A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory Part 3

The doing of good and the doing of evil! The doer of ill is one who must be destroyed, not punished. The doer of good is lucky, not virtuous. But though neither the doer of good nor of ill be free, man is, nevertheless, a being to be modified; it is for this reason the doer of ill should be destroyed upon the scaffold. From thence the good effects of education, of pleasure, of grief, of grandeur, of poverty, &c.; from thence a philosophy full of pity, strongly attached to the good, nor more angry with the wicked than with the whirlwind which fills one's eyes with dust." ...

"Adopt these principles if you think them good, or show me that they are bad. If you adopt them, they will reconcile you _too_ with others and with yourself: you will neither be pleased nor angry with yourself for being what you are. Reproach others for nothing, and repent of nothing, this is the first step to wisdom. Besides this all is prejudice and false philosophy."

Though these consequences irresistibly flow from the doctrine of necessity, yet the injury resulting from them would be far less if they were maintained only by such men as Helvetius and Diderot. It is when such errors receive the sanction of Christian philosophers, like Hartley and Leibnitz, and are recommended to the human mind by a pious zeal for the glory of G.o.d, that they are apt to obtain a frightful currency and become far more desolating in their effects. "The doctrine of necessity," says Hartley, "has a tendency to abate all resentment against men: _since all they do against us is by the appointment of G.o.d, it is rebellion against him to be offended with them_."

Section V.

The manner in which Leibnitz endeavours to reconcile liberty and necessity.

Leibnitz censures the language of Descartes, in which he ascribes all the thoughts and volitions of men to G.o.d, and complains that he thereby shuts out free-agency from the world. It becomes a very curious question, then, how Leibnitz himself, who was so deeply implicated in the scheme of necessity, has been able to save the great interests of morality. He does not, for a moment, call in question "the great demonstration from cause and effect" in favour of necessity. It is well known that he has more than once compared the human mind to a balance, in which reasons and inclinations take the place of weights; he supposes it to be just as impossible for the mind to depart from the direction given to it by "the determining cause," as it is for a balance to turn in opposition to the influence of the greatest weight.

Nor is he pleased with Descartes's appeal to consciousness to prove the doctrine of liberty. In reply to this appeal, he says: "The chain of causes connected one with another reaches very far. Wherefore the reason alleged by Descartes, in order to prove the independence of our free actions, by a pretended vigorous internal feeling, has no force.(20) We cannot, strictly speaking, feel our independence; and we do not always perceive the causes, frequently imperceptible, on which our resolution depends. It is as if a needle touched with the loadstone were sensible of and pleased with its turning toward the north. For it would believe that it turned itself, independently of any other cause, not perceiving the insensible motions of the magnetic matter."(21) Thus, he seems to represent the doctrine of liberty as a mere dream and delusion of the mind, and the iron scheme of necessity as a stern reality. Is it in the power of Leibnitz, then, any more than it was in that of Descartes, to reconcile such a scheme with the free-agency and accountability of man?

Let us hear him and determine.

Leibnitz repudiates the notion of liberty given by Hobbes and Locke. In his "Nouveaux Essais sur L'Entendement Humain," a work in which he combats many of the doctrines of Locke, the insignificance of his idea of the freedom of the will is most clearly and triumphantly exposed. Philalethe, or the representative of Locke, says: "Liberty is the power that a man has to do or not to do an action _according to his will_." Theophile, or the representative of Leibnitz, replies: "If men understood only that by liberty, when they ask whether the will is free, their question would be truly absurd." And again: "The question ought not to be asked," says Philalethe, "if the will is free: that is to speak in a very improper manner: but if man is free. This granted, I say that, when any one can, by the direction or choice of his mind, prefer the existence of one action to the non-existence of that action and to the contrary, that is to say, when he can make it exist or not exist, _according to his will_, then he is free. _And we can scarcely see how it could be possible to conceive a being more free than one who is capable of doing what he wills._"

Theophile rejoins: "When we reason concerning the liberty of the will, we do not demand if the man can do what he wills, but if he has a sufficient independence in the will itself; we do not ask if he has free limbs or elbow-room, but if the mind is free, and in what that freedom consists."(22)

