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^ AN ESSAY 
 
 ON 
 
 MORAL FREEDOM, &c. 
 
AN ESSAY 
 
 ON 
 
 MORAL FREEDOM: 
 
 TO WHICH IS ATTACHED, 
 A REVIEW OF THE PBINCIPLES OF 
 
 DR. WHITBY AND PRESIDENT EDWARDS 
 
 ON 
 
 FREE WILL; 
 
 AND OF 
 
 DR. BROWN'S THEORY 
 
 OF 
 
 CAUSATION AND AGENCY. 
 
 REV. THOMAS TULLY CRYBBACE, A. M. 
 
 AUTHOR OF " AN ESSAY dN THE EXTENT OF HUMAN AND DIVINE AGENCY 
 
 IN THE PRQJiUMnBP!ah«4YiNG FAITH. 
 
 ,da e»t. 
 Bacok. 
 
 EDINBURGH : 
 WAUGH AND INNES. 
 
 OGLE, GLASGOW; W. CUIIRY, JUN. & CO. DUBLIN; JAMES DUNCAN, 
 AND WHITTAKER, TREACHER & ARNOT, LONDON. 
 
 M.DCCC.XXIX. 
 
C7 
 
 ^ 5"/^^ 
 
 EDlXJillRGH : 
 THIKTED 8V A. BALFOUtt & CO. HIGH STUEET. 
 
REV. THOMAS CHALMERS, D. D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF EDINBURGH. 
 
 REVEREND SIR, 
 
 In having the honour to inscribe to you the fol- 
 lowing Essay, I will not distress you with the 
 impertinence of admiration and eulogy, ** By 
 the grace of God I am what I am," is not more 
 the principle of your theology than the sentiment 
 of your heart ; and while the sentiment sup- 
 presses all seeking of honour from men on the 
 one hand, the principle should surely check all 
 tendency to hold men's persons in admiration on 
 the other, and awaken rather a sympathetic feel- 
 ing of gratitude to Him who, as the God of na- 
 ture or of grace, is the author of all that is ex- 
 cellent and admirable in human character. 
 
VI DEDICATION. 
 
 Of the leading principles of the present Essay, 
 you formerly did me the honour to express your 
 approbation ; and, since that time, I have had 
 a public opportunity of perceiving more fully 
 how exactly the views here given coincide with 
 your own, so far as you deemed it necessary to 
 examine the subject. 
 
 Of the importance of the inquiry it is needless 
 to say any thing. " The question about free 
 will,'* says Dugald Stewart, " has furnished, in 
 all ages and countries, inexhaustible matter of 
 contention both to philosophers and divines. In 
 the ancient schools of Greece, it is well known 
 how generally and keenly it was agitated. Among 
 the Mahometans, it constitutes one of the prin- 
 cipal points of division between the followers of 
 Omar and those of Ali ; and among the ancient 
 Jews, it was the subject of endless dispute be- 
 tween the Pharisees and Sadducees. It is scarce- 
 ly necessary for me to add what violent contro- 
 versies it has produced, and still continues to 
 produce, in the Christian world."* 
 
 And it is not as a matter of curious specula- 
 tion, that this subject has so deeply engaged the 
 attention of men of all ages, sects, and countries. 
 
 * Stewart's Intellectual and Active Powers, Vol. II. App. I. 
 
DEDICATION. VU 
 
 It lies at the foundation of morar obligation, 
 and hence of all religion, natural and revealed. 
 To the Christian, in particular, the subject of 
 liberty must ever be peculiarly interesting. Not- 
 withstanding all the laborious efforts to establish 
 universal necessity, he knows, on the highest 
 evidence, that there is indeed a liberty with 
 which the Divine Redeemer makes his people 
 free ; but how can this be understood without 
 knowing the nature of the being who enjoys 
 it ? Ignorance of the human constitution, 
 and its present condition, is the principal cause 
 of the endless controversies among Christians. 
 Did man know himself, the feeHngs of humi- 
 lity, of faith, and of gratitude would quickly 
 supersede the rancorous passions of the disputant. 
 And perhaps there is not a subject in the whole 
 compass of theology, whose explication would 
 so directly and completely remove so many 
 grounds of difference among inquiring Christ- 
 ians as that of liberty and necessity. Were this 
 subject fully illustrated, it might be considered 
 one of the most hopeful tokens that the period 
 was at hand, when the watchmen shall see eye to 
 eye, and when with the voice together they shall 
 sing ; and the Christian church shall at length be 
 
Vlll DEDICATION. 
 
 delivered from that wisdom, earthly, brutal and 
 devilish, which has led the ministers of truth to 
 wrangle about they knew not what, while the 
 multitudes gazing around were allowed to perish 
 for lack of the knowledge of those truths on 
 which they were all agreed. 
 
 Allow me then. Sir, to state briefly how far 
 the subject of liberty has been satisfactorily ex- 
 plained, and at which points it still requires il- 
 lustration. 
 
 Mr. Hume, President Edwards, and others 
 have put beyond all doubt the universality of 
 causation or philosophical necessity. Every 
 thing has a cause, except the eternal First Cause, 
 whose name therefore is, ** I am that I am ;" 
 and every action implies an agent who has had 
 power to perform it. So far there is no differ- 
 ence of opinion ; but should we hence conclude 
 the universality of any necessity opposed to free- 
 dom ? Quite the reverse. This necessity, as 
 shall be shown, is nothing but the simple fact, 
 that agents exists and proves no necessity but 
 that which is stated in the proposition — a thing 
 cannot be, and not be simultaneously. As a 
 stone is, because it is solid, &c. ; so a being is an 
 agent because he has power to secure the regu- 
 
DEDICATION. IX 
 
 lar performance of the actions peculiar to his 
 nature. To maintain therefore the universaUty 
 of philosophical necessity, is just to affirm the 
 fact of the existence of agents ; and accordingly, 
 as shall be afterwards shown, while one class of 
 philosophers have written many a huge volume 
 to prove to mankind, that while a being is, he 
 must he; another class have strenuously main- 
 tained that in order to be free he must be anni- 
 hilated. The dispute, as generally managed, 
 between the necessitarian and libertarian, has 
 truly regarded only the existence of the agent, 
 and not the liberty or necessity of an agent who 
 actually has a being. The necessity of the one 
 states just the fact, / am ; the liberty of the 
 other asserts, / a?n not 
 
 To free us from all such misconceptions, we 
 are first of all to inquire, what is an agent ; and 
 then having settled this preliminary inquiry, and 
 taken, as a matter of fact, the existence of the 
 being whose condition it is required to ascertain, 
 we are prepared to inquire further, what is the 
 liberty of such and such an agent, and what the 
 opposite state of necessity. The philosophical 
 necessity is the fact of his existence as a being 
 possessed of the power of agency ; real necessity 
 can be nothing but a state of an agent who 
 
X DEDICATION. 
 
 already exists. By thus distinguishing philoso- 
 phical and real necessity, we shall be delivered 
 at once from a fearful host of arguments on both 
 sides, which will be found utterly irrelevant 
 and unmeaning; and obtain a fine illustration 
 of the justness of the remark of Dr. Brown, that 
 ** to remove a number of cumbrous words is, in 
 many cases, all that is necessary to render dis- 
 tinctly visible, as it were to our very glance, 
 truths, which they and they only, have been 
 for ages hiding from our view." 
 
 This true method of inquiry, indeed, was 
 laid down by Edwards, though he did not carry 
 it forward to its legitimate conclusions. Free- 
 dom he proved to be the enjoyment of power j 
 necessity to be the result of weakness. The volun- 
 tary agent, for example, is free when he is able 
 to carry his will into effect, but labours under the 
 opposite state of real necessity, when his will 
 is opposed and frustrated by irresistible physi- 
 cal force. To both these opposite states of 
 being, it is plain, causation or philosophical 
 necessity is equally necessary, that is, whether a 
 being enjoy power and is free, or is weak and 
 is oppressed by the superior power of another, 
 the law of causation equally prevails. 
 
DEDICATION. XI 
 
 Pursuing the inquiry on this just principle, 
 Edwards and all the necessitarians admit that 
 man is, in one sense, free when he does as he 
 chooses, and is in the opposite state of necessity 
 when his will is opposed and resisted. And that 
 man, when free from all compulsion and re- 
 straint, does uniformly act according to his voli- 
 tions cannot be doubted, and so far all are agreed. 
 The question then becomes, whether this is all 
 the liberty enjoyed by man. Hume, Edwards, 
 &c. maintain that it is, and hold it absurd to 
 imagine, that man should possess a higher de- 
 gree of freedom than the power of doing as he 
 chooses and finds most agreeable. 
 
 That this is the whole ofjree will, as it is usu- 
 ally termed, or all the liberty of the voluntary 
 agent who regulates his actions by his volitions, 
 Mr. Locke long since demonstrated ; but that it 
 is not all the liberty possessed by man shall af- 
 terwards appear. It is common to man with the 
 brutes ; and it is not the muscular motions con- 
 sequent upon volition, but the will itself which 
 man is required, by the law of God, to regulate ; 
 and therefore if he has the power only of deter- 
 mining his actions by his volitions, but not of con- 
 trolling and regulating the volitions themselves. 
 
XU DEDICATION. 
 
 he plainly cannot be the subject of moral obliga- 
 tion. This power is the proper freedom of a 
 moral agent. As the willing animal regulates 
 his actions, can the moral agent, in like manner, 
 determine and regulate his volitions ? It is not 
 the question, does man act with a motive or ac- 
 cording to the strongest, for that he does so will 
 be found simply to state the fact, either that he 
 is a voluntary or moral agent, according as the 
 term motive is taken to signify the desire or the 
 perception of an object ; nor is it the question, 
 whether man wills as he pleases, for that is an 
 unmeaning truism ; — but it is, can the thinking 
 and intelligent being control and regulate his vo- 
 litions, in the same manner as the willing animal 
 regulates his muscular motions. 
 
 To ascertain in what this power consists, in 
 what manner and to what extent it is enjoyed, is 
 the object of this Essay. It is plainly a subject 
 of the first importance to moral science as well as 
 to theology, and is still involved in great obscuri- 
 ty and perplexity in the writings even of the most 
 accurate divines and philosophers. The cause 
 of the inexplicable confusion and endless contro- 
 versy, has not been in the nature of the facts ; 
 for these are perfectly plain and have been long 
 
DEDICATION. Xlll 
 
 universally acknowledged ; but partly in the am- 
 biguity of terms, and principally in the present 
 derangement of our moral constitution. Man, 
 the animal, remains true to his nature and acts 
 uniformly, when free from compulsion and re- 
 straint, according to his volition ; and hence the 
 nature of animal or voluntary liberty has long 
 been well understood : Man, the moral agent, 
 has, in consequence of the fall, violated the law 
 of his moral constitution, and hence the jarring 
 and contradictory phenomena exhibited by the 
 spirit, to use the language of the Apostle, war- 
 ring against the flesh and the flesh against the 
 spirit. It is thus, as will afterwards appear, that 
 the Arminian defender of liberty has been fre- 
 quently right in his general principle, but, over- 
 looking the numerous exceptions to the gene- 
 ral law, completely wrong in his practical con- 
 clusions j while many a Calvinistic asserter of 
 necessity has been totally mistaken with respect 
 to the general principle, but right in the prac- 
 tical conclusions, which depend not on the law 
 itself but on the exceptions. If the account of 
 liberty, in the following pages, is clearly esta- 
 blished, the controversial ground between the 
 parties will be much diminished ; for it must 
 
XIV DEDICATION. 
 
 be confessed that the sarcastic remark of Leib- 
 nitz is not without foundation, " lis cherchent 
 ce qu'ils savent et ne savent pas ce quHls cher- 
 chent*' 
 
 It is not intended indeed to enter formally 
 upon the religious bearings of the principles 
 which shall be established, but in most cases, 
 their application is so obvious and direct, that 
 the reader who is at all acquainted with these 
 subjects, will at once perceive the illustration to 
 be derived. The consistency of the fore-ordina- 
 tion and prescience of God with the righteous- 
 ness of his moral government, the universality 
 of moral responsibility, the nature of the faith 
 which justifies the moral being, the strength as 
 well as weakness and utter helplessness of fallen 
 man, the necessity of the direct and powerful 
 agency of the DivinS Spirit to effect his moral 
 renovation, wdth a number of other important 
 subjects, will derive much elucidation, l^y the 
 investigation of this subject, indeed, we shall be 
 enabled, on principles established by clear and ac- 
 knowledged facts, as well as by the plain state- 
 ments of the sacred Scriptures, to carry the torch 
 of science along the dark and intricate history 
 of man, from the time of his creation in the 
 
DEDICATION. XV 
 
 image of God to the present moment, and ex- 
 hibit, with a clear and steady light, at once the 
 nature and responsibility of man as a moral 
 agent, and the justice and mercy of the moral 
 government of God. Within our own world, 
 and during the history of the species, all is plain 
 and satisfactory. It is only when we step with- 
 out the limits of time, and beyond the range of 
 history, and attempt, on the principles of phi- 
 losophical necessity, to account for the origin 
 of moral evil among the fallen spirits, that we 
 are involved in mystery, and stumble on what 
 may be well described, for such they have often 
 proved — the dark mountains of vanity. Every 
 one sees that we are here completely without the 
 sphere of human knowledge ; and without his- 
 tory and without facts, the intellect of an arch- 
 angel could experience nothing but mystery and 
 difficulty j or rather he would find no difficul- 
 ty at all, for seeing that the object was beyond 
 the sphere of knowledge, with that self-com- 
 mand which becomes sound philosophy, he 
 would be content to say with the French philo- 
 sopher, in reference to the same subject, " Je 
 n'en s^ais rienJ^ All the works of God which 
 he does know, he finds right and good j and he 
 
XVI DEDICATION. 
 
 would not doubt that those which he knows not 
 are right also. Within the wide sphere of 
 our own horizon, the sun shines, the mountains, 
 the woods and the rivers sparkle in his beams, 
 and prove the goodness of the Creator ; and there 
 is no reason to doubt that in the regions to which 
 our keenest optics cannot extend, the same sun 
 illuminates other mountains, woods and rivers as 
 clear and beautiful as our own. 
 
 Such, Sir, is the general scope of the Essay. 
 May I now state the method on which the in- 
 vestigation has been conducted. On reading, 
 several years ago, some of the best authors on 
 both sides of the question, the opposite writers 
 were found so contradictory, and withal seemed 
 to contain so much truth and to urge so many 
 plausible arguments in favour of their own views, 
 that I felt persuaded, that a subject on which 
 so much controversy prevailed, must not be well 
 understood, and that it were vain to seek satis- 
 factory information from the many books which 
 had been written. I laid all authors aside, there- 
 fore, and resolved to study the subject for my- 
 self, by comparing the facts stated by moralists, 
 historians and biographers, with the feelings of 
 my own mind and the mental phenomena exhi- 
 
DEDICATION. XVU 
 
 bited by others in the daily intercourse of life. 
 As in Revelation, the only inquiry is, ** What read- 
 est thou?" so here the sole question has been, What 
 feelest thou ? What are the facts of conscious- 
 ness ? In this manner, on the strictest principles 
 of analysis and induction, were the conclusions 
 stated in the Essay obtained. I then felt my- 
 self prepared to examine the best books on the 
 subject, and found, as I anticipated, that most 
 writers present a mixture of truth and error, and 
 no one whom I have seen gives a complete 
 view of this interesting subject ; but that they 
 have stated all the facts, and it might not be 
 difficult, by a selection from the writings of two 
 authors of the opposite parties, Locke and Reid, 
 for example, to present a full account of the 
 whole subject of liberty and necessity, both phy- 
 sical and moral. Notliing new, therefore, in 
 matter of fact, is to be expected; for, as D'Alem- 
 bert has well observed, it were as absurd to claim 
 originality in this respect, as to pretend to new 
 doctrines in Revelation. The facts are those 
 which daily occur, and are familiar to all ; and 
 the sole object, therefore, has been to rescue 
 them from the chaos in which they are found, 
 and by arranging them according to their natural 
 
XVlll DEDICATION. 
 
 relations, to exhibit a true account of voluntary 
 and moral agency. It requires neither the 
 powers of inventive genius to supply the mate- 
 rials, nor the aid of imagination to construct 
 theories ; for the materials are already prepared 
 in the well known judgments, desires, and pur- 
 poses of men, and are each fitted to its own 
 place, like the stones for the temple of Solo- 
 mon, which needed only to be arranged in 
 their proper places, to form the structure* 
 How far. Sir, I have succeeded in raising the 
 building, others must determine ; but I know it 
 is a glorious fabric ; for it presents a full view 
 of the moral government of God during the his- 
 tory of man, and rests upon a surer and more 
 precious foundation than the gems on which 
 stands the new Jerusalem — the justice, the ve- 
 racity, and the mercy of the Eternal. If to this 
 temple I have finished a corner, or raised the 
 smallest column, I will neither consider my la- 
 bour in vain, nor feel presumptuous in thus 
 claiming your attention. 
 
