FACULTIES OF THE MIND, 



453 



Freedom of mind, then, or an exercise of the will, is a distinct power 

 or attribute from that of desire, and can only respect actions in which 

 there is^a condition of choice. A man standing on a cliff, has a power of 

 leaping twenty yards downward into the sea, or of continuing where he 

 is ; and having this option, he is free, and exercises his will accordingly. 

 But he has no power of leaping twenty yards upwards into the air, and 

 it can never become a question with him — a subject of deliberation or 

 option — whether he shall leap upwards or not ; and, consequently, as this 

 can never become a question with him, the mind can never will it, and 

 its freedom remains undisturbed. 



Here, then, we rest : the mind is free to do whatever it wills. But the 

 ingenuity of man has not been content with letting the subject remain at 

 this point : it has pushed it still farther, and inquired whether the mind is 

 free to will as well as to act after it has willed ? and this, after all, is the 

 real drift of the inquiry with which the world has been so long harassed, 

 whether the will itself be free. 



This question is a complex one ; and its complexity has not always 

 been sufficiently traced out and explained. The mind of every intelH- 

 gent being can only will, or, in other words, be determined to do or 

 forbear an act by a motive or moving power, and in this respect it is 

 subject to a necessity issuing from the nature of things ; but if, as I shall 

 endeavour to show, the mind, by a voluntary operation of some one or 

 more of its other faculties, of itself constitutes the motive, annuls it, or 

 changes it for another, it must necessarily follow, that it has all the free- 

 dom of willing, as well as of acting, that an intelligent being is capable 

 of possessing. 



Now, the grand aim of every living, and especially of every intelHgent 

 being, is good, pleasure, or happiness ; for they all, as in the words of 

 the poet, imply the same thing : — 



O Happiness ! our being's end and aim, 



Good, Pleasure, Ease, Content, whate'er tfayname. 



But good, pleasure, or happiness, are generic names for a thousand dif- 

 ferent objects, each of which is pursued as many different ways, not only 

 by different individuals, but sometimes at different periods, by the very 

 same person. In all these cases we perceive so many different motives 

 or moving powers. Yet whence comes it, not only that different per- 

 sons but that the same individual should have a different motive or 

 moving power to-day from what he had yesterday, or perhaps only half 

 an hour before ? 



The cause may, indeed, be some sudden and impetuous gust of passion 

 by which the mind may be stormed and led captive, as by a coup-de-main; 

 but it may also be a dehberate determination of the mind itself. And, in 

 truth, this last is the general cause, to which a sudden and impetuous ebul- 

 lition of the passions forms but a few occasional exceptions. It is this 

 exercise of deliberation that alone renders man a rational and accountable 

 being. All human laws act upon the same principle : they suppose him, 

 (saving the few extreme cases just alluded to) to be under the influence of 

 a controlling judgment, and they reward or punish him accordingly. And 

 such is the force of habit and long association, that we not unfrequently 

 behold the judgment exercising this control, in a mind evidently unsound 

 and wandering ; and the cunning maniac concealing a .skilful design or r 