Having thus exploded the delusive notion of liberty which Locke had borrowed from Hobbes, Leibnitz proceeds to take what seems to be higher ground. He expressly declares, that in order to const.i.tute man an accountable agent, he must be free, not only from constraint, but also from necessity. In the adoption of this language, Leibnitz seems to speak with the advocates of free-agency; but does he think with them? The sound is pleasant to the ear; but what sense is it intended to convey to the mind? Leibnitz shall be his own interpreter. "All events have their necessary causes," says Hobbes. "Bad," replies Leibnitz: "they have their _determining_ causes, by which we can a.s.sign a reason for them; but they have not necessary causes." Now does this signify that an event, that a volition, is not absolutely and indissolubly connected with its "determining cause?" Is this the grand idea from which the light of liberty is to beam on a darkened and enslaved world? By no means. We must indulge no fond hopes or idle dreams of the kind. Volition is free from necessity, adds Leibnitz; because "_the contrary could happen without implying a contradiction_." This is the signification which he attaches to his own language; and it is the only meaning of which it is susceptible in accordance with his system. Thus, Leibnitz saw and clearly exposed the futility of speaking about a freedom from co-action or restraint, when the question is, not whether the body is untrammelled, but whether the mind itself is free in the act of willing. But he did not see, it seems, that it is equally irrelevant to speak of a freedom from a mathematical necessity in such a connexion; although this, as plainly as the other sense of the word, has no conceivable bearing on the point in dispute. If a volition were produced by the omnipotence of G.o.d, irresistibly acting on the human mind, still it would not be necessary, in the sense of Leibnitz, since it might and would have been different if G.o.d had so willed it; the contrary volition implying no contradiction. Is it not evident, that to suppose the mind may thus be bound to act, and yet be free because the contrary act implies no contradiction, is merely to dream of liberty, and to mistake a shadow for a substance?

As the opposite of a volition implies no contradiction, says Leibnitz, so it is free from an absolute necessity; that is to say, it might have been different, nay, it must have been different, from what it is, provided its determining cause had been different. The same thing may be said of the motions of matter. We may say that they are also free, because the opposite motions imply no contradiction; and we only have to vary the force in order to vary the motion. Hence, freedom in this sense of the word is perfectly consistent with the absolute and uncontrolled dominion of causes over the will; for what can be more completely necessitated than the motions of the body?

The demand of his own nature, which so strongly impelled Leibnitz to seek and cling to the freedom of the mind, as the basis of moral and accountable agency, could not rest satisfied with so unsubstantial a shadow. After all, he has felt constrained to have recourse to the hypothesis of a preestablished harmony in order to restore, if possible, the liberty which his scheme of necessity had banished from the universe.

It is no part of our intention to examine this obsolete fiction; we merely wish to show how essential Leibnitz regarded it to a solution of the difficulty under consideration. "I come now," says he, "to show how the action of the will depends on causes; that there is nothing so agreeable to human nature as this dependence of our actions, and that otherwise we should fall into an absurd and insupportable fatality; that is to say, into the _Mohammedan fate_, which is the worst of all, because it does away with foresight and good counsel. However, it is well to explain how this dependency of our voluntary actions does not prevent that there may be at the bottom of things a marvellous spontaneity in us, which in a certain sense renders the mind, in its resolutions, independent of the physical influence of _all other creatures_. This spontaneity, _but little known hitherto_, which raises our empire over our actions as much as it is possible, _is a consequence of the system of preestablished harmony_."

Thus, in order to satisfy himself that our actions are really free and independent of the physical influence of _other creatures_, he has recourse to a fiction in which few persons ever concurred with him, and which is now universally regarded as one of the vagaries and dreams of philosophy. If we are to be saved from an insupportable fate only by such means, our condition must indeed be one of forlorn hopelessness.

