256 The Ethics of Opinion. 
obviously inconsistent and logically untenable. For the only 
way, on the free-will theory, by which I believe it has ever 
been imagined orasserted that man could be morally responsible 
for his acts or thoughts, is to assume that he is himself the 
sole or first cause of them. Now, the whole doctrine of first 
causes 1s ostensibly and confessedly built upon the indisput- 
able axiom, that everything must have a cause, for ex nahilo 
mihil fit. But in deducing such a conclusion from that pre- 
miss, it is most unaccountably overlooked that the very prin- 
ciple postulated is directly violated and contradicted, for a 
FIRST CAUSE is essentially and indisputably THAT WHICH HAS 
NO CAUSE! 
And if, admitting here for the sake of argument, as the best 
means of refuting the theory by showing its inherent contra- 
dictions, that men’s acts could be thus UNCAUSED, they 
must then be simply the result of CHANCE, a mere word, 
which all scientific experience proves to be expressive of 
some unknown quantity representative of causes which 
man is incompetent, or will not trouble himself to trace. 
The natural genesis of the metaphysical theory of freewill in 
the superficial notion of chance, and that of the theological 
doctrine of predestination in the empirical conviction of 
necessary causation (which has thus been degraded into 
something really indistinguishable from “ blind Asiatic 
fatalism” personified), has been most strikingly and sugges- 
tively exhibited by Mr. Buckle, in the first chapter of his — 
“ History of Civilisation.” * : 
Again, it should be clear that so far from affording a valid 
basis for moral responsibility, the doctrine of freewill must 
effectually destroy it. For if a man, or any being, have 
no natural tendency, motive, or disposition whatever, to- 
wards one course of action rather than another, if he be 
really free, he cannot possibly be blamed or responsible for 
acting in any conceivable manner ; for if he act in any one 
manner without a motive, he certainly has none for acting 
otherwise under the premised conditions. If he ACQUIRE 
any such tendency, he must FIRST have a susceptibility for 
acquiring it, for motion cannot originate uncaused ; and if 
he have originally a susceptibility-equally appropriative of 
good and evil tendencies, he still cannot be responsible for 
the priority or nature of the external impressions by which 
he may be affected. If he have any original inherent bias 
* Longmans, 1867, pp. 9—11. 
