes, or not at all. Most true : 

 if the Owenite stops here, he is in a position from which nijthing can 

 expel him. Our character is fomied by us as well as for us ; but the 

 wish which induces us to attempt to form it is formed for us: and how'? 

 not, in general, by our organization or education, but by our experi- 

 ence ; experience of the painful consequences of the character we 

 previously had : or by some strong feeling of admiration or asjnration, 

 accidentally aroused. But to think that we have no power of altering 

 our characters, and to think that we shall not use our power unless wc 

 have a motive, are very different things, and have a very different effect 

 upon the mind. A person who does not wish to alter his character, 

 cannot be the person who is supposed to feel discouraged or paralyzed 

 by thinking himself unable to do it. The depressing effect of the fatalist 

 doctrine can oidy be felt where there is a wish to do what that doctrine 

 rejiresents as impossible. It is of no consequence what we think fonns 

 our character when we have no desire of our own about forming it ; 

 but it is of great consequence that we should not be prevented from 

 foi-ming such a desire by thinking the attainment impracticable, and 

 that if we have the desire, we should know that the work is not so 

 in-evocably done as to be incapable of being altered. 



And indeed, if we examine closely, we shall find that this feeling, of 

 our being able to modify our own character If wc icish, is itself the 

 feeling of moral freedom which we are conscious of. A person feels 

 morally free, who feels that his habits or his temptations are not his 

 masters, but he theirs : who even in yielding to them knows that he 

 could resist ; that were he, for any reason, desirous of altogether throw- 

 ing them off", there would not be recjuired for that purjjose a stronger 

 desire than he knows himself to be capable of feuling. It is of course 

 necessary, to render our consciousness of freedom complete, that we 

 vshould actually have made our character all we have liithorto wished 

 to make it; for if we have wished, and not attained, we have not ])ower 

 over our ovati character, we are not free. Or at least, we must feel 

 that our wish, if not strong enough to alter our character, is strong 

 enough to conquer our character when the two are brought into conflict 

 in any particular case of conduct. 



The application of so improper a term as Necessity to the doctrine 

 of cause and effect in the matter of human character, seems to me one 

 of the most signal instances in philosophy of the abuse of tenns, and its 

 practical consequences one of the most striking examples of the j)owor 

 of language over om' associations. The subject will never be generally 

 understood, until that objectionable term is (b'opped. The frci'-will 

 doctiine, by keeping in view precisely that portion of the truth which 

 the word Necessity puts out of sight, namely, the power of the mind to 

 cooperate in the fonnation of its own character, has given to its adher- 

 ents a practical feeling much nearer to the truth than has generally (I 

 believe) existed in the minds of necessarians. The latter may have had 

 a stronger sense «jf the importance of what human beings can do to 

 shape the characters of one another ; but the free-will doctrine ha-s, I 

 believe, fostered, especially in the younger of its supporters, a much 

 stronger spirit of self-culture. 