Before we take leave of Leibnitz, there is one view of the difficulty in question which we wish to notice, not because it is peculiar to him, but because it is very clearly stated and confidently relied on by him. It is common to most of the advocates of necessity, and it is exceedingly imposing in its appearance and effect. "Men of all times," says he, "have been troubled by a sophism, which the ancients called the '_raison paresseuse_,' because it induces them to do nothing, or at least to concern themselves about nothing, and to follow only the present inclination to pleasure. For, say they, if the future is necessary, that which is to happen will happen whatever I may do. But the future, say they, is necessary, either because the Divinity foresees all things, and even preestablishes them in governing the universe; or because all things necessarily come to pa.s.s by a concatenation of causes."(23) Leibnitz ill.u.s.trated the fallacy of this reasoning in the following manner: "By the same reason (if it is valid) I could say-If it is written in the archives of fate, that poison will kill me at present, or do me harm, this will happen, though I should not take it; and if that is not written, it will not happen, though I should take it; and, consequently, I can follow my inclination to take whatever is agreeable with impunity, however pernicious it may be; which involves a manifest absurdity.... This objection staggers them a little, but they always come back to their reasoning, turned in different points of view, until we cause them to comprehend in what the defect of their sophism consists. It is this, that it is false that the event will happen whatever we may do; it will happen, because we do that which leads to it; and if the event is written, the cause which will make it happen is also written. Thus the connexion (_liaison_) of effects and their causes, so far from establis.h.i.+ng the doctrine of a necessity prejudicial to practice, serves to destroy it."(24) The same reply is found more than once in the course of the same great work; and it is employed by all necessitarians in defence of their system. But it is not a satisfactory answer. It overlooks the real difficulty in the case, and seeks to remove an imaginary one. The question is, not whether a necessary connexion between our volitions and their _effects_ is a discouragement to practice, but whether a necessary connexion between our volitions and their _causes_ is so. It is very true, that no man would be accountable for his external actions or their consequences, if there were no fixed relation between these and his volitions. If, when a man willed one thing, another should happen to follow which he did not will, of course he would not be responsible for it. And if there were no certain or fixed connexion between his external actions and their consequences, either as they affected himself or others, he certainly would not be responsible for those consequences. This connexion between causes and effects, this connexion between volitions and their consequences, is indispensable to our accountability for such consequences. But for such a connexion, nothing could be more idle and ridiculous than to endeavour to do anything; for we might will one thing, and another would take place.

But must the same necessary connexion exist between the causes of our volitions and the volitions themselves, before we can be accountable for these volitions, for these effects? This is the question. Leibnitz has lost sight of it, and deceived himself by a false application of his doctrine. The doctrine of necessity, when applied to volitions and their effects, is indispensable to build up man's accountability for his external conduct and its consequences. But the same doctrine, when applied to establish a fixed and unalterable relation between the causes of volition and volition itself, really demolishes all responsibility for volition, and consequently for its external results. Leibnitz undertook to show that a necessary connexion between volition and its causes does not destroy man's accountability for his volitions; and he has shown, what no one ever doubted, that a necessary connexion between volition and its effects does not destroy accountability for those effects! Strange as this confusion of things is, it is made by the most celebrated advocates of the doctrine of necessity; which shows, we think, that the doctrine hardly admits of a solid defence. Thus Edwards, for example, insists that the doctrine of necessity is so far from rendering our endeavours vain and useless, that it is an indispensable condition or prerequisite to their success. In ill.u.s.tration of this point, he says: "Let us suppose a real and sure connexion between a man having his eyes open in the clear daylight, with good organs of sight, and seeing; so that seeing is connected with opening his eyes, and not seeing with his not opening his eyes; and also the like connexion between such a man attempting to open his eyes and his actually doing it: the supposed established connexion between these antecedents and consequents, let the connexion be never so sure and necessary, certainly does not prove that it is in vain for a man in such circ.u.mstances to attempt to open his eyes, in order to seeing; his aiming at that event, and the use of the means, being the effect of his will, does not break the connexion, or hinder the success."

"So that the objection we are upon does not lie against the doctrine of the necessity of events by a certainty of connexion and consequence: on the contrary, it is truly forcible against the _Arminian_ doctrine of contingence and self-determination, which is inconsistent with such a connexion. If there be no connexion between those events wherein virtue and vice consist, and anything antecedent; then there is no connexion between these events and any means or endeavours used in order to them: and if so, then those means must be in vain. The less there is of connexion between foregoing things and following ones, so much the less there is between means and end, endeavours and success; and in the same proportion are means and endeavours ineffectual and in vain."

In like manner, Dr. Chalmers, in his defence of the doctrine of necessity, has in all his ill.u.s.trations confounded the connexion between a volition and its antecedent, with the relation between a volition and its consequent. To select one such ill.u.s.tration from many, it would be idle, says he, for a man to labour and toil after wealth, if there were no fixed connexion between such exertion and the acc.u.mulation of riches.

We reply to all such ill.u.s.trations,-It is true, there must be a fixed connexion between our endeavours or voluntary exertions and their consequences, in order to render such endeavours or exertions of any avail, or to render us accountable for such consequences. But it should be forever borne in mind, that the question is not whether a fixed connexion obtains between our volitions and their _sequents_, but whether a necessary connexion exists between our volitions and their antecedents.

