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hardly fail to see that there is an element in what we have 
called the inertia of mind which is not an element in the 
inertia of matter. The amount of force necessary to move any 
portion of matter can be mathematically ascertained. To the 
infinitesimal fraction of an atom's weight (if we may use a 
hyperbolical and yet truthful mode of expression) force is 
calculable so far as the moving of matter is concerned. Will 
any man say the same of volition as a movement of mind? It 
he do, he is bound to prove his affirmation. If he could do 
so, he would prove that the universal blame which man 
attaches to wicked volitions is absurd and wrong, and he who 
opposes his assertion to the universal verdict — or to all but 
the universal verdict — of intelligence is bound to establish 
his position by irrefragable evidence, or to surrender it. 
He must take those myriad cases in which the most 
powerful and concentrated of all ascertained assemblages of 
conditions have failed to produce the “I will " of the fully 
determined mind, and he must show what condition, or degree 
of a condition, was wanting so as to account for the unchanging 
“ will not " of the hero, or of the incorrigible. This is a case 
in which we must respect the truth, that the “ I can conceive 
of the philosopher goes for nothing. It is not one in which a 
u may be" can be accepted for a moment. The conceivabilit^ 
and the “ inconceivability," together with the “ may be " and 
the “ cannot be," are not very important in any case of true 
science, but in this case they can have no place except as in- 
dications of something very like perversity. A mass of iron, 
for example, like the war-ship Northumberland, lies dead on 
the “ ways." It is known beyond the shadow of a doubt that 
the amount of force necessary to raise and push her off into 
the river is mathematically calculated to the hundred-thou- 
sandth part of an ounce. This is demonstrable by endless ex- 
periments. But we deny that one experiment can be mentioned 
in which the force necessary to produce a volition in a mind is 
so calculable, and that, because in the case of mind there is 
the element of that which we choose to call cause itseff not 
in the sense of “an assemblage of conditions," but in the 
true sense of a producing power, so far as human action goes, 
as real as that of God Himself. It is the fundamental feature 
of His own image, as that is found impressed on men. VV hen 
mind is really studied, as matter is really studied, not in 
dreamy conceivings, but by actual observation of facts, and 
the careful generalization of their teaching, it is placed beyond 
all doubt that mind is cause, and that this causative faculty 
belongs to mind alone: When we consider the general truth 
* — the result of all the facts that bear on the subject— that 