 But whether or not, Sir, I may have this satis- 
 faction, I feel truly happy in having an opportunity 
 of inscribing the Essay to you, as a small express 
 si<Mi of my high respect and affection. Besides 
 
DEDICATION. llX 
 
 the feeling with which every friend of Christian- 
 ity must regard the name of Dr. Chalmers, I ex- 
 perience a pecuhar claim on my gratitude, as 
 it is to you, in some sort, that this Essay owes 
 its existence ; for it was a discourse of yours 
 which, if it did not fix my resolution, gave me 
 courage and vigour to prosecute the study of 
 theology, in a season of great hesitation and per- 
 plexity, when without a friend but Him who 
 is the tried and unfailing Friend of them who 
 have no help of man at all. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Edinburoh, March 1829- 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction, 1 
 
 Causation — Dr. Brown's theory of Cause and Effect. — 
 Distinction of Power and Property. — Dr. Brown's theory 
 rests on a partial induction. — Many cases of Causation in 
 which we have a direct knowledge of Power. — Dr. Brown's 
 conclusion, beinjj ne^tive, falls to the ground. — The univer- 
 sal conclusion is legitimately drawTi, tliat there are proper- 
 ties called by the general term, power. — Hence the belief of 
 the regularity of future events. — Mr. Hume and Di*. Brown 
 both mistaken respecting the source of this belief. 
 
 On Agency, 30 
 
 Four great classes of causes. — Voluntary and moral causes 
 called agents. — Fatalism inconsistent with Causation. — A vo- 
 luntary agent acts invariably upon his volition, and thereby 
 secures the greatest amount of sentient enjoyment. — A moi-al 
 agent fixes his volition in the exercise of his understanding, 
 and thereby wiUs what he judges morally right or most ad- 
 vantageous upon the whole. — In both agencies the law of 
 Causation imiversally prevails. — The fact of the existence of 
 such agents the basis of all in(]^uiries respecting liberty and 
 necessity. 
 
 ESSAY ON MORAL FREEDOM. 
 Sect. I. — Nature of Freedom and Statement of the Question, 51 
 
 Mr. Hume's method of conducting the inquiry unphilosophical 
 and fallacious. — He establbhes Causation or philosophical 
 
 3 
 
XXll CONTENTS. 
 
 Paft 
 necessity common to matter and mind. — Freedom of will pe- 
 culiar to voluntary ag-ents. — The nature of liberty and ne- 
 cessity. This distinction threefold, regarding man as an 
 animal, a moral agent, and an intelligent being. 
 
 Sect. II. — Man, in the exercise of his understanding, usual- 
 ly REGULATES THE DETERMINATIONS OF HIS WILL, THAT IS, IN- 
 JOYS MORAL LIBERTY, 71 
 
 The principle not universal. — It is established by facts. — The men- 
 tal process illustrated.— Analysis of volition. — The nature of mo- 
 tives; Avhich are of two sorts, sentient and intellectual. — All 
 motives have not the same relative power in fixing volition.— 
 Instances of the manner in which the judgment determines 
 the will, and changes it after being determined. — The think- 
 ing faculty combined with the judgment independent of the 
 will. — Intellectual and sentient association. — The mistake of 
 dividing the powers of mind into intellectual and active. — 
 The intellectual powers only essentially active and the source 
 of all human agency. — Their activity depends solely upon the 
 existence of mind. — Hence the thinking being possesses the 
 power of regulating his own will, and secures his moral free- 
 dom in multitudes of cases. 
 
 Sect. III. — Of Intellectual Liberty, 
 
 From the certainty of human knowledge an argument is deriv- 
 ed against moral liberty. — The necessity alleged nothing but 
 the fact of existence. — The intelligent being free when he 
 perceives truth to be true. — A finite being possesses per- 
 fect freedom when he enjoys it to the extent of his capacity. 
 The will determined according to external circumstances 
 considered. — The Almighty perfectly free, and man placed 
 practically in precisely the same situation. — His moral na- 
 ture similar to that of the Creator. — The moral Creator and 
 the moral creature approve the same thing*. — Hence were 
 man acting uniformly upon his judgment, his wiU would con- 
 stantly coincide with the will of God. — To be wise and to 
 be happy the only necessity under which man is placed by 
 the law of his constitution. — Correctness of Mr. Locke's 
 view* on this subject. 
 
CONTENTS. XXIU 
 
 Pag« 
 
 Sect. IV. — Man, in the exercise op his underst.^ding, is 
 
 OCCASIONAIXY UNABLE TO REGULATE THE DETER»IINATIONS OF 
 HIS WILL, THAT IS, IS SUBJECT TO SIORAL NECESSITY, 122 
 
 This is an exception to the general law. — The underetanding 
 approves of all the volitions as the most agreeable at the 
 time. — Man often wills v>hat he knows to be wrong. — The 
 process explained. — Tlie strength of desire, and hence the 
 existence of volition depends on two causes, the strength of 
 the susceptibility and the amount of the perceived good. — 
 Some susceptibilities too strong; some too weak. — This is 
 the ground of moral necessity. — Sentient association favours 
 the stronger feeling. — Habit increases necessity. — Multitudes 
 of moral beings completely enthralled ; and all in some de- 
 gree. — Correct views of Luther and the reformers. 
 
 Sect. V. — The means of being delivered from moral neces- 
 sity, AND the universality OF M0R.\L RESPONSIBILITY, 152 
 
 An argument derived from real necessity against moral respon- 
 sibility. — Man now furnished, however, with the means of 
 being delivered from it. — The natural conscience can do some- 
 thing to effect delivoi-ance. — A man possessing the know- 
 ledge of Christianity can do more. — The power of the Divine 
 Spirit alone can effect a man's complete deliverance. — Means 
 of obtaining divine aid. — The analogy between faith and vo- 
 lition. — UniversaUty of moral responsibility. — Absurdity of 
 those who deny it. 
 
 Sect. VI. — Of the Introduction of Moral Evil, 184 
 
 Mode of conducting the inquiry. — Our information clear and 
 satisfactory to a certain point. No account of the origin of 
 evil among the faUen spirits. — Nature of moral government. — 
 Physical and moral will of God distinguished. — The account 
 of the fall illustrated. — Satan introduces evil in direct oppo- 
 sition to the moral will of the Deity. — Objections answered. 
 God's permission of sin explained. — God being the author of 
 evil by a secret purpose considered.* — God the author of 
 
 ♦ Correct Vicwi of the Westminster Confession, Note G» 
 
XXiy CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 good only; Satan the original author of all evil in our world. — 
 The ancient doctrine of a g-ood and evil principle practically 
 correct. 
 
 Sect. VII. — Review of Edwards, 221 
 
 His correct account of the sense in which the will is fixed ac- 
 cording to the last dictate of the undei'standing. — His just 
 views of the nature of the necessity which is opposed to li- 
 berty. — He leaves this, and proceeds to establish moral cau- 
 sation, or pliilosophical necessity. — He cannot establish moral 
 obligation by his philosophy, and has recourse to Scripture. — 
 His work not on liberty and necessity, but a refutation of 
 prevalent errors, and most triumphant. 
 
 Sect. VIII. — Review of Whitby, 248 
 
 He clearly establishes the general principle of freedom in his 
 Discourse on Grace. — His definition of liberty a correct ac- 
 count of the present state of man, though not of liberty. — 
 Two sorts of indifference, sentient and intellectual, confound- 
 ed. — His opponents admit his principle as generally true, but 
 maintain the exceptions as matters of fact. — His Discourse, 
 therefore, in reference to the controversial object he had in 
 view, is a complete failure. — The direct practical conse- 
 quences of his principle. — Work of the Holy Spirit. 
 
 APPENDIX, 272 
 
 Note A. Brown and Edwards on Volition. — B. Association. 
 E. Locke on Volition and Moral Necessity. — E. (p. 173) 
 Faith. — F. Ground of Moral Obligation. — G. Predesti- 
 nation. — H. Means of Grace. 
 
 EIIRATA. 
 
 Page 20, line 14 from top, for very read every 
 
 33, line 8 from top, for lixvs read law 
 
 50, line 1 1 from top, for inquire read inquires 
 
 97, line 9 from top, for — read : — 
 
 — — 209, line 1 from top, for trust read truth 
 
 235, line 11 from bottom, for inconvenie7ice reziA ineonveniences 
 
 ,— 250, line 7 from bottom, for philosopher read philosophers. 
 
intHoduction. 
 
 NATURE OF CAUSATION. 
 
 The subject of Causation is so intimately con- 
 nected witii that of Liberty and Necessity, or 
 rather the one subject is so directly the basis of 
 the other, that it may not be amiss to pre- 
 sent a short account of it, by way of introduction 
 to the subsequent Essay. And as one can scarce- 
 ly give any account of the relation of Cause and 
 Effect without noticing the opinions of so dislilL- 
 gjuished a \oiter as Dr. Brown, particularly as 
 his arguments have not yet, so far as we have 
 seen, been fairly and candidly met, we shall now 
 offer some remarks on the theory which this ac- 
 complished philosopher attempted to estabUsh. 
 
 Of the dispute between Dr. Brown and Mr. 
 Hume concerning the origin of the idea of power 
 and causation we shall by and by be better 
 able to form an opinion ; but before proceeding 
 to the principal subject of inquiry, it may not be 
 improper to determine the meaning of the terms 
 
« INTRODUCTION. 
 
 power, property, or quality. " The words pro- 
 perty and quality/' says Dr. Brown, ** admit of 
 exactly the same definition, expressing only a 
 certain relation of invariable antecedence and 
 consequence in changes which take place in the 
 presence of the substance to which they are 
 ascribed. They are strictly synonymous with 
 power : or, at least, the only difference is, that 
 property and quality, as commonly used, com- 
 prehend both the powers and susceptibilities of 
 substances." * 
 
 The terms power and property are, in vulgar 
 language, frequently employed indiscriminately ; 
 but they are strictly synonymous only so far as 
 they express the same thing, in like manner as 
 the king of Hanover and the king of Great Bri- 
 tain at present mean the same person. The 
 words refer to the same thing, but they express 
 it in different relations ; and many affirmations 
 therefore might be truly made respecting the 
 one, which would be false regarding the other. 
 The terms power and susceptibility express only, 
 let it at present be admitted, a certain relation 
 of invariable antecedence and consequence in 
 changes that take place in the presence of the 
 substance to which they are ascribed ; but it is 
 not so with the words property and quality. A 
 property or quality is something which is con- 
 
 • Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect, p. 18. 
 
CAUSATION. 
 
 ceived to have a permanent existence in ite. sub- 
 ject independently of our perception of it ; and 
 which becomes a power when considered in re- 
 lation to the effects which it produces in other 
 substances. The same thing which is a power 
 in relation to its effects, is a property or quaUty 
 when considered as inherent in a substance, and 
 entering into the constitution of its nature. The 
 powers of the fire or the candle which warm and 
 enlighten us, are properties when left to burn 
 alone in an empty chamber and when considered 
 by us merely as existing things without reference 
 to their effects ; and become powers only when 
 considered as the causes of the sensations of light 
 and heat. 
 
 All properties then, it is plain, are first known 
 to us as powers, which again are, to a great extent, 
 known to us only by their effects. Stretcliing 
 out the hand towards a piece of matter, it resists 
 our motion, and the power by which it does so, 
 is termed solidity. We smell it, and it affects the 
 olfactory nerves in a certain manner, and the 
 power is named smell. We open our eyes upon 
 it, and we experience the sensation of colour, and 
 the power by which the sensation is produced 
 is, for want of another term, called by the same 
 name. When we consider these and all the other 
 powers of matter as united in one subject, and 
 existing whether we perceive them or not, we 
 have then the idea of so many properties of body; 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and the various aggregates of properties with 
 which we are acquainted constitute, to our con- 
 ception, all the substances which are known to 
 exist in nature. 
 
 Dr. Brown is careful to guard us against the 
 scholastic misapprehension, that powers and pro- 
 perties are any thing distinct from the substances 
 themselves to which they belong. " The pow- 
 ers, properties, or qualities of a substance are not 
 to be regarded as any thing superadded to the 
 substance or distinct from it. They are only the 
 substance itself, considered in relation to various 
 changes which take place when it exists in pecu- 
 liar circumstances. . . . There are not substances, 
 therefore, and also powers and qualities, but sub- 
 stances alone. We do not add greenness to the 
 emerald, or yellowness to gold, or blueness to the 
 sky, or darkness to the vapoury masses which 
 occasionally overshadow it ; but the emerald, the 
 gold, the sky, the clouds, affect our vision in a 
 certain manner. They are antecedents of sen- 
 sations which arise in us."* 
 
 The cause of the strong tendency which is 
 felt to consider properties as some way or other 
 independent of their subjects, and an addition to 
 the substances to which they belong, is apparent. 
 Though no property can exist without a sub- 
 stance in which it is inherent, substances can ex- 
 
 • Ibid. p. 27. 
 
CAUSATION. O 
 
 ist without many of their properties, and are sus- 
 ceptible of increase and diminution in the num- 
 ber of the powers by which they affect our senses. 
 When, therefore, a substance, retaining all its 
 former powers, receives new ones and produces 
 new effects in us, it is plain that it has received 
 a real addition ; for it is ever to be remembered, 
 that we are utterly ignorant of the nature of sub- 
 stances, except as things which affect us in a 
 certain manner ; or, in the words of Dr. Brown, 
 ** whatever definition we give of matter must al- 
 ways be the enumeration of those properties or 
 qualities which it exiiibits ; and if there were no 
 powers, there would be truly nothing to define." 
 This is undoubtedly true, at least with respect 
 to our perceptions ; and, of course, we have no 
 reason to believe it otherwise than as it appears 
 to us. 
 