The question is, not whether the will be a power which is often followed by necessitated effects; but whether there be a power behind the will by which its volitions are necessitated. And this being the question, what does it signify to tell us, that the will is a producing power? We deny that volitions and their antecedents are necessarily connected; and our opponents refute us by showing that volitions and their sequents are thus connected! We deny that A and B are necessarily connected; and this position is overthrown and demolished by showing that B and C are thus connected! Is it not truly wonderful that such men as a Leibnitz, an Edwards, and a Chalmers, should, in their zeal to maintain a favourite dogma, commit so great an oversight, and so grievously deceive themselves?

Section VI.

The attempt of Edwards to establish free and accountable agency on the basis of necessity-The views of the younger Edwards, Day, Chalmers, d.i.c.k, D'Aubigne, Hill, Shaw, and M'Cosh, concerning the agreement of liberty and necessity.

The great metaphysician of New-England insists, that his scheme, and his scheme alone, is consistent with the free-agency and accountability of man. But how does he show this? Does he endeavour to shake the stern argument by which all things seem bound together in the relation of cause and effect? Does he even intimate a doubt with respect to the perfect coherency and validity of this argument? Does he once enter a protest against the doctrine of the Stoics, or of the materialistic fatalists, according to which all things in heaven and earth are involved in an "implex series of causes?" He does not. On the contrary, he has stated and enforced the great argument from cause and effect, in the strongest possible terms. He contends that volition is caused, not by the will nor the mind, but by the strongest motive. This is the cause of volition, and it is impossible for the effect to be loose from its cause. It is an inherent contradiction, a glaring absurdity, to say that motive is the cause of volition, and yet admit that volition may, or may not, follow motive. This is to say, indeed, that motive is the cause, and yet that it is not the cause, of volition; which is a contradiction in terms.(25) So far from saying anything, then, to extricate the volitions of men from the adamantine circle of necessity, he has exerted his prodigious energies to fasten them therein.

Hence the question arises, Has he left any room for the introduction of that _freedom of the mind_, which it is the great object of his inquiry to establish upon its true foundations? The liberty for which he contends, is, after all his labours, precisely that advocated by Hobbes and Collins, and no other. It is a freedom from co-action, and not from necessity. But he is ent.i.tled to speak for himself, and we shall permit him so to do: "The plain and obvious meaning of the word _freedom_ and liberty," says he, "in common speech, is the _power_, opportunity, _or advantage, that any one has, to do as he pleases_. Or, in other words, his being free from hinderance or impediment in the way of doing or conducting in any respect _as he wills_. And the contrary to liberty, whatever name we call it by, is a person being hindered, or unable to conduct as he will, or being necessitated to do otherwise." Here, it will be seen, that liberty, according to this notion of it, has no relation to the manner in which the will arises, or comes into existence; if one's external conduct can only follow his will, he is free.

"There are two things," says he, "contrary to what is called liberty in common speech. One is _constraint_, otherwise called _force_, _compulsion_, and _co-action_; which is a person being necessitated to do a thing _contrary_ to his will. The other is _restraint_; which is, his being hindered, and not having power to do _according_ to his will. But that which has no will cannot be the subject of these things." This definition, it is plain, presupposes the existence of a volition; and liberty consists in the absence of co-action. It has no relation to the question as to how we come by our volitions, whether they are put forth by the mind itself without being necessitated, or whether they are necessarily produced in us. It leaves this great fundamental question untouched.

On this subject his language is perfectly explicit. There is nothing in Kames, nor Collins, nor Crombie, nor Hobbes, nor any other writer, more perfectly unequivocal. "But one thing more," says he, "I would observe concerning what is vulgarly called liberty, namely, that power and opportunity for one to do and conduct as he will, or according to his choice, is all that is meant by it, without taking into the meaning of the word anything of the cause of that choice, or at all considering how the person came to have such a volition, or internal habit and bias; whether it was determined by some internal antecedent volition, or whether it happened without a cause; whether it were necessarily connected with something foregoing, or not connected. _Let the person come by his choice any how_, yet, if he is able, and there is nothing in the way to hinder his pursuing and executing his will, _the man is perfectly free according to the primary and common notion of freedom_." Now this is all the definition of liberty with which his "Inquiry" furnishes us; and this, he says, is "sufficient to show what is meant by liberty, according to the common notion of mankind, and in the usual and primary acceptation of the word."

