390 
Merrell—Relation of Motives to Freedom. 
roll down hill. Much of the discussion on the subject of liberty 
would be obviated, if it could be conceded at the outset that 
proximate choices and executive volitions are free, not in them¬ 
selves, but in the power of the mind to change the ultimate to 
which they are related on the occasion of any of their specific acts. 
But it is important to note the narrow sense in which the 
Ultimate Choice itself is free. Any liberty at all must be 
the power to originate and determine action or state of being. 
At a single point of activity the mind has this power, and at a 
single point only, the point of ultimate choice; and the liberty 
of which we seem conscious as pervading all forms of activity 
is in reality derived from this. In ultimate choosing the mind 
can originate action; by which is meant that any consequence 
of this particular form of action has no necessary cause except 
the mind, or the will, itself. The relation between the anteced¬ 
ent and the consequent is that of freedom; the antecedent 
existing, either one of two consequents may follow, and one 
of them must follow. In this action also the mind can deter¬ 
mine action; by which is meant, that the mind has the power 
of freely establishing the direction of its action in relation to 
the ultimate end. It may choose or refuse to choose this end; 
will it or nill it. 
Now the best definition of this free choice is, that it is re¬ 
gard for the end for what is intrinsic in it, or, on the other 
hand, the refusal to regard the end notwithstanding what is in¬ 
trinsic in it. Each of these acts is a positive choice, a positive 
volitional act, though the latter is negative in direction. The 
one is a positive choice, the other a positive refusal. The two 
choices are alternatives in action, either being at any instant 
possible. But the end is intrinsic; and, if there be no valu¬ 
ableness per se, no end in itself, no good which is good for noth¬ 
ing beyond itself, then freedom is clearly impossible, and the 
notion of the liberty of our wills is a delusion, a fancy without 
substance of reality, a pleasant fiction for our amusement, which 
offers no support for real instruction. 
If these points may be accepted without argument or illus¬ 
tration, we are ready to inquire what is the relation of motives 
to this ultimate choice? The comprehensive definition of mo- 