 In maintaining however, in reference to the 
 identity of properties with substances, that ** God, 
 and the things which he has created, are every 
 thing which truly exists in the universe, to which 
 nothing can be added which is not itself a new 
 substance,'* we are evidently going beyond the 
 limits of human knowledge, and, in avoiding the 
 mistake of the schoolmen, are in danger of fall- 
 ing into an error equally unphilosophical. We 
 know nothing of substances, and, according to 
 Dr. Brown, nothing of powers and properties, 
 but as the antecedents of certain consequents; 
 
b INTRODUCTION. 
 
 and it were absurd, therefore, to inquire, what 
 substances in their own nature are, or how they 
 are endued with certain properties. Substances, 
 we know, cannot exist, or to speak more cor- 
 rectly, are never, in our experience, found to 
 exist without a number of properties, in which, 
 therefore, we conceive their nature consists ; 
 but they do occasionally receive other properties, 
 without any change in their essential attributes, 
 and to our perception, obtain a real addition. 
 We cannot say that they receive any additional 
 substance, and though we may term them new 
 substances if we choose, we cannot affirm that 
 they have undergone any change which alters 
 their nature, or destroys their identity, any more 
 than a man who has lost an eye, or who has be- 
 come a little more corpulent than usual, can be 
 considered a different person. Were a sub- 
 stance, destitute of the secondary qualities of 
 taste and smell, to be endued with these proper- 
 ties by the will of the Creator, we could not 
 imagine that any new substance had been added, 
 though certainly we should believe that it had 
 received a real addition. What this addition is, 
 we cannot determine, unless we should know the 
 nature of secondary qualities, which, in the pre- 
 sent state, are directly known to us only as 
 powers, or the antecedents of certain sensations. 
 We are in no danger of being misled, if we dis- 
 tinctly understand that powers and properties 
 
CAUSATION. 7 
 
 can have no existence without a subject, though, 
 as the powers and properties of substances, they 
 have as real and permanent an existence as the 
 substances themselves. A substance without 
 powers is not less a contradiction than a property 
 distinct from a substance. It is only by their 
 powers that we know the existence of substances, 
 and the existence of the one, therefore, is, to 
 our conception, as real and permanent as the 
 other. That a property is a property, and as such 
 truly exists, is as true as that a substance is a 
 substance ; and by denying the existence of the 
 former, we necessarily deny the reahty of the 
 latter, and are placed at once in the fantastic 
 world of mere impressions and ideas. Holding 
 then the existence of powers and properties as 
 such, to be as real as that of substances, we now 
 proceed to ascertain how far we understand the 
 nature of power, or rather of powers ; for per- 
 haps much of the obscurity in which this subject 
 has been involved, has arisen from attempting to 
 discover in individual substances an abstract ge- 
 neral property, called power, which, of course, 
 has nothing but an imaginary existence. 
 
 The principle which Dr. Brown labours to es- 
 tablish, and by which his theory of Cause and 
 Effect is distinguished, is that causation is no- 
 thing but an invariable sequence — a cause being 
 a constant, uniform and invariable antecedent, 
 and an effect the corresponding consequent. 
 
8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 If, in maintaining this principle, this acute phi- 
 losopher has made no real improvement in the 
 mode of philosophizing, nor freed us, as he ima- 
 gined, from another of the scholastic phantoms 
 which still haunted the imagination, and disturb- 
 ed the speculations of the philosophic inquirer, 
 he has certainly more clearly than ever pointed 
 out the true limits of human knowledge. There 
 are a multitude of instances in which we perceive 
 nothing more than uniform sequence. That one 
 thing invariably follows another is known as a 
 matter of fact, but how or why it is, our limited 
 faculties, judging from the particular instance, 
 cannot discover. Were all the cases of causation 
 of this sort, as are all the examples which Dr. 
 Brown has brought forward and examined in sup- 
 port of his theory, the correctness of his account 
 of Cause and Effect could not be called in ques- 
 tion ; but we shall presently show, that there are 
 multitudes of cases in which more is observed 
 than mere antecedence, and hence that his theory, 
 being a negative conclusion resting on a partial 
 induction, falls at once to the ground. 
 
 That an effect is a constant and invariable 
 consequent, may be safely admitted as a conve- 
 nient, if not a strictly logical definition, of effect 
 in general. That a cause too is a constant and 
 invariable antecedent is not to be denied, and so 
 far Mr. Hume and Dr. Brown are correct in the 
 statement of facts. But men will still ask, whe- 
 
CAUSATION. y 
 
 ther Dr. Brown's philosophy admits of it or not, 
 why such and such an antecedent is uniformly 
 followed by such a consequent ? There are an- 
 tecedents and consequents which have remained 
 invariable during the whole period of our expe- 
 rience, and which nevertheless we have never 
 conceived to be related as cause and effect, and 
 how does it happen that another antecedent not 
 more uniform is deemed a cause and its conse- 
 quent an effect ? We ask not what an effect is, 
 for that is admitted to be an invariable conse- 
 quent ; but what is it in the antecedent which se- 
 cures the uniformity of the sequence ? Why is 
 an antecedent followed by its own consequent 
 and not by another ? What, in short, is the pro- 
 perty, usually called power, which is conceived to 
 render the uniformity of the sequence necessary 
 and certain ? 
 
 To answer this question as far and as satisfac- 
 torily as possible, let us first examine some of the 
 simplest and most obvious cases of cause and ef- 
 fect, before proceeding to those which are more 
 complex and abstruse. And let it be remem- 
 bered, that any substance which comes into be- 
 ing, or any change whatever which takes place 
 in, substances which already exist, is an effect. 
 The slightest change in the most accidental mode 
 of any substance, is an effect as truly as the che- 
 mical action of the solar rays in the process of 
 vegetation, or as the creation of the sun itself 
 
10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 It may be remarked too, that could we under- 
 stand the nature of power in every case, it would 
 be vain to expect such an identity or similarity 
 as is found in the general properties of substances. 
 The power of a man to move an arm, of the mag- 
 net to attract iron, of aqua regia to dissolve 
 gold, and of a glove to cover the hand, must be 
 so essentially different, that to give any definition 
 of it common to them all, it is necessary to de- 
 scribe it in terms so general as state little more 
 than the effect. To go systematically into the sub- 
 ject, it would be necessary to divide power ge- 
 nerally into various species, according to the na- 
 ture of the subjects in which it is found, and then 
 we could more distinctly perceive in which we 
 know its nature fully, in which partially, and in 
 which we are altogether ignorant of it and can 
 affirm only the fact of uniform sequence, without 
 being able to discover the power on which the 
 sequence depends. But at present it is not the 
 object to attempt any systematic and minute in- 
 vestigation, but to offer some remarks on the sub- 
 ject in general. 
 
 To take examples in the mere modes of things, 
 let us conceive that the filling up of a pit, by 
 throwing yito it a quantity of earth, is the effect 
 whose cause is to be examined. The presence 
 of the earth in the pit is the immediate cause of 
 its being filled up, and it is plain, that as the ab- 
 sence of the earth from that place constituted the 
 
CAUSATION. 1 1 
 
 pit, its presence in the same place must neces- 
 sarily produce the effect of fiUing it up again. 
 It is not the earth, as possessed merely of solidity, 
 which produces the effect, but the solid sub- 
 stance, as existing in a certain place, that is the 
 cause of this change of mode ; and there is there- 
 fore not simply the fact, that the effect follows 
 its cause, but from the adaptation of the cause to 
 the effect, it necessarily must follow and cannot 
 be otherwise. It is that adaptation which con- 
 stitutes the power of the cause, and on which the 
 uniformity of the sequence depends. So long as 
 matter retains its present nature, a certain quantity 
 of it, in a certain place, will necessarily produce 
 the effect in question, and it were a contradic- 
 tion to suppose it otherwise. The adaptation or 
 power of the cause inevitably secures the inva- 
 riable sequence of the effect, and must secure it, 
 unless it were possible that things could be and 
 not be at the same instant of time. 
 
 If, again, we turn our attention to the work- 
 men whose physical powers are employed in con- 
 veying the matter to the spot where its presence 
 is required, we still find a similar adaptation in the 
 cause to produce the uniform sequence. We do not 
 here consider how the perceptions of the under- 
 standing produce volitions, or how volition gives 
 rise to muscular motion ; but we consider mus- 
 cular motion, not as an effect of volition, but as 
 a cause, which in its turn produces effects in the 
 
12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 external world. Muscular motion is that by which 
 an animal acts against the law of gravitation 
 and overcomes its force, and by which he is able, 
 therefore, to change the place of matter, which 
 retains its position only by the influence of this 
 law. A man, then, exerting his muscular force 
 in a certain manner, must produce a certain ef- 
 fect ; and from the adaption of the cause, that 
 is, the muscular force employed in a certain 
 manner, it is as contradictory to suppose it 
 otherwise as to imagine that matter should not 
 fill a space equal to its bulk. The earth is not 
 more adapted to fill the pit than is the physical 
 force of the workmen, when directed in a cer- 
 tain way, to convey the earth to the place where 
 its presence produces the effect. The invariable 
 sequence of both effects is the necessary and un- 
 avoidable result of the adaptation of the cause ; 
 and we cleaiiy perceive, that on this adaptation 
 they depend and must constantly and uniformly 
 follow, without an absolute contradiction. 
 
 So it is with all the numerous variety of 
 changes which human ingenuity and power daily 
 produce. When a number of masons and la- 
 bourers unite their physical force, and direct it 
 in a certain manner in order to raise a wall, we 
 clearly perceive not only that the effects will fol- 
 low ; but from the fitness of the agents, that such 
 and such must be tlie certain and inevitable re- 
 sults. Their mechanical knowledge and com- 
 
CAUSATION. 15 
 
 bined muscular force render it impossible that 
 the materials should not be removed from one 
 place to another, elevated to the wall and laid 
 in a certain order. The stones and mortar again 
 placed in a certain situation necessarily constitute 
 a wall. And if four walls of a certain height 
 and length be placed at right angles, they ne- 
 cessarily enclose a space ; and if again a roof of 
 certain materials be, laid over all, a house is form- 
 ed, which, by its very nature, excludes the wind 
 afid rain. In this and similar series of causes 
 and effects, the various antecedents are consti- 
 tuted causes, not merely by the possession of 
 what are styled their essential properties, but by 
 the mode or circumstances in which they exist. 
 Stones and mortar do not necessarily constitute 
 a wall, nor do four walls necessarily enclose a 
 space ; it is these materials only when placed in 
 a certain situation that produce these effects. In 
 all the changes which are effected in the mere 
 modes of things, therefore, we do not regard the 
 antecedents as causes on account of their essen- 
 tial properties, for which we can give ho account; 
 but taking it as a matter of fact that they possess 
 such and such attributes, when viewed in cer- 
 tain circumstances, they are intuitively perceiv- 
 ed to be causes, which of necessity must pro- 
 duce their proper results. The adaptation which 
 constitutes them causes is obvious, and acknow- 
 ledged previous to all experience A well made 
 
14 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 glove or boot is at once perceived to possess an 
 adaptation to cover and protect the foot or the 
 hand ; and it might be amusing to attempt to per- 
 plex the unsophisticated understanding, by en- 
 deavouring to convince a manufacturer of these 
 articles, that they possessed no property calculat- 
 ed to secure the invariable sequence of the effects 
 for which they are designed. The most ignorant 
 workman would ridicule the philosophy of both 
 Mr. Hume and Dr. Brown, and prove himself 
 better acquainted with the nature of causation 
 than they both, were they to tell him that the 
 foot and leg's being covered is the invariable 
 consequent of a well-fitted boot, in certain cir- 
 cumstances, namely, when put on ; but that the 
 antecedent and consequent are all which we can 
 perceive, and that we cannot discover why the 
 one is followed by the other, nor give any rea- 
 son why the boot is followed by its consequent, 
 that is, why it covers the foot and leg. The in- 
 dignant mechanic would soon explain to them in 
 what consisted the power of the antecedent to 
 secure its consequent, and his own power, more- 
 over, to render the boot such an antecedent, he 
 could tell them, consisted in his mechanical 
 strength, which, when directed in a certain man- 
 ner, was well adapted, and hence as necessarily 
 and certainly produced the uniform consequent 
 called a boot, as the invariable antecedent so 
 called is, in certain circumstances, followed by 
 
CAUSATION. 15 
 
 its constant, uniform, and invariable consequent, 
 namely, the leg and foot's being covered and 
 protected from the inclemency of the weather. 
 Let him give the antecedent a different shape or 
 size, and he might still call it a large or a small 
 boot, a well or an ill shaped one, but it could no 
 longer be the invariable antecedent of the sup- 
 posed effect. 
 
 In all cases of this nature, then, we perceive 
 an adaptation and fitness, or by whatever name 
 we choose to call it according to the different 
 subjects in which it is found, which is expressed 
 generally by the term poweVy and which consti- 
 tutes the substance a cause, and secures the 
 uniformity of the sequence. Power, in such in- 
 stances, is thus perfectly known, and hence we 
 distinctly perceive not only that the effect follows 
 as a matter of fact, but that it must follow and 
 cannot but follow, without a contradiction as 
 obvious as that two and two are not four. In 
 the cases adduced, the whole mystery of causa- 
 tion, therefore, if a thing so obvious should ever 
 have been conceived mysterious, lies open to the 
 understanding and the senses. From the very 
 nature of the antecedent and consequent, we per- 
 ceive as plainly, that, in certain circumstances, 
 they are inseparably connected, as we see that a 
 whole is equal to all its parts. That such and 
 such causes, in instances similar to those produ- 
 ced above, must necessarily produce such and 
 
16 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 such effects, is a truth which, in the human un- 
 derstanding, rests upon the same foundation as 
 the truth that such and such causes exist. The 
 adaptation or power is perceived as a property 
 inherent in the cause, and so long as the present 
 order of the universe remains unchanged by Him 
 who at first ordained it, the effect is perceived 
 to be the necessary and inevitable result, and the 
 uniformity of its sequence is fixed as a matter of 
 course. 
 
 The instances of causation in which we have 
 a clear and adequate idea of power, form by far 
 the majority of the cases of cause and effect 
 which, in ordinary circumstances, come under 
 our observation and attract our notice. All the 
 adaptations of size, form, position, &c. which 
 we behold in nature, and all the changes which 
 men produce by their own power, or which are 
 produced by power of a similar sort, belong to 
 this class of causes. The labours of all the busy 
 millions of our population, the mechanical arts, 
 the manufactures, the agriculture, the building, 
 the navigation, the wars, the commerce of the, 
 country j all the numerous and mighty changes 
 which by the power and industry of man trans- 
 form the face of the world, are nothing but the 
 combined results of changes which are effected 
 in the mere accidents of things. The timber 
 which composes the proudest navies, and the ma- 
 terials which raise the most magnificent and 
 
CAUSATION. 17 
 
 splendid cities, have undergone no change but 
 that of place and form ; and in all those innu- 
 merable and stupendous monuments of human 
 art, therefore, the nature of causation and power 
 is perfectly understood. Here and there the 
 agencies of nature, as in the chemical arts, are 
 introduced, and more intimate changes are ef- 
 fected in the nature of things, of the causes of 
 which, as we shall just see, we must confess our 
 ignorance ; but in all the grand and numberless 
 effects of human power, our knowledge of that 
 which constitutes a cause must be classed among 
 the clearest and most adequate of our concep- 
 tions. 
 
 So far then our knowledge of power extends ; 
 but if we advance a step farther and inquire into 
 the causes of those changes which take place in 
 the more essential properties of matter, our senses 
 fail us, and we are left entirely in the dark re- 
 specting the nature of the attributes which con- 
 stitute any substance a cause. We cannot dis- 
 cover how the volition acts upon the nerves and 
 muscles and produces animal motion, how fire 
 dissolves metal, nor why the magnet attracts 
 iron. We know merely that lead, for instance, 
 placed in a certain temperature, becomes hquid, 
 or that iron, placed near a magnet, approaches to- 
 wards it J and, with Dr. Brown, we may state the 
 fact, by saying, that such a consequent invaria- 
 bly foil ows such an antecedent, but nothing more. 
 
 c 
 
18 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 To attempt to go beyond this exceeds our pre-'- 
 sent means of perception, and, in so doing, we 
 leave the conclusions of sound philosophy for 
 the groundless conjectures of a misdirected ima- 
 gination. In such cases we know power only by 
 its effects, as we know the sensible qualities of 
 matter, which are examples of powers whose 
 natures are unknown. We do not, indeed, in 
 such instances, deny that there are powers, for 
 this were to deny the existence of the material 
 world, and to recur to the theory of impressions 
 and ideas as the sole entities, but we know that 
 there are powers simply because their effects are 
 felt by our sensations. 
 