It is easy to see, that there is no difficulty in reconciling liberty, in such a sense, with the most absolute scheme of necessity or fatalism the world has ever seen. Let a man come by his volition ANY HOW; let it be produced in him by the direct and almighty power of G.o.d himself; yet, "he is perfectly free," provided there is no external co-action to prevent his volition from producing its natural effects!

President Day is not pleased with the definition contained in the "Inquiry;" and in this particular we think he has discovered a superior sagacity to Edwards. But his extreme anxiety to save the credit of his author has betrayed him, it seems to us, into an apology which will not bear a close examination. "On the subject of liberty or freedom," says he, "which occupies a portion of the fifth section of Edwards's first book, he has been less particular than was to be expected, considering that this is the great object of inquiry in his work. His explanation of what he regards as the proper meaning of the term is applicable to the liberty of outward _action_, to what is called by philosophers _external_ liberty."

"This is very well as far as it goes. But the professed object of his book, according to the t.i.tle-page, is an inquiry concerning the freedom of the will, not the freedom of the external conduct. We naturally look for his meaning of this internal liberty. What he has said, in this section, respecting freedom of the will, has rather the appearance of evading such a definition of it as might be considered his own."(26) Now, is it possible that President Edwards has inst.i.tuted an inquiry into the freedom of the will, and written a great book in defence of it, and yet has evaded giving his own definition of it? If so, then he may have demolished the views of others on this subject, but he has certainly not established his own in their stead; and hence, for aught we know, he really did not believe in the freedom of the will at all; and, for all his work shows, there may be no such freedom. For how is it possible for any man to establish his views of the freedom of the will, if he is not at sufficient pains to explain his meaning of the terms, and forbears even to give his own definition of them?

But the truth is, the author of the "Inquiry" has placed it beyond all controversy, that he has been guilty of no such omission or evasion. He has left no room to doubt that the definition of liberty, which he says is in conformity "with the common notion of mankind," is his own. He always uses this definition when he undertakes to repel objections against his scheme of necessity. "It is evident," he says, "that such a providential disposing and determining of men's moral actions, though it infers a moral necessity of those actions, _yet it does not in the least infringe the real liberty of mankind, the only liberty that common sense teaches to be necessary to moral agency, which_, AS HAS BEEN DEMONSTRATED, is not inconsistent with such necessity."(27) He defines liberty in the very words of Collins and Hobbes, to mean the power or opportunity any one has "to do as he pleases;" or, in other words, to do "as he _wills_."(28) This definition, he says, is according to the primary and common notion of mankind; and now he declares, that "this is the only liberty common sense teaches is necessary to moral agency." It is very strange that any one should have read the great work of President Edwards without perceiving that this is the sense in which he always uses the term when he undertakes to repel the attacks of his adversaries. To select only one instance out of many, he says, "If the Stoics held such a fate as is repugnant to any liberty, consisting in our doing as we please, I utterly deny such a fate.

If they held any such fate as is not consistent with the common and universal notions that mankind have of liberty, activity, moral agency, virtue, and vice, I disclaim any such thing, and think I have demonstrated the scheme I maintain is no such scheme."(29) Thus he always has recourse to this definition of liberty, consisting in the power or opportunity any one has "to do as he pleases," or, in other words, "as he wills," whenever he attempts to reconcile his doctrine with the moral agency and accountability of man, or to vindicate it against the attacks of his opponents. We must suppose then, that Edwards has given his own definition of liberty in the Inquiry, or we must conclude that he defended his system by the use of an idea of liberty which he did not believe to be correct; that when he alleged that he "had demonstrated" his doctrine to be consistent with free-agency, he only meant with a false and atheistical notion of free-agency.

We are not surprised that President Day does not like this definition of liberty; but we are somewhat surprised, we confess, that such an idea of liberty should be so unhesitatingly adopted from Edwards, and so confidently set forth as the highest conceivable notion thereof, by Dr.

Chalmers. He does not seem to entertain the shadow of a doubt, either that the definition of liberty contained in the Inquiry is that of Edwards himself, or that which is fully founded in truth. He freely concedes, that "we can do as we please," and supposes that the reader may be startled to hear that this is "cordially admitted by the necessitarians themselves!"

