Nature and Freedom. 65 



and consciousness is accepted as an ultimate criterion in all knowl- 

 edge, without anj' attempt to discriminate between the conceivable, 

 and the objectively true. We originate our own neutral action 

 or energy. Whatever be the motives, or " con-causes," the mind 

 is known in consciousness to be active ; and not, as it might ap. 

 pear from another point of view, the merely passive recipient of 

 impressions coming from without, which it in tarn communicates, 

 as a sort of electric telegraph. 



The involuntary is found where the passive predominates, i. e., 

 where the principle of motion is from without. Aristotle also 

 makes a distinction, instructive enough, between (1) will, as above 

 described, seeking an end prescribed by nature, an end necessarily 

 sought, i. e., a will, "determined ;" (2) will, (^oukrjmc:^ which adds 

 hope of obtaining that end, (3) deliberate preferences Tvpoacpsai^, 

 which is the intelligent choice of particular means for getting 

 that end, the intelligent action of a rational man knowing what 

 he wills, and selecting the means, which can be clearly distin- 

 guished from irrational desire in man and brute, which pushes 

 equally both of them towards an end, with apiparently the same 

 determined necessity as the unknown force by which a crystal is 

 shaped into one form end cannot take another. 



This being the free man, as Aristotle views him, his reason 

 which is hardly personal and individual in his proper self, dis- 

 cerns certain necessary principles, apodeictic truths, no matter 

 how he got them, assumed in every thought. They are not de- 

 rived from any special science, but underlie all sciences. They 

 admit of investigati(;n, analysis, rigid statement not of proof. 

 They constitute the first philosophy- 



In Aristotle's physical treatises, we find the objective world, as 

 far as the thinking mind, had then explored it. Thus, the prob- 

 lem is opened ; Epicurean and Stoical morals, necessarily touched 

 the question before us ; I am not aware that any step further was 

 made towards an answer. 



Christian dogmas necessarily give an added importance to the 

 question, and it is prominent enough, from St. Augustine's time, 

 through the middle ages ; but the aim was, not to reconcile free- 

 dom and nature, but to find how the infinite and absolute stand, 

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