LIBERTY AND NECESSITY. 



549 



obscurely m the minds of most Neces- 

 sitarians, however they may in words 

 disavow it. I am much mistaken if 

 they habitually feel that the necessity 

 which they recognise in actions is but 

 uniformity of order, and capability of 

 being predicted. They have a feeling 

 as if there were at bottom a stronger 

 tie between the volitions and their 

 causes : as if, when they asserted that 

 the will is governed by the balance of 

 motives, they meant something more 

 cogent 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 scientific system, the very same 

 mistake which their adversaries com- 

 mit in obedience to theirs ; and in 

 consequence do really in some in- 

 stances suffer those depressing conse- 

 quences which their opponents erro- 

 neously 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 that 

 it would be prevented by forbearing 

 to employ, for the expression of the 

 simple fact of causation, so extremely 

 inappropriate a term as Necessity. 

 That word, in its other acceptations, 

 involves much more than mere uni- 

 formity of sequence : it implies irre- 

 sistibleness. Applied to the will, it 

 only means that the given cause will 

 be followed by the effect, subject to 

 all possibilities of counteraction by 

 other causes ; but in common use it 

 stands for the operation of those causes 

 exclusively, which are supposed too 

 powerful to be counteracted at all. 

 When we say that all human actions 

 take place of necessity, we only mean 

 that they will certainly happen if no- 

 thing prevents : — when we 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 prevent it. The application of 

 the same term to the agencies on which 

 human actions depend as is used to ex- 

 press those agencies of nature which 



are really uncontrollable, cannot fail, 

 when habitual, to create a feeling of 

 uncontrollableness in the former also. 

 This, however, is a mere illusion. 

 There are physical sequences which 

 we call necessary, as death for want 

 of food or air ; there are others which, 

 though as much cases of causation as 

 the former, are not said to be neces- 

 sary, as death from poison, which an 

 antidote, or the use of the stomach- 

 pump, will sometimes avert. It is 

 apt to be forgotten by people's feel- 

 ings, even if remembered by their un- 

 derstandings, that human actions are 

 in this last predicament : they are 

 never (except in some cases of mania) 

 ruled by any one motive with such 

 absolute sway that there is no room 

 for the influence of any other. The 

 causes, therefore, on which action de- 

 pends are never uncontrollable, and 

 any given effect is only necessary pro- 

 vided that the causes tending to pro- 

 duce it are not controlled. That what- 

 ever happens could not have happened 

 otherwise unless something had taken 

 place which was capable of preventing 

 it, no one surely needs hesitate to admit. 

 But to call this by the name necessity 

 is to use the term in a sense so different 

 from its primitive and familiar mean- 

 ing, from that which it bears in the 

 common occasions of life, as to amount 

 almost to a play upon words. The as- 

 sociations derived from the ordinary 

 sense of the term will adhere to it in 

 spite of all we can do; and though 

 the doctrine of Necessity, as stated 

 by most who hold it, is very remote 

 from fatalism, it is probable that most 

 Necessitarians are Fatalists, more or 

 less, in their feelings. 



A Fatalist believes, or half believes, 

 (for nobody is a consistent Fatalist,) 

 not only that whatever is about to 

 happen will be the infallible result of 

 the causes which produce it, (which is 

 the true Necessitarian doctrine,) but, 

 moreover, that there is no use in 

 struggling against it ; that it will 

 happen however we may strive to 

 prevent it. Now, a Necessitarian, 

 believing that our actions follow from 