But this concession he easily reconciles with the tenet of necessity. "To say that you can do as you please," says he, "is just to affirm one of those sequences which take place in the phenomena of mind-a sequence whereof a volition is the antecedent, and the performance of that volition is the consequent. It is a sequence which no advocate of the philosophical necessity is ever heard to deny. Let the volition ever be formed, and if it point to some execution which lies within the limits we have just adverted to, the execution of it will follow."(30) Thus, his notion of liberty makes it consist in the absence of external impediments, which might break the connexion of a volition and its consequent, and not in the freedom of the will itself from the absolute dominion of causes. Such an idea of free-will, it must be confessed, is very well adopted by one who intends to maintain "a rigid and absolute predestination" of all events.

The manner in which Edwards attempts to reconcile the free-agency and accountability of man with the great argument from the law of causation, or with his doctrine of necessity, is, as we have seen, precisely the same as that adopted by Hobbes. There is not a shade of difference between them. It is, indeed, easy to demonstrate that liberty, according to this definition of it, is not inconsistent with necessity; and it is just as easy to demonstrate, that it is not inconsistent with any scheme of fate that has ever been heard of among men. The will may be absolutely necessitated in all its acts, and yet the body may be free from external co-action or natural necessity!

But though there is this close agreement between Hobbes and Edwards, there are some points of divergency between Edwards and Calvin. The former comes forward as the advocate of free-will, the latter expressly denies that we have a free-will. Calvin admits that we may be free from co-action or compulsion; but to call this freedom of the will, is, he considers, to decorate a most "diminutive thing with a superb t.i.tle." And though this is all the freedom Edwards allows us to possess, yet he does not hesitate to declare that his doctrine is perfectly consistent with "the highest degree of liberty that ever could be thought of, or that ever could possibly enter into the heart of man to conceive."

The only liberty we possess, according to all the authors referred to, is a freedom of the body and not of the mind. Though the younger Edwards is a strenuous advocate of his father's doctrine, he has sometimes, without intending to do so, let fall a heavy blow upon it. He finds, for instance, the following language in the writings of Dr. West, "he might have omitted doing the thing if he would," and he is perplexed to ascertain its meaning. "To say that if a man had chosen not to go to a debauch, (for that is the case put by Dr. West,) he would, indeed, have chosen not to go to it, is too great trifling to be ascribed to Dr. West." "Yet to say," he continues, "that the man could have avoided the _external action of going_, &c., if he would, would be equally trifling; for the question before us is concerning the liberty of the _will_ or _mind_, and _not_ the body." The italics are his own. It seems, then, that in the opinion of the younger Edwards it is very great trifling to speak of the power to do an _external action_ in the present controversy, _because it relates to the will or mind, and not to the body_. We believe this remark to be perfectly just, and although it was aimed at the antagonist of President Edwards, it falls with crus.h.i.+ng weight on the doctrine of President Edwards himself.

Is it not wonderful that so just a reflection did not occur to the younger Edwards, in relation to the definition of liberty contained in the great work he had undertaken to defend?

We have now seen how some of the early reformers, and some of the great thinkers in after-times, have endeavoured to reconcile the scheme of necessity with the free-agency and accountability of man. Before quitting this subject, however, we wish to adduce a remarkable pa.s.sage from one of the most correct reasoners, as well as one of the most impressive writers that in modern times have advocated the doctrines of Calvinism. "Here we come to a question," says he, "which has engaged the attention, and exercised the ingenuity, and perplexed the wits of men in every age. If G.o.d has foreordained whatever comes to pa.s.s, the whole series of events is necessary, and human liberty is taken away. Men are pa.s.sive instruments in the hands of their Maker; they can do nothing but what they are secretly and irresistibly impelled to do; they are not, therefore, responsible for their actions; and G.o.d is the author of sin." After sweeping away some attempts to solve this difficulty, he adds: "It is a more intelligible method to explain the subject by the doctrine which makes liberty consist in the power of acting according to the prevailing inclination, or the motive which appears strongest to the mind. Those actions are free which are the _effects of volition_. _In whatever manner the state of mind which gave rise to volition has been produced, the liberty of the agent is neither greater nor less. It is his will alone which is to be considered, and not the means by which it has been determined._ If G.o.d foreordained certain actions, and placed men in such circ.u.mstances that the actions would certainly take place agreeably to the laws of the mind, men are nevertheless moral agents, because they act voluntarily and are responsible for the actions which consent has made their own. _Liberty does not consist in the power of acting or not acting, but in acting from choice._ The choice is determined by something in the mind itself, or by something external influencing the mind; but _whatever is the cause_, the choice makes the action free, _and the agent accountable_. _If this definition of liberty be admitted, you will perceive that it is possible to reconcile the freedom of the will with absolute decrees; but we have not got rid of every difficulty._" Now this definition of liberty, it is obvious, is precisely the same as that given by President Edwards, and nothing could be more perfectly adapted to effect a reconciliation between the freedom of the will and the doctrine of absolute decrees. How perfectly it shapes the freedom of man to fit the doctrine of predestination! It is a fine piece of workmans.h.i.+p, it is true; but as the learned and candid author remarks, we must not imagine that we have "got rid of every difficulty." For, "_by this theory_," he continues, "_human actions appear to be as necessary as the motions of matter according to the laws of gravitation and attraction; and man seems to be a machine, conscious of his movements, and consenting to them, but impelled by something different from himself_."(31) Such is the candid confession of this devoted Calvinist.