 Should we then, from these instances, con- 
 clude with Dr. Brown, that power, as inherent 
 in substances, is not some adaptation or fitness, 
 in some respects similar to that which we disco- 
 vered in the former class of cases, and which ren- 
 ders the uniformity of the sequences necessary, 
 and the supposition that they should be other- 
 wise a contradiction ? By no means : this were 
 in opposition to every principle of sound reason- 
 ing. All that can legitimately be inferred from 
 a negative induction or the want of facts, is not 
 respecting the subjects which we examine, but 
 our own knowledge, that, from our limited fa- 
 culties, we possess no means of discovering the 
 nature of the power in the particular instances. 
 We are in a similar situation with the philosopher 
 
CAUSATION. 19 
 
 who is required to determine, with the naked 
 eye, whether or not a certain body is a simple 
 substance. Judging from his vision, he would 
 say it seems so ; but he would recollect that his 
 eye is not the proper instrument to determine 
 the question, and until the substance be subject- 
 ed to a chemical analysis, he would be content 
 to acknowledge his ignorance. So it is with all 
 the instances of causation which Dr. Brown ad- 
 duces. Nothing can be inferred from them but 
 our inability to perceive the nature of the power 
 in the particular instance. But after, in other 
 cases, it has been ascertained that a certain 
 adaptation, called power, constitutes a cause, we 
 are warranted to draw the universal conclusion, 
 that every invariable sequence is the result of 
 power, on the same principle that the chemist 
 infers that all the substances of the same species 
 are composed of certain elements, because such 
 he has found to be the composition of some in- 
 dividuals. This conclusion, as well as Dr. 
 Brown's, rests upon a partial induction, but the 
 material difference is, that his is founded on the 
 want of facts, while the one at which we arrive 
 is drawn from facts known and observed ; and 
 is entitled, therefore, to be held universal, until 
 facts of an opposite tendency are brought to dis- 
 prove it. Though nothing were observed but 
 mere sequence in every instance of causation ex- 
 cept one, in which it was found that it de- 
 
20 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 pended on a certain adaptation or power of 
 the antecedent, and could not take place 
 without it j with this sohtary instance, we 
 could at once overturn the linest theory, founded 
 on any, all but universal, induction, in support 
 of a negation, and estabhsh the opposite conclu- 
 sion universally, till some fact were found, in 
 like manner, to limit its extension. Power is as 
 necessary to causation as the heart, or some sub- 
 stitute for it, is for the circulation of the blood, 
 and the maintenance of human life ; and as we 
 conclude that all men possess that blood vessel, 
 though we have seen but few bodies dissected, 
 with the same certainty we conclude, that very 
 cause possesses a power which of necessity se- 
 cures the invariableness of the consequent, 
 though we cannot in every case say what that 
 power is, and present it to the eye, the taste, or 
 the touch. 
 
 We return then to the doctrine of the old 
 school, or rather to the doctrine of the common 
 understanding and universal belief of mankind, 
 and on every principle of sound philosophy and 
 right reason, maintain that a cause is a substance 
 possessed of a certain adaptation, fitness or power, 
 which necessarily secures the constant and inva- 
 riable sequence of the effect. In certain cases, 
 this power is perceived and known as an object 
 of sense ; in others, it is discovered only by its 
 effects. In the former we know it as a property 
 
CAUSATION. €1 
 
 inherent in the substance ; in the latter it is 
 known only as a power, that is, sometliing which 
 produces an effect. In the one class of cases, 
 knowing the power, we can with perfect cer- 
 tainty predict the effect prior to all experience; 
 in the other, from our experience of the effect, 
 we infer the existence of the power, and then 
 we reason respecting the future sequences with 
 the same accuracy and certainty as in the in- 
 stances where the power is known as an object 
 of perception. Hence, in either case, the prac- 
 tical law of causation, both for the past and fu- 
 ture, is fully understood, and we reason upon it 
 with the same certainty as the astronomer ap- 
 plies the law of gravitation to account for all the 
 phenomena of the solar system. 
 
 We are now prepared to perceive the ground 
 on which rests our belief of the future uniformity 
 of events, and to appreciate the merits of the dis- 
 pute between Mr. Hume and Dr. Brown, res- 
 pecting the source of this belief. Mr. Hume, 
 though he denied the reality of power, could not 
 deny the consciousness of the belief that a cause 
 will be for the future, as it has been during the 
 past, invariably followed by its effect. Without 
 the existence of power, the only foundation on 
 which this belief rests, he found great difficulty 
 to account for the feeling in the mind of an in- 
 telligent and rational being. As the most like- 
 ly principle that could explain the phenome- 
 
SS INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Hon, he had recourse to association, and main- 
 tained that, having repeatedly experienced a se- 
 quence of events, we are ultimately led to be- 
 lieve, that things, for the future, will follow in 
 the same train as, by experience we have known, 
 they have done for the past. There is no doubt 
 that, to a certain extent, this is the tendency of 
 association, but, it is worthy of notice, that it is 
 chiefly in minds of weak understanding, children, 
 idiots, and the lower animals, to whom it seems 
 to supply, in a great measure, the want of reason 
 and foresight, that its influence is so considerable 
 as to produce, in any considerable degiee, the 
 effect which he ascribed to it. As the under- 
 standing and reasoning powers acquire strength, 
 it loses its influence, and leaves the belief to 
 which Mr. Hume conceives it to give birth, whol- 
 ly unaccounted for ; while, as a matter of fact, 
 the feeling is proportionally strengthened and 
 confirmed. Dr. Brown has accordingly most 
 triumphantly refuted the fallacy of Mr. Hume, 
 and demonstrated the necessity of accounting 
 for the belief on some other principle. 
 
 Dr. Brown himself, however, agreeing with 
 Mr. Hume in rejecting the idea of power, was 
 equally at a loss to account for the feeling. He 
 had recourse to an expedient more specious per- 
 haps, but not more philosophical and satisfactory, 
 and maintained, that the belief itself is an intui- 
 tive principle. In this attempt to explain the 
 
CAUSATION. 23 
 
 fact, we have, at least, one of the finest proofs how 
 much the most acute and powerful understand- 
 ings may be misled by the influence of feeling, 
 when excited by party interests, or the desire to 
 support a favourite theory. There is here quite 
 a contrast to the usual accuracy and penetration 
 exhibited by the analytical investigations of this 
 distinguished metaphysician. Unfortunately the 
 belief in question is totally destitute of all the 
 marks by which intuitive principles are usually 
 distinguished, as every one in the least acquaint- 
 ed with the subject will readily perceive. His ex- 
 posure of Hume's mistake, indeed, is a sufficient 
 refutation of his own principle. Ten thousand 
 instances of regular sequence, it is admitted, 
 could never entitle a rational mind to infer the 
 uniformity of sequence for the future from the 
 experience of the past ; and it would be strange 
 if the same mind, on the experience of only one 
 instance, could intuitively perceive such a uni- 
 formity, in a case where mere uniformity of se- 
 quence is all that is to be known. Intuitive prin- 
 ciples or axioms are usually inexplicable by rea- 
 son, as being themselves the most obvious of all 
 truths, and the foundation on which all reason- 
 ings proceed, but they can never surely be at 
 variance with its clearest dictates. If regular se- 
 quence really constitute the whole of causation, 
 and if, by an intuitive principle without the aid 
 of experience, we be able to infer its future uni- 
 
24 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 formity, the most casual events coming together 
 must be considered, till experience correct the 
 mistake, in the relation of cause and effect. The 
 attempt to obviate the difficulty, by alleging our 
 knowledge of co-existing series, is perfectly fu- 
 tile. It is undoubtedly admitted, that in ordi- 
 nary cases, " every one knows sufficiently the 
 distinction of what is casual only and what is in- 
 variable in the order of nature ;"* but this is 
 nothing but a begging of the question. How do 
 we make the distinction ? Is it by the observation 
 of the mere sequence ; or is it by perceiving 
 some property, adaptation, or congruity in the 
 antecedent which points it out as a cause ? Every 
 one knows that it is; and Dr. Brown is compelled 
 to admit, that to his imaginary intuitive principle 
 another really intuitive principle, or, which is 
 equivalent, the universal, or, as he expresses it, 
 the almost universal belief and experience of man- 
 kind is directly opposed. 
 
 There is indeed an intuitive principle involv- 
 ed in that which Dr. Brown believed such, and 
 by which, perhaps, he has been in part misled. 
 It is, that a nonentity cannot produce an entity 
 or substance, nor effect any change in substances 
 which already exist — e nihilo nihil fity nothing pro- 
 duces nothing, if we may be allowed to consider 
 the old maxim as regarding not the materials of 
 
 • Lecture VI. 
 
CAUSATION. 
 
 which a tiling is made, but the cause 
 per sense of the word. This principle is certain- 
 ly self-evident, and contains the whole idea of 
 causation, except the uniformity of sequence. 
 That something produces something is all that 
 is required to identify this axiom, and it might 
 be clearly demonstrated, that there is no contra- 
 diction in conceiving that a cause may produce 
 its effects without any regularity, as the great First 
 Cause, for instance, is conceived to produce all 
 possible effects without any principle of unifor- 
 mity but his sovereign pleasure. In this, it might 
 be shown, were it the proper place, consists the 
 mistake of the fatalist, going beyond this funda- 
 mental axiom of causation and applying the law 
 of causation, which is found to prevail in our 
 world, as the law of causation universally. The 
 law of causation under which we live we can trace 
 back only to the creation, when, for ought we 
 know, it was established for the first time, when 
 God said, " Let the earth bring forth the living 
 creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, 
 and beast of the earth after his kind ; and it was 
 so ;" but how far it extends over the universe, 
 and especially among intelligent and moral agents, 
 it is not for us to determine. 
 
 On this principle, then, depends our know- 
 ledge of the external world, and indeed of every 
 thing except sensations and ideas, which are ob- 
 jects of consciousness. Whenever we experience 
 
26 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 a sensation from without, we immediately refer 
 it to an external substance as its cause. It seems 
 indeed, connected with sensation generally, and 
 in infants and brutes operates instinctively like 
 many of our other principles. The bee, for ex- 
 ample, in providing for the approach of winter, 
 and the bird in preparing accommodation for its 
 young, do by instinct what men perform by rea- 
 son and foresight. The infant, a few weeks after 
 birth, and many animals apparently with ahnost 
 their first sensations, have the knowledge of an 
 external world, and are thus correctly making 
 the practical application of the maxim, e nihilo 
 nihil fit^ which is acted upon as a practical prin- 
 ciple long before it is formally recognised by the 
 understanding and received with all the pomp of 
 the schools. 
 
 There is another principle, that of association, 
 namely, which at an equally early period, per- 
 haps much earlier and as soon as the mind has 
 got one idea to follow another, comes into action 
 and begins to co-operate with the one just men- 
 tioned. When the infant observer has once no- 
 ticed one thing followed by another, association 
 comes seasonably to his aid, and when he again 
 beholds the antecedent, the idea of the conse- 
 quent is instantly suggested. Thus at a very 
 early period of childhood, long before the 
 little adventurer is able to leave the arms of 
 his nurse, provision is made both for his safety 
 
CAUSATION. 27 
 
 and for the improvement of his understanding, 
 by the observation of power and causation. When 
 he has once experienced the consequences of 
 touching the flame of the candle, the sight of 
 the candle, on the principle of association, serves 
 all the practical purposes of the knowledge of 
 causation and the necessary effects of fire on the 
 human frame. Without knowing on what cau- 
 sation depends, he connects cause and effect as 
 constant antecedent and consequent ; and thus, 
 by having the subjects before him, he has an op- 
 portunity, as soon as the powers of the under- 
 standing begin to unfold themselves, of discover- 
 ing the adaptation which constitutes the power 
 of a cause. 
 
 By and by the young philosopher begins to in- 
 quire the reasons of things, and discovering the 
 adaptation or power of one thing to produce ano- 
 ther, to perceive that the sequences which his 
 experience has found uniform, must of necessity 
 have been so, and from the very nature and 
 known properties of the antecedents could not be 
 otherwise. In the progress of his knowledge, he 
 frequently discovers that what he has been wont 
 to consider as cause and effect, have only casually 
 come together. Such discoveries tend to dehver 
 him from the undue influence of association, so 
 powerful in childhood, and quicken his observa- 
 tion of the indications of the powers which secure 
 the permanent and uniform sequence. In in- 
 
28 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Stances of cotemporary sequences, he is sometimes 
 a little at a loss to ascertain to which cause each 
 effect is to be attributed ; but in most of those 
 cases, even when the power itself cannot be ob- 
 served, there is an aptness and congruity between 
 the real cause and effect which usually secures him 
 from mistake. Previous to all experience, a piece of 
 coal, timber, or any combustible matter might be 
 considered as likely to produce a certain chemical 
 action on gunpowder as a spark of fire ; but on 
 throwing a lighted match among a quantity of it, 
 and beholding the smoke and flame produced by 
 the deflagration, the most inexperienced inquirer 
 into the nature of causation would never doubt 
 that the fire, and not the matter of which the 
 match was composed, was the cause of the explo- 
 sion. It is generally so in all ordinary instances of 
 cause and effect. Though the powers in the particu- 
 lar cases are unknown, there are certain congrui- 
 ties and indications of the power, which, with little 
 difficulty, enable the observer to ascribe each ef. 
 feet to its proper cause. Thus the inquirer gra- 
 dually and correctly extends his induction, and it 
 is not long till he draws the universal conclusion, 
 that wherever there is uniform sequence, there is 
 a power in the antecedent to produce the conse- 
 quent and to render irregularity impossible. 
 
 This, then, being, as we conceive, the manner 
 in which mankind obtain their idea of causation, 
 it appears that Mr. Hume's account of the origin 
 
CAUSATION. 99 
 
 of the belief of invariable sequence is not so far 
 from the truth as Dr. Brown seemed to imagine. 
 Though there is an instinctive and intuitive prin- 
 ciple on which the conception ultimately rests, 
 the belief of constant and uniform sequence, as 
 a whole, is got from experience; and association, 
 at first, exerts a powerful influence in its acquire- 
 ments. On the intuitive principle above noticed, 
 we refer an effect to something as its cause ; by 
 experience and association we primarily learn the 
 uniformity of the sequence; and, as the powers of 
 the understanding are developed, we discover the 
 adaptation or power on which the uniformity of 
 sequence depends. Mr. Hume was misled by 
 his desire to support his favourite doctrine of the 
 sole existence of impressions and ideas, but here 
 as in many other places, he proves himself the 
 original thinker and acute observer ; and even in 
 maintaining monstrous absurdity and falsehood, 
 exhibits much sound philosophy, and makes im- 
 portant additions to true science. 
 
 As soon, then, as a human being has got the 
 true idea of power and causation, he is prepared 
 to act his part in life, as the philosopher, the 
 agriculturist, the merchant, or the statesman ; 
 and to attain an end or produce an effect, by 
 the use of a series of proper means. Certain 
 causes, he knows, must produce such and such 
 effects, and if he employ the proper means, he 
 cannot fail of obtaining his object. This belief 
 
so INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of the future uniform sequence of things, rests 
 upon the same foundation as his beUef of their 
 existence ; for both are obtained by the percep- 
 tion of properties, and so long therefore as things 
 are perceived to exist, they must also be perceiv- 
 ed to possess the powers on which causation de- 
 pends. The sequence has been constant and uni- 
 form since the creation of the world, unless when 
 interrupted by the power of the Creator; and must 
 necessarily remain constant and invariable till the 
 present order of things be changed, when the 
 mighty angel shall stand upon the earth and up- 
 on the sea, and lifting up his hand to heaven, 
 shall swear by Him that liveth for ever and ever, 
 that time shall be no longer. 
 
