LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 



547 



far the unsatisfactory state of those 

 inquiries is owing to a wrong choice 

 of methods, how far to want of skill 

 in the application of right ones ; and 

 what degree of ultimate success may 

 be attained or hoped for by a better 

 choice and more careful emplojmaent 

 of logical processes appropriate to the 

 case. In other words, whether moral 

 sciences exist, or can exist ; to what 

 degree of perfection they are suscep- 

 tible 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 at- 

 tempt to treat human conduct as a 

 subject of science. Are the actions 

 of human beings, like all other na- 

 tural events, subject to invariable 

 laws ? Does that constancy of causa- 

 tion, 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 neces- 

 sity, the question should receive a 

 deliberate answer in this place. We 

 shall devote to the subject a chapter 

 apart. 



CHAPTER II. 



OP LIBERTY AND NKCKSSITT. 



§ I. The question whether the law 

 of causality applies in the same strict 

 sense to human actions as to other 

 phenomena, is the celebrated contro- 

 versy 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 reli- 

 gious world. The affirmative opinion 

 is commonly called the doctrine of 

 Necessity, as asserting human voli- 

 tions and actions to be necessary and 

 inevitable. The negative maintains 

 that the will is not determined, like 

 ptber 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 

 apparent that the former of these 

 opinions is that which I consider the 

 true one ; but the misleading terms 

 in which it is often expressed, and 

 the indistinct manner in which it is 

 usually apprehended, have both ob- 

 structed its reception and perverted 

 its influence when received. The 

 metaphysical theory of free-will, as 

 held by philosophers, (for the practi- 

 cal feeling of it, common in a greater 

 or less degree to all mankind, is in no 

 way inconsistent with the contrary 

 theory,) was invented because the 

 supposed alternative of admitting 

 human actions to be necessary was 

 deemed inconsistent with every one's 

 instinctive consciousness, as well as 

 humiliating to the pride, and even de- 

 grading to the moral nature, of man. 

 Nor do I deny that the doctrine, as 

 sometimes held, is open to these im- 

 putations ; for the misapprehension 

 in which I shall be able to show that 

 they originate unfortunately is not 

 confined to the opponents of the doc- 

 trine, but is participated in by many, 

 perhaps we might say by most, of its 

 supporters. 



§ 2. Correctly conceived, the doc- 

 trine called Philosophical Necessity 

 is simply this : that, given the mo- 

 tives which are present to an indi- 

 .vidual's mind, and given likewise the 

 character and disposition of the indi- 

 vidual, the manner in which he will 

 act might be unerringly inferred ; 

 that if we knew the person thor- 

 oughly, and knew all the induce- 

 ments which are acting upon him, we 

 could foretell his conduct with as 

 much certainty as we can predict any 

 physical event. This proposition I 

 take to be a mere interpretation of 

 universal experience, a statement in 

 words of what every one is internally 

 convinced of. No one who believed 

 that he knew thoroughly the cir^^uji^" 



