404 
session of beliefs, and above all, out of bis sense of right and 
wrong.” And, further still, it is admitted — 
<( Among the motives which operate upon man, he has a selecting power. 
He can as it were compare them among each other, and bring them to the 
test of conscience. Nay more, he can reason on his own character as he can 
on the character of another being — estimating his own weakness with refer- 
ence to this or the other motive, as he is conscious how each may be likely 
to tell upon him. When he knows that any given motive will be too strong 
for him if he allows himself to think upon it, he can shut it out from his 
mind. 1 keeping the door of Ills thoughts.’ He can, and he often does, refuse 
the thing he sees, and holds by another thing which he cannot see. He may, 
and he often does, choose the invisible in preference to the visible. He may, 
and he often does, walk by faith and not by sight. It is true that in doing 
this he must be impelled by something which in itself is only another 
motive ; and so it is true that our wills can never be free from motives, and 
in this sense can never be free from law.”* 
No man contends for freedom from motives, nor freedom 
from law. The contention is, that there is power of control 
over motives, not freedom from them, and that this power of 
control is greater in proportion to the higher character of 
intellect. Why is the old rat more difficult to catch than the 
young one, who falls a victim to the bait the first go-off? 
Because, says the Duke, the “ motives ” or <( forces ” at work 
are more numerous, and consequently the action more un- 
certain and less easy to calculate. But this is not the whole 
truth ; experience has made the old rat, like the old bird who 
sees chaff, more wary ; he is more intelligent, better instructed, 
and with his advance in the power of intelligence, he becomes 
more free — freedom keeping pace with increasing intellectual 
power. It is so with the child as it grows up from infancy of 
knowledge to an acquaintance with men and things. There 
spring up with its growth, not simply an increase of the 
number of motives, but of the power of “ selecting” from 
among the number present at a given time, the power also 
of dismissing those that are present, and of calling up others 
which were not present ; and this power is just that for which 
we are contending — freedom . The connection between the 
enlarged number of motives in the adult rat and the enlarged 
groove of freedom, appears to have led the Duke of Argyll 
to argue occasionally as if the will were necessarily swayed by 
the motives present at the time, whether such motives be 
many or few. But this cannot be the case with man, who is 
admitted to have the power of “ selecting,” and calling up 
* Reign of Law , pp, 334-5. 