 OF AGENCY. 
 
 The most general division of substances, on the 
 principle of cause and effect, is into Creator and 
 creature — the eternal and almighty Creator on 
 the one hand being the sole universal cause, and 
 on the other, all other substances besides being 
 the effects of his power. 
 
 Created substances themselves, again, by the 
 appointment of the Creator, stand related to each 
 other as cause and effect. From the lowest link 
 in the chain of created being to the highest, all 
 substances are known to us as causes ; and the 
 
AGENCY. 31 
 
 higher we ascend, their causation assumes a more 
 important character, till, among the higher class- 
 es of beings which inhabit this earth, it may be 
 considered as a sort of creation in some respects 
 analogous to that of the Deity. Inert and inan- 
 imate matter produces changes on substances 
 which already exist ; vegetables have the power 
 of producing fruits and seeds, from which spring 
 other organised bodies possessed of vegetable 
 life ; animals give birth to living and sen- 
 tient beings Hke themselves, among whom man, 
 in a higher degree, resembles the Creator, in 
 bringing into existence a race of beings whose 
 future life shall be commensurate with eternity, 
 and who, therefore, in some sense, may be con- 
 sidered new substances. In this process of ge- 
 neration, there is something analogous to crea- 
 tion ; in all other instances of causation, there is 
 nothing effected but changes in substances which 
 have already existence. 
 
 All the causes which compose the world in 
 which we live may be divided into four great 
 classes : — inanimate matter, vegetables, irrational 
 animals, and moral beings. Among these a most 
 regular and beautiful gradation subsists, and all 
 the higher or more specific classes possess the 
 natures of the lower or more general, with the 
 addition of the specific nature by which they are 
 distinguished. Vegetables, in addition to their 
 vegetable life, have all the essential attributes of 
 
3^ INTRODUCTION. 
 
 matter. Animals, besides the sentient and vo- 
 luntary powers by which they are distinguished, 
 retain all the attributes of inert and vegetable 
 substances ; for animal life, as it is called, apart 
 from sensation, is nothing essentially different 
 from mere vegetation. And man, at the head 
 of the scale, to the essential powers of the mere- 
 ly material and vegetative substances and of the 
 sentient and voluntary animal, adds an intelligent 
 mind, capable of perceiving moral distinctions ; 
 and, hence, is constituted a rational and moral 
 being. 
 
 Of these four great species of causes, the two 
 last, namely, the voluntary and the moral, are 
 usually distinguished by the name of agents, 
 and their effects called actions. The same name 
 is occasionally applied to other causes, when we 
 talk, for instance, of the agencies of nature, che- 
 mical agents, chemical actions, &c. ; but in these 
 cases the terms are employed in a figurative and 
 technical sense ; and in the present Essay we 
 restrain them to their common and proper accep- 
 tation. Cause and effect are thus the genus of 
 which agents and actions are the species — agents 
 being voluntary and moral causes and actions 
 their effects. 
 
 In every division of this sort, if correct, the 
 species, as logicians inform us, must possess all 
 the essential attributes of the genus, together 
 with the properties peculiar to itself j and all, 
 
AGENCY. 93 
 
 therefore, which is true of cause and effect ge- 
 nerally, must be true of agent and action, be- 
 sides what may be affirmed respecting them in 
 particular. But as this is occasionally denied 
 and frequently not well understood, even by mo- 
 dern writers ; let us now proced to ascertain, by 
 a brief examination of the nature of agency, how 
 far the laws of causation extends among sentient 
 and moral beings. 
 
 To preserve us from mistake respecting this 
 subject, and to guard us against the absurd dog- 
 mas of fatalism, a preliminary observation is ne- 
 cessary. Since every cause invariably and ne- 
 cessarily produces its effect, the fatalist infers 
 that, therefore, events cannot be otherwise than 
 they are, and hence denies the foundation of all 
 moral obligation. This conclusion proceeds up- 
 on a misconception of the true nature of causa- 
 tion. Every event in our world has a cause, and 
 every cause necessarily and infallibly produces 
 its effect ; but in making tliis affirmation, it is al- 
 ways understood that such is the case, when the 
 cause is allowed to operate; but it is never 
 meant that there is any cause, except, indeed, the 
 Almighty First Cause, whose power may not be 
 resisted and overcome by a cause more power- 
 ful. A great majority of the instances of cau- 
 sation are examples of one cause being resisted 
 and frustrated by another. There is no cause 
 more powerful or infallible in its effects than the 
 
84 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 principle of gravitation, and, nevertheless, ani- 
 mal agency consists in an ability to resist this 
 law ; and all the stupendous works of human 
 ingenuity and power are nothing but monuments 
 of the extensive and successful inroads which 
 man has made upon its empire. There is, there- 
 fore, nothing in the universe, except facts which 
 have already taken place, which is fixed and 
 immutable in the sense of the fatalist. Many of 
 the actions of man should be otherwise, as none 
 presumes to deny, and all of them may and 
 could be otherwise, on the principle of causation. 
 To maintain then, in any instance, the doctrine 
 of fatalism, is virtually to assert, that there exists 
 no cause more powerful than the one in question, 
 and hence, to deny the existence of a great por- 
 tion of the universe. As we pass along the 
 mighty chain of causes, we cannot stop at any 
 link and say, that here is a cause whose effects 
 cannot be otherwise than they are, until we come 
 to the end of the chain — to Him who is the first 
 and the last, the beginning and the end. His ac- 
 tions indeed are irresistible by his creatures, and 
 cannot be otherwise than they really are; but here 
 is the great security against the absurd and per- 
 nicious dogmas of fatalism, that Jehovah, the 
 sole first cause, is a being infinitely wise, bene- 
 volent, and merciful, whose actions are all right, 
 and just what they should be. That such a 
 being reigns supreme in the universe and does 
 
AGENCY. ^ 3»5 
 
 according to his will in the armies of heaven 
 and among the inhabitants of the earth, is the 
 grand source, or, at least, should be the grand 
 and the only source of security and happiness to 
 all intelligent and moral beings. If, in a free 
 state, the humblest peasant, conscious of inte- 
 grity, finds it his happiness to look with confi- 
 dence to the equal laws of his country, and bid 
 defiance to the proudest and most powerful 
 seigneur who would dare to oppress him ; how 
 much greater the felicity under the government 
 of a being infinitely just to render to every man 
 according to his works, almighty in power to 
 protect the injured and redress their wrongs, 
 unbounded in benevolence to secure their hap- 
 piness, and in whose inconceivable mercy, as 
 God manifest in flesh, even the guilty may find 
 a refuge. Well might the enlightened and pa- 
 triotic king of Israel exclaim, in the rapturous 
 moment of inspiration, Jehovah reigneth, let the 
 earth rejoice. 
 
 There are two species of agency, then, volun- 
 tary and moral, whose nature it is proposed to 
 examine. In animal or voluntary agency, the 
 will of the agent or, to speak more correctly, the 
 agent willing is the cause, and the consequent 
 muscular motions of his body are the effects. In 
 moral agency, the volitions are the effects, and 
 his perceptions or, in other words, the agent 
 perceiving and understanding is the cause. In 
 
56 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the one case, the agent regulates his actions by 
 his volitions ; in the other, he regulates his voli- 
 tions by the perceptions of his understanding. 
 Thus, in the one, the effects are visible without j 
 in the other, wholly within. 
 
 In all instances of both these sorts of causation, 
 we merely know, it may be noticed, the matter 
 of fact, that the antecedent is followed by its 
 consequent ; but cannot perceive the power 
 which constitutes the cause. We are conscious 
 merely that a certain perception excites a cer- 
 tain volition ; and, again, that that volition is fol- 
 lowed by a certain action, but of nothing more. 
 We cannot explain how or why the sequence 
 takes place ; for we are conscious only of the 
 matter of fact, that it actually does take place. 
 In this, then, as in a multitude of other cases, 
 we directly perceive nothing more than the se- 
 quence, but knowing, by the general conclusion 
 at which we formerly arrived, the stability of the 
 principle on which it depends, this very limited 
 knowledge is perfectly adequate to all practical 
 purposes. 
 
 That which peculiarly constitutes a being an 
 animal or voluntary agent, it is plain, is the pos- 
 session of a sentient nature, or the susceptibilities 
 of pleasurable and painful feelings. These feel- 
 ings necessarily imply desire ; for it were a con- 
 tradiction to conceive that a feeling is painful, 
 and that for its own sake we do not desire to be 
 
AGENCY. 57 
 
 delivered from it ; or that we do not enjoy a 
 pleasurable feeling when present, and desire to 
 recover it when lost. This is the general law of 
 a sentient being, for we do not at present talk of 
 particulars. All the feelings which have refer- 
 ence to the future give birth to desire, or rather, 
 in many instances, they are desire itself. Now, 
 it will be afterwards shown that volition is a com- 
 plex state of mind resulting from the desire, or 
 in instances of opposing feelings, the predomi- 
 nant desire of an object, and the belief that the 
 performance or attainment of the object is in our 
 own power. If we conceive the object to be 
 some action of our own, which at present may 
 be conveniently done, and which indeed always 
 is so, as the immediate effect, volition is simply 
 the predominant desire to act in a certain man- 
 ner. And tlms it appears that volition is the 
 direct result of the feelings of pleasure and pain 
 by which a sentient nature is distinguished. 
 
 Volition, then, as is universally admitted, is 
 the great and only source of action in a merely 
 voluntary agent. When free from all compul- 
 sion and restraint, he uniformly does what he 
 wills. Volition or the agent willing is the an- 
 tecedent, and the action is the consequent, as 
 invariably and uniformly as a stone, when left in 
 free space, falls to the ground by the power of 
 gravitation. In this respect, therefore, there is 
 no difference between voluntary agency and cau- 
 
58 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 satioii generally. The same uniform and invari- 
 able sequence is found in both. 
 
 The specific difference which a voluntary agent 
 exhibits depends of course upon his sentient na- 
 ture, by which he is distinguished from the in- 
 sensible vegetable. The vegetable as well as the 
 animal has the power of motion in opposition to 
 the law of gravitation ; voluntary motion, in con- 
 sequence of his sentient nature, is peculiar to 
 the latter. That which renders any object or 
 action pleasurable is its being addressed to some 
 susceptibihty of feeling or desire; and that, there- 
 fore, which is calculated to gratify the predomi- 
 nant desire, must necessarily be the most agree- 
 able. Music is agreeable, because it is calculat- 
 ed to affect the susceptibility of hearing in a cer- 
 tain manner ; food, because it allays the appetite 
 of hunger; the prosperity of friends, because it 
 gratifies the feeHng of benevolence; and the 
 stronger, therefore, those feelings are, the great- 
 er becomes the pleasure. Hence, it is plain, 
 since volition coincides with the strongest desire, 
 that the agent, in acting upon his volition, secures 
 to himself the greatest possible amount of present 
 enjoyment. We do not at present take into ac- 
 count the future consequences of action ; for we 
 are considering the agent not as an intelligent and 
 moral, but simply as a voluntary agent, all whose 
 actions, of course, regard only the present. The 
 
AGENCY. 39 
 
 general amount of his happiness must depend up- 
 on his circumstances ; and were they such as we 
 conceive man and all sentient beings to have 
 been placed previous to the fall, perfect happi- 
 ness without any alloy of pain, would have been 
 the inevitable result of the general law of his vo- 
 luntary nature. Now that he is placed in a less 
 favourable situation, as a mere sentient being, he 
 still makes the best of his condition in securing 
 the largest possible amount of immediate plea- 
 sure. Every action is, at the time, the most agree- 
 able ; and were it possible to deviate from the 
 law of his voluntary agency, it were not possible 
 to act in any way so conducive to the enjoyment 
 of the moment Remorse, misery and ruin may 
 be the result ; but the agent for the moment 
 makes the best of his circumstances, and enjoys 
 all the present happiness of which he is capable. 
 
 Hence then by uniting this consideration with 
 the general law of causation, we have the idea 
 of voluntary agency. An animal or voluntary 
 agent uniformly acts according to his will, and 
 in so doing, secures to himself the greatest 
 amount of present enjoyment. 
 
 The next species of agency which is to be con- 
 sidered, is that in which volition is regarded as 
 an effect, and not as a cause ; and hence styled 
 moral agency. The percipient or intelligent 
 b«ing, as was formerly said, is the cause, and 
 his volition the effect. And here, therefore, as 
 
40 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 to the former case, we have to ascertain the uni- 
 versal prevalence of the law of causation, and 
 then to discover the property peculiar to man as 
 a moral agent. As this forms the leading sub- 
 ject of the Essay, our remarks shall be brief, leav- 
 ing what may require further confirmation and 
 illustration to be afterwards more fully examin- 
 ed. 
 
 The perception of external objects, in gene- 
 ral, accompanies a sentient nature ; and, in man, 
 desire and volition always imply the perception 
 or conception of an object. * There are a few 
 exceptions, indeed, as in the first desires of in- 
 fants, animals possessed of only one sense, &c. ; 
 but as these do not affect the general character 
 of agency, they are not to be noticed in the pre- 
 sent inquiry. In general, there can be no de- 
 sire without the knowledge of something desired, 
 and no volition without an object. To a man 
 distressed with hunger, the conception of food, 
 as the means of his relief, determines him to par- 
 take of it J to a compassionate man, the percep- 
 tion of misery awakens a desire to remove it ; 
 and to the covetous man, the idea of his neigh- 
 bour's wealth excites in his breast a strong de- 
 sire of possessing it. The knowledge and con- 
 ception of the object, in all such cases, is usually 
 called a motive ; and, it is plain, it derives its 
 power from its being addressed to the suscepti- 
 bility or feeling of which it is the object. From 
 
% 
 
 AGENCY. 41 
 
 its adaptation to its proper susceptibility, such 
 a perception at once excites a corresponding 
 feeling, and, by this means, gives rise to volition. 
 Hence, it is admitted on all hands, that man ne- 
 ver wills nor acts without a motive, and it were 
 inconsistent with his percipient nature to con- 
 ceive that he should. He might, indeed, be pain- 
 ed, for instance, by some internal sensation, and 
 as a sentient being, no doubt, might desire to be 
 delivered from it, without any conception as 
 the cause of the feeling ; but he could not form 
 any volition or purpose to remove it, till he had 
 some idea of what he believed Hkely to prove a 
 remedy. So far then, there is no difference of 
 opinion, that, in every instance, volition is pro- 
 duced by the perception of an object or a mo- 
 tive. The sequence is universally allowed, 
 though whether the sequence is uniform and 
 constant, is sometimes called in question. ^ 
 
 It cannot be maintained, it is obvious, that 
 the same motive uniformly produces the same 
 vohtion ; for that is manifestly untrue, and is 
 not consistent with the law of causation. The 
 same cause produces \ery different effects, in 
 consequence of a change of circumstances ; and 
 all that is affirmed, therefore, by a certain class 
 of writers, is, that the same motive, in the same 
 circumstances, invariably produces the same vo- 
 lition. This undoubtedly must be admitted, if 
 it is considered what the circumstances are. The 
 
4i2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 principal circumstance is the strength of the sus- 
 ceptibility to which the motive is addressed, and 
 as a mental susceptibility can be known and its 
 strength estimated only by the feeling which is 
 produced, if the desire arising from it is not of 
 the same intensity, it is immediately inferred 
 that the motive is not in the same circumstances 
 in the cases compared. Another circumstance, 
 which, indeed, is virtually implied in the one just 
 mentioned, is the co-existence of feelings of a 
 like or opposite tendency j and if these are found 
 in greater number or in greater degrees of 
 strength in the one case than in the other, it is 
 concluded, again, that the motive is acting in dif-. 
 ferent circumstances, and cannot produce the 
 same result. Hence, when the desire produced by 
 the motive is the same, and all the co-temporary 
 desires the same, the volition must necessarily be 
 the same, unless we conceive the contradiction 
 of a thing being and not being simultaneously. 
 The circumstances, in short, are such that they 
 can be estimated only by the effects ; and unless 
 therefore the results are exactly alike in all in- 
 stances of like motives, it is concluded that the 
 circumstances are also different ; hence it must 
 be admitted, or, at least, it cannot be disproved, 
 that the same motive, in the same circumstances, 
 uniformly and invariably produces the same vo- 
 lition. Such, accordingly, is the conclusion at 
 which the experience and common understanding 
 
AGENCY. 43 
 
 of mankind arrive. Were a benevolent man to 
 behold a friend in the same circumstances of dis- 
 tress as one whom he formerly relieved, it would 
 be universally inferred that, all considerations be- 
 ing exactly alike, he would act now as he acted 
 before. Were his disti'essed friend as much be- 
 loved, equally deserving of his sympathy, his own 
 ability to relieve him equal, his compassion for 
 him acknowledged the same, no new motive 
 checking his generous purpose, in short, all the 
 circumstances exactly similar, it would be con* 
 ceived impossible that he should not act the same 
 part ; and were he to act differently, all mankind 
 would believe that surely his affection was not so 
 wiirm, his ability less, or he had some new motive 
 for acting as he did, and could not conceive it 
 possible that a man, placed in the same circum- 
 stances, acted so different a part. The reasoning 
 of vulgar experience is perfectly correct ; for, in 
 this instance, there is no means of judging of the 
 circumstances, as was just said, but by the 
 effects. 
 