We have now seen the nature of that freedom of the will which the immortal Edwards has exerted all his powers to recommend to the Christian world!

"Egregious liberty!" exclaimed Calvin. "It merely allows us elbow-room,"

says Leibnitz. "It seems, after all, to leave us mere machines," says d.i.c.k. "It is trifling to speak of such a thing," says the younger Edwards, in relation to the will. "Why, surely, this cannot be what the great President Edwards meant by the freedom of the will," says Dr. Day. He certainly must have evaded his own idea on that point. Is it not evident, that the house of the necessitarian is divided against itself?

Necessitarians not only refute each other, but in most cases each one contradicts himself. Thus the younger Edwards says, it is absurd to speak of a power to act according to our choice, when the question relates, not to the freedom of the body, but to the freedom of the mind itself. He happens to see the absurdity of this mode of speaking when he finds it in his adversary, Dr. West; and yet it is precisely his own definition of freedom. "But if by liberty," says he, "be meant a power of willing and choosing, an exemption from co-action and natural necessity, and power, opportunity, and advantage, to _execute our own choice_; in this sense we hold liberty."(32) Thus he returns to the absurd idea of free-will as consisting in "elbow-room," which merely allows our choice or volition to pa.s.s into effect. Dr. d.i.c.k is guilty of the same inconsistency. Though he admits, as we have seen, that this definition of liberty does not get rid of every difficulty, but seems to leave us mere "machines;" yet he has recourse to it, in order to reconcile the Calvinistic view of divine grace with the free-agency of man. "The great objection," says he, "against the invincibility of divine grace, is, that it is subversive of the liberty of the will."(33) But, he replies, "True liberty consists in doing what we do with knowledge and _from choice_."

Yet as if unconscious that their greatest champions were thus routed and overthrown by each other, we see hundreds of minor necessitarians still fighting on with the same weapons, perfectly unmindful of the disorder and confusion which reigns around them in their own ranks. Thus, for example, D'Aubigne says, "It were _easy to demonstrate_ that the doctrine of the reformers did not take away from man the liberty of a moral agent, and reduce him to a pa.s.sive machine." Now, how does the historian so easily demonstrate that the doctrine of necessity, as held by the reformers, does not deny the liberty of a moral agent? Why, by simply producing the old effete notion of the liberty of the will, as consisting in freedom from co-action; as if it had never been, and never could be, called in question. "Every action performed without external restraint," says he, "and in pursuance of the determination of the soul itself, is a free action."(34) This demonstration, it is needless to repeat, would save any scheme of fatalism from reproach, as well as the doctrine of the reformers.

The scheme of the Calvinists is defended in the same manner in Hill's Divinity: "The liberty of a moral agent," says he, "consists in the power of acting according to his choice; and those actions are free, which are performed without any external compulsion or restraint, in consequence of the determination of his own mind." "According to the Calvinists," says Mr. Shaw, in his Exposition of the Confession of Faith, "the liberty of a moral agent consists in the power of acting according to his choice; and those actions are free which are performed without any external compulsion or restraint, in consequence of the determination of his own mind."(35) Such, if we may believe these learned Calvinists, is the idea of the freedom of the will which belongs to their system. If this be so, then it must be conceded that the Calvinistic definition of the freedom of the will is perfectly consistent with the most absolute scheme of fatality which ever entered into the heart of man to conceive.

The views of M'Cosh respecting the freedom of the will, seem, at first sight, widely different from those of other Calvinists and necessitarians.

