526 LOGIC OF THE MORAL SCIENCES. 



§ 4. There is still one fact which requires to be noticed (in addition 

 to the existence of a power of self-formation) before the doctrine of 

 tbe causation of human actions can be freed from the confusion and 

 misapprehensions which surround it in many minds. When the will 

 is said to be detennined by motives, a motive does not mean always, 

 or solely, the anticipation of a pleasure or of a pain. I shall not here 

 inquire whether it be true that, in the commencement, a.ll our volun- 

 tary actions are mere means consciously employed to obtain some pleas- 

 ure, or avoid some pain. It is at least certain that we gradually, 

 through the influence of association, come to desire the means without 

 thinking of the end: the action itself becomes an object of desire, and 

 is performed without reference to any motive beyond itself. Thus 

 far, it may still be objected, that, the action having through association 

 become pleasurable, we are, as much as before, moved to act by the 

 anticipation of a pleasure, namely, the pleasure of the action itself. 

 But granting this, the matter does not end here. As we proceed in 

 the formation of habits, and become accustomed to will a particular 

 act or a particular course of conduct because it is pleasurable, we at 

 last continue to will it whether it is pleasurable or not. Although, 

 from some change in us or in our circumstances, we have ceased to 

 find any pleasure in the action, or to anticipate any pleasure as the 

 consequence of it, we still continue to desire the action, and conse- 

 quently to do it. In this manner it is that habits of hurtful indulgence 

 continue to be practised although they have ceased to be pleasm^able ; 

 and in this manner also it is that the habit of willing to persevere in a 

 prescribed course does not desert the moral hero, even when the re- 

 ward, however real, which he doubtless receives from the conscious- 

 ness of well-doing, is anything but an eqiiivalent for the sufferings he 

 undergoes, or the wishes which he may have to renounce. 



A habit of %'\alling is commonly called a purpose ; and among the 

 causes of our volitions, and of the actions which flow fi-om them, must 

 be reckoned not only likings and aversions, but also purposes. It is 

 only when our purposes have become independent of the feelings of 

 pain or pleasure from which they originally took their rise, that we are 

 said to have a confirmed character. "A character," says Novalis, " is 

 a completely fashioned will :" and the will, once so fashioned, may be 

 steady and constant, when the passive susceptibilities of pleasure and 

 pain are gi-eatly weakened, or materially changed. 



With the coiTections and explanations now given, the doctrine of 

 the causation of our volitions by motives, and of motives by the desi- 

 rable objects offered to us, combined with our particular susceptibilities 

 of desire, may be considered, I hope, as sufficiently established; and 

 I shall henceforth assume its truth without any further discussion. 