 In moral agency, therefore, as well as in volun- 
 tary, the general law of causation universally 
 prevails — the antecedent, in similar circumstan- 
 ces, is invariably followed by the same conse- 
 quent. The peculiar property of the moral 
 agent is the next to be ascertained ; and as the 
 law of causation which here prevails consists in 
 the fact, that the agent acts uniformly from mo- 
 
4f^ INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tives, we have just to ascertain the pecuUar mo- 
 tives of the moral agent. 
 
 Percipient as well as sentient powers are com- 
 mon to man with the inferior animals ; and if by 
 inteUigence is meant that perception of relations 
 which Dr. Brown terms relative suggestion, this 
 also, in some measure, seems common to the 
 brutes. The difference, in this respect, is, that 
 man possesses intelligence in a much higher 
 degree, and, in addition to those perceptions 
 which are common, perceives many relations 
 with which the lower animals are totally un- 
 acquainted, and by which therefore he is dis- 
 tinguished from them. The chief of these 
 is the perception of that relation or quality of 
 actions expressed by the terms virtuous and vi- 
 tious, right and wrong, which includes the rela- 
 tions in which man, as a moral being, stands to 
 his Creator. It is the perception of this class of 
 relations which constitutes man a moral and re- 
 sponsible agent ; and it is here therefore that we 
 must look for the motives peculiar to the moral 
 agency of man. As the perception of an object 
 addressed to his appetites and other susceptibili- 
 ties is the motive which determines the will of the 
 brute, so the perception of right and wrong is the 
 motive by which the moral agent regulates his 
 volitions. He resolves to do one thing because 
 it is right, and to refrain from doing another be- 
 cause it is wrong. The possession of this species 
 
 4 
 
AGESCY. 45 
 
 of motives is the distinguishing property of moral 
 agency, in which consists the resemblance of man 
 to his Creator ; and in other respects, he is to be 
 considered only as the head of the animal crea- 
 tion, far above them indeed in point of perci- 
 pient and intellectual power, but still one of the 
 same class of creatures, not less than as a sentient 
 being he confessedly shares a common nature. 
 If, however, we be disposed to comprehend in 
 our account of human agency some other of the 
 perceptions by which he is distinguished from the 
 brutes, we may consider him as a provident be- 
 ing, capable of perceiving the relation of present, 
 past and future, and of estimating the advan- 
 tages or disadvantages of present conduct in re- 
 ference to his future life or to the whole eternity 
 of his existence. There are besides a number of 
 other perceptions by which he differs from the 
 brute ; and if, in this outline, we express them 
 generally as tlie perception of what is proper and 
 becoming in the various circumstances in which 
 he is required to act, we may describe a moral 
 agent as a being who has the power of regulating 
 his volitions as he judges morally right, advanta- 
 geous, or proper. The perceptions of these rela- 
 tions are what are usually included under the 
 general term, the understanding, and we may 
 therefore more briefly express the same idea, by 
 saying, according to the old principle of philo- 
 sophers, that man is able to regulate his volitions 
 
46 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 by the dictates of his understanding, always in- 
 cluding under that general term the perception of 
 the important relation of right and wrong as the 
 principal idea.* 
 
 Such, then, is the peculiar character of moral 
 agency ; and the analogy, it deserves notice, be- 
 tween this and voluntary agency is complete. The 
 same volition, in the same circumstances, that is, 
 the agent willing the same thing is uniformly the 
 cause of the same action 5 and the same percep- 
 tion, that is, the agent perceiving the same thing, 
 in the same circumstances, is as uniformly the 
 cause of the same volition. In both the law of 
 causation universally prevails. The property by 
 which animal or voluntary agency is distinguish- 
 ed from the lower species of causation in vege- 
 tables, is that, in all his actions, the voluntary 
 agent secures to himself the greatest present 
 
 * Drs. Reid, Price and other philosophers, who hold that " the 
 moral faculty or conscience is both an active and intellectual power," 
 are certainly in the right. No other hypothesis is consistent with 
 the phenomena. Like many of the other faculties, it consists of a 
 perception accompanied by its appropriate feeling. The same un- 
 derstanding which perceives mathematical truths is employed in 
 moral subjects ; and by the constitution of our nature, the percep- 
 tion of moral truths awakens the solemn feelings of approbation 
 and remorse. Hence the conscience may be improved or perverted 
 in two ways. Like the judgment on other subjects, it may be well 
 informed or misled, and therefore we talk of an enlightened or un- 
 enlightened conscience, or the feeling may be vigorous or languid, 
 and hence the expression a seared or awakened conscience. The 
 intellectual part only of the faculty of conscience is included under 
 the general terra, understanding. 
 
AGENCY. 47 
 
 amount of sentient happiness: the property, 
 in Hke manner, by which moral agency is dis- 
 tinguished from voluntary, the species of causa- 
 tion immediately below it, is the abihty to de- 
 termine his volitions by the dictates of his un- 
 derstanding. We do not affirm that he always 
 does so ; for this question shall afterwards be 
 examined ; but it is plain tliat so long as he dis- 
 charges his duty and retains his' innocence, he 
 cannot act otherwise. If, in any instances he 
 resolve to act without the approbation of his un- 
 derstanding, in doing what he considers not most 
 advantageous upon the whole, or what he be- 
 lieves morally wrong, he is self convicted of hav- 
 ing acted a foolish and criminal part. So long 
 as he maintains the dignity of his moral cha- 
 racter, by holding fast his integrity, he neces- 
 sarily controls and regulates his will by the dic- 
 tates of his understanding, and does what he 
 judges morally right. 
 
 These two agencies then, voluntary and moral, 
 are both united in man. As a voluntary agent, 
 when free from compulsion and restraint, he uni- 
 formly acts upon his volition, since here there 
 are no exceptions ; for, though his moral nature 
 is depraved and exhibits sad aberrations from the 
 original principle of his constitution, man, the ani- 
 mal, remains true to the law of his sentient na- 
 ture. As a moral agent, on the other hand, 
 when acting his proper part, he uniformly fixes 
 
48 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 his volitions according to the perceptions of his 
 understanding, and wills to act as he judges 
 right. Hence, as man, the animal, by acting 
 upon his volition, invariably obtains the greatest 
 possible amount of present enjoyment; so man, 
 the moral agent, acting upon the law of his mo- 
 ral constitution, and doing what is right, inevit- 
 ably secures to himself, under the righteous go- 
 vernment of the Almighty, the eternal felicity 
 which his immortality fits him to enjoy. As the 
 author of such a nature, the character of God is 
 strikingly illustrated. In the creation of the inani- 
 mate and vegetable w^orlds, his power and wis- 
 dom are manifestly displayed ; in the creation of 
 the numerous tribes of voluntary agents, his be- 
 nevolence appears ; but in the creation of man, 
 h!s infinite wisdom, his boundless benevolence 
 and moral holiness are at once strikingly ex- 
 hibited. 
 
 This cursory view of agency, in general, may 
 serve to facilitate the subsequent inquiries, and 
 to preserve us from some of the misconceptions 
 frequently entertained on the subject of liberty. 
 For it is plain, before any question can be insti- 
 tuted respecting the liberty or necessity of an 
 agent, his existence must be first admitted ; and 
 it is equally plain, that to discover the liberty or 
 necessity of which he is the subject, his peculiar 
 agency must also be ascertained. What may be 
 liberty to one agent may be necessity, or, pro- 
 
AGENCY. 49 
 
 bably, no possible state of another whose agency 
 is of a different character ; and without this pre- 
 liminary knowledge therefore, the inquirer will 
 be in danger of committing as absurd and egre- 
 gious a mistake as were a chemist, conibunding 
 a number of acid and alkaline substances, to rea- 
 son from one as if it were another. Hence most 
 of the misconceptions and inconsistences with 
 which writers on free-will are so frequently 
 chargeable. Not to mention fatalism on the one 
 hand and contingency on the other, which both 
 virtually deny the reality of causation and hence 
 the existence of the universe ; more judicious au- 
 thors not unfrequently exhibit strange inaccuracy 
 of conception. One able divine and no contemp- 
 tible metaphysician describes man as 2ifree neces^ 
 sary agent. If, by Jree, he means, as he does, 
 that man acts as he chooses or according to his 
 volition ; and if, by necessary, he means, as he 
 also does, that he must act in a certain manner 
 on the principle of causation and cannot act 
 otherwise ; the epithets are exactly of the same 
 import, and are both necessarily implied, if 
 words liave any meaning, in the term agent ; 
 and it would not therefore be more absurd to 
 describe a certain well known fluid by calling it 
 liquid fluid water. If a voluntary agent is free 
 because he does as he wills, he is necessary for 
 the very same reason ; for so long as he is free, 
 he cannot do otherwise than invariably act upon 
 
50 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 his volition. To free us from all such miscon- 
 ceptions, let us have an agent before us as the 
 subject of inquiry. As the chemist takes for 
 granted the existence of the substance whose 
 elements he proposes to discover, and the anato- 
 mist that of the body which he proceeds to dis- 
 sect j so must the inquirer into the nature of li- 
 berty admit, as an indispensable preliminary, 
 that man is really the sort of agent which he is. 
 The anatomist does not question the reality, but 
 inquire the manner of the existence of the hu- 
 man body — ^how the various parts are situated, 
 mutually related and co-operate in the functions 
 of animal life. So must the moral inquirer in- 
 vestigate only the condition of the agent whose 
 existence he has already assumed ; and whether 
 he is found free or necessary, he must not deny 
 that he really exists ; for he would then deprive 
 himself of a subject, and be placed in the same 
 ridiculous situation as were a chemist gravely to 
 propose to discover the elements of non-entity, 
 by subjecting it to a process of analysis. 
 
AN ESSAY 
 
 MORAL FREEDOM. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 NATURE OF FIIEEDOM AND STATEMENT OF THE 
 QUESTION. 
 
 In every question respecting free agency, it must 
 be taken for granted, it is plain, as the basis of 
 the inquiry, that the agent whose liberty or ne- 
 cessity is to be ascertained actually exists. 
 Holding then, as a matter of fact, that man is a 
 being capable of judging, wilUng and acting, 
 we now proceed to inquire what is the nature of 
 the liberty which such an agent is capable of en- 
 joying. 
 
 Mr. Hume, in treating the subject of liberty 
 and necessity, proposes a very strange method 
 of conducting his inquiries. " It would seem," 
 says he, " that men begin at the wrong end of 
 the question concerning liberty and necessity, 
 when they enter upon it by examining the fa- 
 culties of the soul, the influence of the under- 
 
52 NATURE OF FREEDOM. 
 
 standing and the operations of the will. Let 
 them first discuss a more simple question, name- 
 ly, the operations of body and of brute unintel- 
 ligent matter, and try whether they can there 
 form any idea of causation and necessity except 
 that of a constant conjunction of objects, and a 
 subsequent inference of the mind from one to 
 'the other. If these circumstances form in reali- 
 ty the whole of that necessity which we can con- 
 ceive in matter, and if these circumstances be al- 
 so universally acknowledged to take place in 
 mind, the dispute is at an end, or, at least, must 
 be owned to be henceforth merely verbal." 
 
 It is one of the most obvious principles of 
 sound reasoning and of the true method of phi- 
 losophizing, that the peculiar properties of the 
 species are not to be discovered by examining 
 the attributes of the genus. Before Mr. Hume 
 therefore can be permitted to extend his induc- 
 tion so widely in support of his doctrine of ne- 
 cessity, it is necessary to ascertain, whether the 
 specific properties of man, as a rational and vo- 
 luntary agent, are common to him with brute 
 unintelligent matter. If this is not to be sup- 
 ported in the affirmative, his method of conduct- 
 ing the inquiry is necessarily proved unphiloso- 
 phical and fallacious. It is just as were a phi- 
 losopher, in order to ascertain the nature of the 
 smell or colour of a rose, to set himself to con- 
 sider the solidity of the flower and of the sur- 
 
NATURE OF FREEDOM. 53 
 
 rounding objects, and then gravely to assure us, 
 that its odour is so many inches in length by so 
 many in breadth and thickness. To convince 
 his readers that his conclusions were legitimately 
 drawn and correctly stated, he might triumphant- 
 ly ask them, whether they ever experienced or 
 could conceive the existence of fragrance with- 
 out solidity, and maintain that this property was 
 as essential to roses as to any of the surrounding 
 objects, of which he had just taken the dimen- 
 sions. Whether or not any hearer might feel 
 disposed to reply in opposition to such argu- 
 ments, no one would cease to believe that the 
 agreeable smell of a flower and the solidity of a 
 piece of timber are, so far as known to us, things 
 totally different ; and that in order to obtain a 
 knowledge of the former, there might be found 
 a surer and more speedy method than to ascertain 
 the nature of the latter. 
 
 By the application of this principle then, Mr. 
 Hume might discover some circumstance com- 
 mon to matter and mind, but it is manifest that 
 he could never obtain any knowledge of the pe- 
 culiar properties of intelligent and voluntary 
 agents. This accordingly he has done. The 
 sum of his argument and the conclusion at which 
 he arrives are contained in the following pas- 
 sage. 
 
 " And indeed," says he, ** when we consider 
 how aptly natural and moral evidence link toge- 
 
54 NATURE OF FREEDOM. 
 
 ther and fonn only one chain of argtiment, we 
 shatl make no scruple to allow that they are of 
 the same nature and derived from the same prin- 
 ciple. A prisoner, who has neither money nor 
 interest, discovers the impossibihty of escape, as 
 well when he considers the obstinacy of his 
 guards as the walls and bars with which he is 
 surrounded ; and in all his attempts for his free- 
 dom, chooses rather to work upon the stone and 
 iron of the one than upon the inflexible nature 
 of the other. The same prisoner, when con- 
 ducted to the scaffold, foresees his death as cer- 
 tainly from the constancy and fidelity of his 
 guards as from the operations of the axe and 
 wheel. His mind runs over a certain -train of 
 ideas; the refusal of the soldiers to permit his 
 escape, the action of the executioner, the sepa- 
 ration of his head and body, bleeding, convulsive 
 motions and death. Here is a connected chain 
 of natural causes and voluntary actions, but the 
 mind feels no difference between them in passing 
 from one link to another ; nor is less certain of 
 the future event than if they were connected 
 with the objects present to the memory and 
 senses by a train of causes connected together 
 by what we are pleased to call a physical neces- 
 sity. The same experienced union has the same 
 effect on the mind, whether the united objects be 
 motives, volitions and actions, or figure and mo- 
 tion. We may change the names of things, but 
 
NATURE OF FREEDOM. 55 
 
 their nature and operation on the understanding 
 never change." Hence he asks, " What is meant 
 by Hberty, when appUed to voluntary actions? 
 We cannot surely mean that actions have so 
 little connection with motives, inclinations and 
 circumstances that the one does not follow with 
 a certain degree of uniformity from the other, 
 and that the one affords no inference from which 
 we can conclude the existence of the other. For 
 these are plain and acknowledged matters of 
 fact." 
 