The freedom and independence of the will is certainly pushed as far by him as it is carried by Cousin, Coleridge, Clarke, or any of its advocates in modern times. "True necessitarians," says he, "should learn in what way to hold and defend their doctrine. Let them disenc.u.mber themselves of all that doubtful argument, derived from man being supposed to be swayed by the most powerful motive."(36) Again: "The truth is," says he, "it is not motive, properly speaking, that determines the working of the will; but it is the will that imparts the strength to the motive. As Coleridge says, 'It is the man that makes the motive, and not the motive the man.' "(37) According to this Calvinistic divine, the will is not determined by the strongest motive; on the contrary, it is self-active and self-determined.

"Mind is a self-acting substance," says he; "and hence its activity and independence." In open defiance of all Calvinistic and necessitarian philosophy, he even adopts the self-determining power of the will. "Nor have necessitarians," says he, "even of the highest order, been sufficiently careful to guard the language employed by them. Afraid of making admissions to their opponents, we believe that none of them have fully developed the phenomena of human spontaneity. Even Edwards ridicules the idea of the faculty or power of will, or the soul in the use of that power determining its own volitions. Now, we hold it to be an incontrovertible fact, and one of great importance, that the true determining cause of every given volition is not any mere anterior incitement, but the very soul itself, by its inherent power of will."(38) Surely, the author of such a pa.s.sage cannot be accused of being afraid to make concessions to his opponents. But this is not all. If possible, he rises still higher in his views of the lofty, not to say G.o.d-like, independence of the human will. "We rejoice," says he, "to recognise such a being in man. We trust that we are cheris.h.i.+ng no presumptuous feeling, when we believe him to be free, as his Maker is free. We believe him, morally speaking, to be as independent of external control as his Creator must ever be-as that Creator was when, in a past eternity, there was no external existence to control him."(39)

Yet, strange as it may seem, Mr. M'Cosh trembles at the idea of "removing the creature from under the control of G.o.d;" and hence, he insists as strenuously as any other necessitarian, that the mind, and all its volitions, are subjected to the dominion of causes. "We are led by an intuition of our nature," says he, "to a belief in the invariable connexion between cause and effect; and we see numerous proofs of this law of cause and effect reigning in the human mind as it does in the external world, and reigning in the will as it does in every other department of the mind."(40) Again: "It is by an intuition of our nature that we believe this thought or feeling could not have been produced without a cause; and that this same cause will again and forever produce the same effects. And this intuitive principle leads us to expect the reign of causation, not only among the thoughts and feelings generally, but among the wishes and volitions of the soul."(41)

Now here is the question, How can the soul be self-active, self-determined, and yet all its thoughts, and feelings, and volitions, have producing causes? How can it be free and independent in its acts, and yet under the dominion of efficient causes? How can the law of causation reign in all the states of the mind, as it reigns over all the movements of matter, and yet leave it as free as was the Creator when nothing beside himself existed? In other words, How is such a scheme of necessity to be reconciled with such a scheme of liberty? The author replies, We are not bound to answer such a question(42)-nor are we. As we understand it, the very idea of liberty, as above set forth by the author, is a direct negative of his doctrine of necessity.

But although he has taken so much pains to dissent from his necessitarian brethren, and to advocate the Arminian notion of free-will, Mr. M'Cosh, nevertheless, falls back upon the old Calvinistic definition of liberty, as consisting in a freedom from external co-action, in order to find a basis for human responsibility. It may seem strange, that after all his labour in laying the foundation, he should not build upon it; but it is strictly true. "If any man a.s.serts," says he, "that in order to responsibility, the will must be free-that is, free from physical restraint; free to act as he pleases-we at once and heartily agree with him; and we maintain that in this sense the will is free, as free as it is possible for any man to conceive it to be." And again: "If actions do not proceed from the will, but from something else, from mere physical or external restraint, then the agent is not responsible for them. But if the deeds proceed from the will, then it at once attaches a responsibility to them. Place before the mind a murder committed by a party through pure physical compulsion brought to bear on the arm that inflicts the blow, and the conscience says, here no guilt is attachable. But let the same murder be done with the thorough consent of the will, the conscience stops not to inquire whether _this consent has been caused or no_."(43) Thus, after all his dissent from Edwards, he returns precisely to Edwards's definition of the freedom of the will as the ground of human responsibility; after all his strictures upon "necessitarians of the first order," he falls back upon precisely that notion of free-will which was so long ago condemned by Calvin, and exploded by Leibnitz, and which relates, as we have so often seen, not to acts of the will at all, but only to the external movements of the body.