452 



ON THE GENERAL 



standing or the mind ; and that unless the will be free, the man himselC 

 can have no freedom. 



Now the will, like the memory or the judgment, is a mtre power or 

 ability, and freedom is another power or ability ; but powers or abilities of 

 one kind cannot belong to or be the property of powers or abihties of ano- 

 ther kind : they can only belong to or be the property of some agent, and 

 in this case the mind is the only agent. The question, therefore, whether 

 the will be free, can only mean, if it mean any thing, whether the mind be 

 free, of which the will is a power or attribute ; and to the question thus 

 modified, I have no hesitation in stating that the mind is perfectly free to 

 do whatever it wills. I do not say whatever it desires ; for the desire is 

 a different faculty from the will ; and though too generally confounded 

 with each other, for the want of clear ideas upon the subject, the two are 

 frequently in a state of direct opposition. Thus a man may desire to fly, 

 but he never wills it ; and for this plain reason, that though the action may 

 be a matter of desire, it can never be a matter of volition ; for to suppose 

 the will or power of choosing to be exerted upon a subject in which there is 

 no power of choosing, is to suppose an absurdity. In like manner, on the 

 contrary, a schoolboy may will to get his task, though sorely against his 

 desire or inchnation, and the timid female for the benefit of her health, 

 may will to be plunged into the cold bath, though with as great reluctance. 

 So when a kind and indulgent father chastises his son for disobedience, tho 

 mind, urged by proper motives, consents, and consequently wills it ; it 

 prefers inflicting the chastisement to abstaining from it : but while it wills, 

 or prefers the punishment, it is so far from desiring it, that it probably 

 hates it more than the child itself does. 



It has been said that, in this case, the feeling of desire is still exercised ; 

 that the father, though he does not desire the punishment, desires the ulti- 

 mate good of his child ; that the same power of the mind is therefore still 

 in activity, though directed to a diflferent object ; and, consequently, that 

 willing is nothing more than desire in a higher range of the scale, or a state 

 of predominant exertion. But this is to confound rather than to simplify 

 the feelings of the mind. Desire is always accompanied with pleasure, 

 and can never be altogether separated from it ; for no man can desire that 

 which is wholly and essentially painful. Now, though the father takes a 

 pleasure in the good of his child, he takes no pleasure, but, on the contrary^ 

 great and unmixed pain in his chastisement ; and unless pleasure and pain 

 be one and the same feeling, we cannot apply the simple idea of desire to 

 both, though that of the will is equally apphcable. And hence the will 

 and the desire must necessarily be regarded as different faculties of the 

 mind. In like manner, a person labouring under a severe fit of tooth-ache 

 may say that he desires to have the tooth taken out ; but in saying this 

 he does not desire the pain of its extraction, but only the ease which 

 he hopes will follow upon its removal : for he hates the pain, and would 

 avoid it, and have the tooth removed without it, if possible ; but he con- 

 sents to, or wills it, for the sake ®f that prospective advantage which alone 

 is the object of his desire, as it is also of his will. So that here again, 

 while the desire is Hmited to the one state of body, the will applies to 

 both, and affords another proof that they are two distinct mental powers. 

 In like manner. Revelation tells us repeatedly, and as strictly as it does 

 emphatically, that God " hath no pleasure or desire in the death of the 

 wicked ;" but it tells us also, that God is, nevertheless, effecting, and^ 

 consequently, willing, their death or punishment every day. 