 The reasoning and conclusion of Mr. Hume 
 are here perfectly correct. It is universally al- 
 lowed, to use his own language, that nothing ex- 
 ists without a cause of its existence, and that 
 chance, when strictly examined, is a mere nega- 
 tive word and means not any real power which 
 has any where a being in nature. The relation 
 of cause and effect is the order which the great 
 Creator has established both in the material and in 
 the intellectual worlds ; and it is as universal as is 
 the fact of his own existence as Creator. It is 
 indeed originally nothing but the great truth, 
 that he is the Creator of the heavens and the 
 earth and of all things which are therein con- 
 tained ; and that he has endowed them all with 
 certain properties and attributes which constitute 
 what is usually termed their nature. This ne- 
 cessity then, philosophical necessity, as it is usu- 
 ally called, or causation, is all that Mr. Hume 
 
66 NATURE OF FREEDOM. 
 
 establishes, and of course it is universally admit- 
 ted. All beings, except the Creator, are in this 
 sense necessary beings, as having a previous 
 cause of their existence; and all actions, includ- 
 ing those of the Creator, are necessary events, as 
 being the actions of agents acting each accord- 
 ing to the peculiar attributes of his nature. 
 
 This philosophical necessity then, or causa- 
 tion, is evidently something much too general, 
 and is not that necessity of which liberty is the 
 contrast. It is necessarily presupposed, as ap- 
 peared above, in every instance of liberty or ne- 
 cessity, and includes both. Before we can in- 
 quire whether an action is the result of freedom 
 or not, we must first conceive it as a m.atter of 
 fact, that an agent actually exists and exerts the 
 powers peculiar to his nature. Unless there be 
 the existence of an agent, which is one fact phi- 
 losophically necessary — the Deity being the cre- 
 ator of this agent ; and unless there be the actual 
 exertion of his peculiar agency, which is another 
 fact also philosophically necessary, there is no 
 room either for liberty or necessity. There must 
 be both an agent and an action, otherwise the 
 existence either of liberty or necessity is utterly 
 inconceivable. 
 
 The nature of actions, of course, is determined 
 by the nature of the agent, and so long there- 
 fore as he retains his distinguishing properties, 
 the nature of his actions remains unchanged. 
 
NATURE OF FREEDOM. 57 
 
 A stone, for example, is possessed of certain 
 properties by which it affects our senses, and 
 thereby reveals to us the fact of its existence. 
 So long as it retains those properties, it continues 
 to produce similar effects, and is acknowledged 
 by us to be what it is ; but were those properties 
 changed, we should either lose the knowledge of 
 its existence altogether, or we would no longer 
 consider it a stone, but pronounce it to be some 
 other substance. So it is with respect to the hu- 
 man agent. So long as he retains the attributes of 
 his nature, he acts in a certain manner, and must 
 so act to retain his peculiar character. This act- 
 ing in a certain manner renders him a rational 
 and voluntary agent ; and were he acting in a 
 manner essentially different, we could no longer 
 consider him a human being. In the mental as 
 well as the material world, the properties of sub- 
 stances determine what are called the laws of na- 
 ture ; and the laws of action therefore must re- 
 main permanent and uniform, so long as the hu- 
 man agent continues to be what he really is. Hence 
 the correctness of Mr. Hume's conclusion re- 
 specting the similarity of the nature and princi- 
 ples of physical and moral evidence. The same 
 principle of causation, as we formerly showed, is 
 the ground of both ; and if, in moral subjects, 
 cause and effect seem less firmly and invariably 
 connected, it arises solely from our knowledge 
 being more vague and limited. In morals, the 
 
58 NATURE OF FREEDOM. 
 
 motives without and the feeUngs within are so 
 numerous, and possessed in so very different de- 
 grees of strength, and liable besides to be modi- 
 fied by so many incidental circumstances in such 
 a variety of ways, that we can seldom trace an 
 effect to its proper cause ; while, in physics, we 
 generally at once find no difficulty in ascertaining 
 precisely the relation. 
 
 All this, however, determines nothing respect- 
 ing liberty and necessity, properly so called. The 
 fact of universal causation is indeed implied in 
 either of them, in like manner as solidity is ne- 
 cessary to the existence of colour or fragrance, 
 and always presupposed in our conception of 
 these properties ; but fragrance is not more truly 
 a property different from solidity than is that ne- 
 cessity which is opposed to liberty, different 
 from the necessity whose existence is universally 
 established above. All then that Mr. Hume 
 establishes is the bare fact that agents really ex- 
 ist ; but whether they enjoy freedom or labour 
 under necessity, his mode of philosophizing could 
 not enable him to determine. 
 
 In order to account for the obvious pheno- 
 mena of human agency therefore, Mr. Hume 
 was under the necessity of abandoning his own 
 principle and neglecting his own conclusions. 
 He admits that, in one sense, man enjoys free- 
 dom, namely, when he has the power of acting 
 according to the determinations of his own will. 
 
NATURE OF FREEDOM. 59 
 
 Did a man desire to remove a load which, on 
 trial, he finds himself perfectly able to carry off, 
 he is allowed to be free ; but did the burden prove 
 quite an overmatch for his physical strength, it 
 must, on tlie same principle, be granted that he 
 labours under a real necessity. The distinction 
 here is obvious. The two supposed states of the 
 agent are directly in contrast ; and if the one is 
 necessity, tlie other can be notiiing but liberty. 
 In the former, by the exertion of a superior 
 strength, he carries his will into effect ; in the 
 latter, through weakness, his effort is overcome 
 and his volition frustrated. It would be perfect- 
 ly ridiculous to confound two conditions of the 
 agent so diametrically opposed under one name, 
 either liberty or necessity, from the circumstance 
 that, in some other respect, they admit of being 
 classed together. With respect to the agent, 
 they are in direct contrast ; and as it is with re- 
 ference to him that they are to be considered, 
 they must be distinguished and expressed by dif- 
 ferent terms. On Mr. Hume's principle, how- 
 ever, this cannot be done. He investigates some- 
 thing common to voluntary agents with brute 
 matter, and so far as the above results are thus 
 common, they do not admit of being distinguish- 
 ed. On the principles of mechanical philosophy, 
 the one result is as necessary as the other. The 
 natural philosopher would estimate the muscular 
 power of the man and weigh tlie loads, and on 
 
60 NATURE OF FREEDOM. 
 
 the principle of dynamics, would justly consider 
 both events as coming under the same univer- 
 sal law of physical necessity or causation ; and 
 view the man in the different situations, both with 
 respect to his physical power and the absolute 
 certainty of the results, as a strictly necessary 
 agent. It matters not how the mechanical force 
 is produced, whether by the law of gravitation 
 or by the volition and muscular effort of the vo- 
 luntary agent ; so far as it is common to man 
 with brute unintelligent matter, and with respect 
 to the absolute certainty of the results, there can 
 be no possible distinction. 
 
 Wherein then consists the striking difference 
 between the two situations above supposed? 
 Not it is plain in any conceivable difference in 
 the physical power, nor yet in any possible un- 
 certainty in the results ; but simply in the cir- 
 cumstance that, in one instance, the will of the 
 agent is frustrated, and in the other, it is carried 
 into effect — and this constitutes the peculiar li- 
 berty of a voluntary agent. But brute matter 
 has no will ; and it is utterly absurd therefore, 
 from such a source, to seek any information re- 
 specting human liberty or necessity. 
 
 We leave then the Author of the Treatise on 
 Human Nature in the undisputed possession of the 
 principle of universal philosophical necessity, that 
 is, that nothing exists without a cause, which, if 
 they choose, we may further explain by adding 
 
NATURE OF FREEDOM. 6l 
 
 that of his disciple Dr. Priestley, that the same 
 cause, in similar circumstances, cannot produce 
 different effects ; and we retain the question of 
 human liberty entire and untouched. 
 
 To investigate this subject, we must abandon 
 the principle of Mr. Hume, and have recourse to 
 the sounder philosophy of Lord Bacon. The 
 great principles of the inductive philosophy are, 
 that we can know things only so far as we ob- 
 serve the properties of the things themselves, 
 and that we must admit the existence of nothing 
 which is not observed and known as a matter of 
 fact. On these principles the human mind itself 
 must become the subject of observation. By con- 
 sciousness, we must ascertain the nature of voli- 
 tion ; and by a careful and exlensive induction, 
 we must discover what is the sort of liberty which 
 the will, or rather as Mr. Locke justly says, the 
 human agent is capable of enjoying. We must 
 then by the same means, discover how far this 
 freedom is actually possessed, and whether 
 or not, in some instances, it is subject to li- 
 mitations. All this, it is plain, can be effect- 
 ed only by the vigilant exercise of conscious- 
 ness, and by the careful examination and 
 comparison of acknowledged mental pheno- 
 mena. 
 
 Pursuing then the inquiry in this manner, we 
 take it as the mattter of fact which constitutes 
 
6s NATURE OF FREEDOlVf. 
 
 the ground of the inquiry, that man exists as 
 a voluntary agent, that is, a being who regulates 
 his mechanical actions by his volitions, and 
 the first and most obvious sort of liberty possess- 
 ed by man in this character, is the power of act- 
 ing or not acting according to the determination 
 of his own will. In this it has been maintained 
 that the whole of human liberty consists. And 
 it is indeed a universal truth that man, when free 
 from compulsion and restraint, is in possession 
 of such a freedom. This states nothing but the 
 fact that he is a voluntary agent, which we con- 
 ceive to be a being whose volitions regulate his 
 actions ; and experience proves that they do so 
 as certainly as any physical cause produces its 
 wonted effect. But that this should constitute 
 the whole of human freedom is, at first sight, ex- 
 posed to the same objection as Mr. Hume's doc- 
 trine of causation being the necessity of volun- 
 tary or moral agents. — It is something too gene- 
 ral and not peculiar to man. Physical liberty, as 
 that of which we are now speaking is usually call- 
 ed, but as it should more appropriately be term- 
 ed animal or voluntary liberty, is enjoyed not 
 only by men in possession of all their faculties, 
 but by idiots and by the inferior animals down 
 to the lowest species endowed with the power 
 only of spontaneous motion. A priori then it 
 might be concluded that the freedom peculiar to 
 
NATURE OF FREEDOM. 63 
 
 man, as an intelligent and moral agent, must be 
 something additional to this animal liberty, 
 which is common to him with the lowest in the 
 scale of the brutal creation. 
 
 It is true indeed, as Locke and other writers 
 have justly observed, that this is the only liberty 
 which properly belongs to the will, and that any 
 other is not that of man considered as a volunta- 
 ry, but as a rational and moral agent. In any 
 further investigation therefore, we consider 
 man not merely as acting according to the de- 
 terminations of his will, but as possessed of 
 higher powers which regulate his volition, in 
 like manner as his volitions regulate his actions. 
 The question is no longer that of the liberty of 
 the will strictly taken, but of the liberty of the 
 man possessed of powers of a higher order. As 
 we ascend in the scale of being, the inquiry be- 
 comes, of course, more specific. Hume's philo- 
 sophical necessity or liberty, as in truth it might 
 as well be called, for it includes both, compre- 
 hends all things animate and inanimate. Ani- 
 mal liberty regards mere animals or rational 
 beings considered as such ; but the liberty which 
 we now seek, belongs exclusively to rational 
 and moral agents. 
 
 To conduct this investigation on sound prin- 
 ciples, we have just, as formerly, to take it as the 
 matter of fact, that man is a moral agent, and to 
 
64s NATURE OF FREEDOM. 
 
 ascertain the nature or essential properties of 
 such a being. On the same principle then that a 
 man, as an animal or voluntary agent, is consider- 
 ed free when he is physically able to act accord- 
 ing to his will, but to lie under necessity, when 
 from weakness or irresistible opposition he is 
 unable to act upon his volition ; he must, as a 
 moral agent, be held to enjoy freedom, when he 
 regulates the determinations of his will ac- 
 cording to the decisions of his understanding. 
 This power, it may be remarked, is very differ- 
 ent from what has been termed the self-deter- 
 mining power of the will. The supposition of 
 such a power is absurd or, at best, unmeaning; 
 for in one class of instances, it can signify no- 
 thing but the fact that the will is determined ; 
 and in another, it involves the absurdity of sup- 
 posing a man to will and not to will the same 
 thing simultaneously. Neither is the present 
 question, whether the man does not in every in- 
 stance regulate his will by motives; for this is 
 another fact which, as shall afterwards appear, 
 simply states the truth, either that man is a ra- 
 tional being or a voluntary agent, according to 
 the sense in which the term motive is employed. 
 Admitting the universality of the influence of 
 motives, our present question is, whether the hu- 
 man agent can determine his will by the motive 
 which he judges right, advantageous upon the 
 
NATURE OF FREEDOM. 65 
 
 whole or suitable to the circumstances in which, 
 he acts.* 
 
 Between this and animal liberty it is interest- 
 
 * " By the liberty of a moral agent," says Dr. Reid, " I under- 
 stand a power over the determinations of his own will." Essay 
 iv. chap. i. This power this sound and judicious philosopher very 
 properly styles moral liberty. Leibnitz, though a necessitarian, 
 entertains similar views. His account of liberty is so just and 
 elegant that I may be allowed in this place to make the quota- 
 tion. La liberie du fait consiste ou dans la puissance de vouloir 
 corame il faut ; ou dans la puissance de faire ce qu'on veut. • * 
 La liberie de vouloir est encore prise en deux sens differcns. 
 L'un est quand on Toppose a I'imperfection ou a I'usage de 
 I'esprit qui est une coaction ou contrainte, mais interne comme 
 cela qui vient des passions. L'autre sens a lieu quand on oppose 
 la liberte a la necessite. Dans le premier sens, les Stdiciens dis- 
 oient que le sage scul est libre ; et en effet on n'a point I'esprit 
 libre quand il est occupe d'une grande passion ; car on ne peut 
 point vouloir alors comme il faut, c'est ^ dire, avec la deliberation 
 qui est requise. C'est ainsi que Dieu seul est parfaitement libre, 
 et que les esprits crees ne le sen tent que a mesure qu'ils sont au 
 dessus des passions. Et cette liberte regarde proprement notre 
 entendement, I/Eniendement Humain, Liv. ii. chap. 21, § 8. 
 " Free agency consists either in the power of willing what is 
 right, or in the power of doing what we will. The liberty of will- 
 ing is again taken in two different senses. The one is, when they 
 contrast it with that compulsion or constraint which arises from the 
 passions within (disallowed passions of course) ; the other when 
 they contrast it with necessity (philosophical necessity or causa- 
 tion). In the first sense, the Stoicks maintained that the wise 
 man alone is free : and surely the mind is not free when it is hur- 
 ried away by the violence of passion ; for at that time one cannot 
 will as he ought, that is, as his deliberate judgment approves. 
 Thus God alone is completely free; and created minds are free 
 only in so far as they are superior to their passions. This free- 
 dom regards properly the understanding (that is, not the volun- 
 tary but the moral being)." This is the true account of human 
 agency, and just what we are here endeavouring to illustrate; 
 
 V 
 
66 NATURE OF FREEDOM. 
 
 ing to observe the analogy. When in the exer- 
 cise of physical power a man is able to execute 
 his volition, he is rightly said to enjoy animal or 
 physical freedom ; and when, in like manner, in 
 the exercise of moral power, consisting in desire 
 and feeling, he is able to will in the manner he 
 judges right, he is in possession of moral liberty. 
 The former is power to act in consequence of a 
 determination of will ; the latter is power to will 
 in consequence of a decision of judgment. In 
 instances of necessity of either sort, the case is 
 just the reverse. We are under animal necessity, 
 when from the resistance of a superior physical 
 force, we are unable to act as we will ; but we 
 labour under moral necessity, if, in any instance, 
 from the presence of feeling of which our judg- 
 ment disapproves, we are unable to resolve to act 
 in the manner which we consider right or advan- 
 tageous. In both species of necessity, there is 
 opposition which we are unable to overcome. In 
 animal necessity, it is offered from without ; in 
 moral, it arises within, from feelings and desires 
 which the conscience condemns. All liberty 
 therefore is the enjoyment of power ; necessity is 
 the result of weakness. And as in the physical 
 world there is no distinction more obvious and 
 better understood than that of strength and 
 weakness, it is easy, by observing the like distinc- 
 
 though this able metaphysician did not always distinctly per- 
 ceive the extent of his own principle. The liberty opposed te 
 causation he properly rejects as absurd and contradictory. 
 
NATURE OF FREEDOM. 
 
 67 
 
 tion in the moral department of our nature, to 
 form a clear idea of moral liberty and necessity. 
 And let it be observed, that important as is the 
 distinction of weak and strong in the material 
 world, it involves no consequences in any respect 
 so momentous as the similar distinction in the 
 moral. On moial liberty and necessity depend 
 innocence or guilt, with all their happy or bane- 
 ful effects in the present life, and all the momen- 
 tous and awful consequences in the future.* 
 
 Beyond the point to which we have now come 
 the question of liberty and necessity should not 
 perhaps, in strict propriety, be carried j for it is 
 only as an animal or moral agent that man exhi- 
 bits any transitive acts of power, to which alone 
 liberty properly belongs. But were the inquiry 
 to be pushed further, man is to be considered 
 purely as an intelligent and contemplative being, 
 and a similar distinction is observed as m the 
 physical and moral departments of his nature. 
 As the essential attribute of such a being is to 
 
 • The reader will scarcely be in danger of being misled by what 
 is usually called vioral necessity ; which takes place when the will 
 is determined in w^hatevcr manner, and is plainly just philosophi- 
 cal necessity or causation. Every volition, of course, is, in this 
 sense necessary, that is, in other words, it has a cause; but the 
 true question of liberty and necessity, as Dr. Clarke, in his re- 
 marks on Collins, justly though somewhat obscurely shows, is 
 whether the intelligent being himself is the cause or some other 
 principle of which he disapproves. To have confounded these 
 two opposite states of the moral agent, one of which is real 
 necessity, under the general name of moral necessity, has been the 
 cause of much of the confusion in which this interesting subject 
 is involved. See more of this in the remarks on Edwards. 
 
68 NATURE OF FREEDOM. 
 
 perceive truth, he must be esteemed free when 
 he perceives things to be as they really are ; but 
 to lie under intellectual necessity when, from 
 mental weakness or the derangement of his fa- 
 culties, he mistakes falsehood for truth. There 
 are here, as in the cases above, two conditions of 
 the intelligent being of an opposite nature ; and 
 if one is confessedly necessity, the other must be 
 liberty. As animal and moral freedom is the ex- 
 ercise of physical and moral power, so intellec- 
 tual power is the ground of intellectual liberty, 
 and of course the opposite state of mental weak- 
 ness or ignorance must be considered intellectual 
 necessity. The same contrast is found in the 
 human agent as an animal, a moral and an intelli- 
 gent being, and if the propriety of the distinction 
 be admitted in the first respects, it cannot be de- 
 nied in the last. 
 
 Viewing then human liberty or necessity in 
 these three aspects, we exhaust the whole sub- 
 ject; for there is no need to imitate Mr. Hume 
 and consider man as purely material, possessing 
 properties in common with inanimate matter. 
 Animal liberty regards him as an agent, possess- 
 ing merely the power of voluntary motion ; in- 
 tellectual liberty views him as an intelligent and 
 rational being ; while moral liberty respects him 
 as uniting both these, in one complex nature, 
 and constituting a moral agent. 
 
 Thus it appears that the whole inquiry, res- 
 pecting liberty and necessity, is reduced to a 
 
NATURE OF FREEDOM. 69 
 
 simple question of fact, is man such an agent as 
 has been described, or is he not ? And how in- 
 deed should it be otherwise ? An agent is a vo- 
 luntary or intelligent cause ; and if man really 
 be such a cause, and not merely a passive sub- 
 ject, he enjoys freedom co-extensive with his 
 power, limited indeed in degree, as that of all finite 
 beings must be, but not different in kind from 
 that of the Almighty, whose sovereignty can con- 
 sist in nothing more than the power of acting, in all 
 things, according to his own good pleasure. If a 
 voluntary agent do as he will, what other liberty 
 can he conceive or desire ? If a moral agent 
 fix his volition as he judges right, or most ad- 
 vantageous and proper, why should he will other- 
 wise, and how can he will better ? And if he 
 judge true what is really true, and right what is 
 really right, can the infinite understanding even 
 of the Deity, in the given instance, do more? 
 There is here no necessity, as shall afterwards 
 be more fully shown, but that implied in the fact 
 of existence — that things cannot be and not be 
 simultaneously. In this fact the whole inquiry 
 respecting liberty is involved. Is man really a 
 sentient, intelligent, and moral agent ? If he is 
 so, his freedom may admit of augmentation in 
 degree, but in kind it is already perfect, for it is 
 similar to that of the all-perfect Creator, with 
 whose moral image man was endowed. If, on 
 the other hand, he were not an agent, but a 
 
yd NATUUK OF FREEDOM. 
 
 purely passive subject, as when, for instance, by 
 the opposition of a superior pliysical force, his 
 agency is restrained and he is unable to carry 
 his purpose into effect ; he would then, without 
 question, being in a state quite the reverse of 
 liberty, be truly enthralled by a real necessity. 
 Such then being the plain truth to be ascertain- 
 ed, the subject of inquiry is as distinct and de- 
 finite as any fact in the material universe ; and, 
 by distinguishing the different agencies possessed 
 by man, it will not be found difficult to answer the 
 question as explicitly and satisfactorily as any 
 other question of fact in chemistry or natural phi- 
 losophy. 
 
 With regard to animal liberty, nothing re- 
 quires to be said in the present Essay, since the 
 subject is well understood and admits of little 
 or no difference of opinion. Intellectual liberty 
 too, so far as facts are concerned, needs little il- 
 lustration, and is here introduced chiefly to af- 
 ford an opportunity to obviate some objections, 
 and remove some common misapprehensions re- 
 specting the relation of intelligence to free 
 agency. The principal object of the Essay is 
 to ascertain the reality of moral freedom ; to in- 
 quire whether, in any case or to what extent, 
 man labours under moral necessity j and to il- 
 lustrate the leading principles and most striking 
 mental processes, by which the human agent 
 secures the enjoyment of the one, or is enthralled 
 by the iron yoke of the other. 
 
MORAL FREEDOM. 71 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 MAN, IN THE EXERCISE OF HIS UNDERSTANDING, 
 USUALLY REGULATES THE DETERMINATIONS OF 
 HIS WILL ; THAT IS, ENJOYS MORAL FREEDOM, 
 
 Our first inquiry then being simply, whether 
 man, in the exercise of his judgment, controls 
 and regulates his own will, Httle detail is neces- 
 sary by way of evidence. It is to be observed, 
 however, in entering upon this part of the sub- 
 ject, that it is not the intention to estabhsh any 
 principle of universal application. All that can 
 be attempted is merely to ascertain and illus- 
 trate a general law, supported by a multitude 
 of facts, and leave it to be determined, in a sub- 
 sequent section, whether or not this law admits 
 of any exceptions. 
 
 That man then, in the exercise of his judg- 
 ment, fixes, in a multitude of instances, the de- 
 terminations of his own will, every one must 
 be conscious and nobody denies. The mer- 
 chant seeks the best market for his goods, be- 
 cause he judges it most for his^ advantage j 
 
7.t^ MORAL FREEDOM. 
 
 while the man of principle prefers virtuous con- 
 duct to the commission of crime, because he 
 judges it right. In all such cases, the judgment 
 approves of a certain conduct and the will is de- 
 termined according to its decision. 
 
 Nor is the influence of the understanding li- 
 mited to the fixing of the volitions at first : it has 
 the power of altering them after they have been 
 determined. Nothing is more common than 
 that a man who has resolved to act in a certain 
 manner, on reviewing the reasons of his resolu- 
 tion, or on receiving additional information, 
 changes his purpose, and determines to pursue 
 a different or opposite conduct. Such facts form 
 a considerable portion of the daily history of the 
 human mind. To adopt a diiferent resolution, 
 to alter one's purpose, to change one's mind, are 
 expressions of common occurrence ; and to any 
 one therefore who understands the meaning of 
 the terms, it would be idle to present any length- 
 ened induction to prove, that man possesses the 
 power of fixing, modifying and changing the 
 determinations of his own will, as he judges 
 right, becoming, or most conducive to his inte- 
 rest. 
 
 These simple and well known truths then 
 are all that are necessary to be determined j and 
 holding them as acknowledged matters of fact, 
 admitted by all parties, nothing farther is neces- 
 sary, in the present section, but to offer a few 
 
LIB, 
 
 THE 
 MORAL FREEDOM. ((U U I V 3S51 S I T Y 
 
 remarks illustrative of the principles afc^g|^^£^ .-^^ 
 tions of the mind which account for their pro- 
 duction. And, in the first place, an analysis of 
 volition will facilitate our future inquiries. 
 
 Mr. Locke seemed to think that desire and 
 volition are states of mind essentially different, 
 and, according to his own view, his opinion is 
 not to be considered incorrect. . Dr. Reid enter- 
 ed more fully into the examination of the sub- 
 ject, and showed that the object of volition must, 
 in every case, be some action of our own, or 
 something which we believe to be in our own 
 power and to depend upon our own will; but he did 
 not free himself from the mistake of conceiving 
 that, in certain circumstances, a thing may be an 
 object of volition without at the same time being 
 an object of desire. Dr. Brown has corrected 
 this mistake, by demonstrating that, in every case, 
 the object of desire or, where opposing desires co- 
 exist, the object of the predominant desire and of 
 volition are the same, and that volition is just 
 another name for all those desires which are ac- 
 companied with a belief that we shall carry them 
 into effect. " Volition," says he, " may be said 
 to be a complex feeling, inasmuch as it is desire 
 combined with belief of the immediate sequence 
 of the object desired."* In giving this account 
 
 • Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect, p. 66. See note 
 A. 
 
74 MORAL FREEDOM. 
 
 of volition, he had reference to those transient 
 determinations of will which give rise to muscular 
 motion, but it is not necessary thus to limit the 
 definition by the use of the epithet immediate, or 
 to consider volition as directing merely our own 
 physical powers. Any power of which wealth, 
 rank or character gives us the command, is as 
 truly the instrument of our will as a hand or a 
 foot. The despot who leads forth his armies of 
 obsequious slaves to overthrow cities and desolate 
 empires, as truly wills these events as to move a 
 finger or change an attitude. Volition there- 
 fore may be defined the desire of any object 
 which we believe we shall be able to obtain by 
 means of any power which is subject to our will. 
 When we desire to obtain any object or to per- 
 form any action, as soon as we believe that the 
 action will really be performed by us, or view its 
 performance as a matter of future fact, the will 
 is determined, and our feeling becomes a volition 
 and no longer simple desire ; or when, on the 
 other hand, we view the performance of an action 
 as possible, or as a future event which, if we will, 
 we may bring about, as soon as the desire to per- 
 form it becomes predominant, the state of mind 
 which is experienced is a determination of the 
 will. Volition therefore, as Dr. Brown justly 
 observes, is a complex feeling, and, of course, is 
 difFe/ent from mere desire as a whole. Desire 
 alone is always an uneasy feeling, but when it 
 
MORAL FREEDOM. 75 
 
 becomes a volition, by being attended with the 
 beUef of the attainment of its object, it always 
 loses some of its former uneasiness, and in most 
 cases, becomes agreeable. This is the general 
 character of all volitions. To follow their im- 
 pulse, in preference to any other desire, is at the 
 time the most agreeable, and is felt to be most 
 productive of present satisfaction. 
 
 It is not necessary, indeed, that our belief of 
 the future attainment of the desired object should 
 always amount to absolute certainty, for this in 
 comparatively few instances can be experienced. 
 Any degree of probability of our future perform- 
 ance of the action, combined with any degree of 
 desire, or in cases of conflicting desires, with the 
 one of them which in any degree predominates, 
 constitutes a feeble volition ; which increases in 
 strength both as the certainty increases and as 
 the desire becomes more intense, till it amount 
 to the most determined resolution. Hence, in 
 estimating the strength of a volition or purpose, 
 we must take into account not only the intensity 
 of the desire, but the degree of probability with 
 which the individual looks forward to the attain- 
 ment of his object. That volition is consequent- 
 ly the strongest which results from the most in- 
 tense desire, united with the most absolute cer- 
 tainty of the deed. But if either of these elements 
 are removed, if, for instance, there is no degree 
 of probability that we shall accomplish the ob- 
 
76 MORAL FREEDOM. 
 
 ject of desire, a determination of will becomes 
 impossible. Hence arise many of the most strik- 
 ing and curious phenomena in the history of the 
 human mind ; and the numerous artifices which 
 are employed to shake a man's resolution, either 
 by cooling his desire of the object, or diminish- 
 ing the probability of its attainment. 
 
 The nature of motives is the next subject 
 which requires some illustration. 
 
 Respecting the nature of motives, familiar as 
 the idea is, we are not unfrequently in danger of 
 being misled, partly by the use of metaphorical 
 language, but chiefly from the artifices which 
 theorists have been induced, perhaps unwittingly, 
 to employ in order to support their favourite no- 
 tions. The term motive has two meanings in 
 ordinary language It signifies the perception 
 of something addressed to any susceptibihty 
 which directly or indirectly is the source of de- 
 sire and hence of volition, as when it is said 
 that money was the man's motive to commit the 
 crime ; or it signifies the feeling actually pro- 
 duced by the perception of such an object, as 
 when we say that the love of gold is the motive 
 which actuates the miser or the thief. It is not 
 the external object viewed in itself which con- 
 stitutes a motive, as the language in the first il- 
 lustration might seem to imply, but the object 
 addressed to some susceptibility of desire, as 
 known and perceived by us. Were these two 
 
MORAL FRKEDOISf. 77 
 
 classes of motives to be distinguished by 'appro- 
 priate names, we might term those of the one 
 class intellectual^ and those of the other sentient 
 motives. 
 
 Hence we are furnished with a very simple and 
 beautiful solution of the much disputed question, 
 whether the will is always determined by motives, 
 or when motives of an opposite tendency are felt, 
 by the strongest. If the term motive is to be 
 taken in the first sense, to be determined by mo- 
 tives just means that man is a percipient and 
 moral being, and if, in any instance, lie is not de- 
 termined by the strongest motives, he then acts an 
 irrational part, and having his will fixed without 
 the approbation of his judgment, labours under 
 moral necessity. Whether he ever does so shall 
 be afterwards determined. If the word be em- 
 ployed in the second sense, to say that a man is 
 determined by motives just states the fact, that 
 man is a voluntary agent. Motive and desire 
 are then synonymous; and since desire was found 
 to be an essential element of volition, where there 
 is no motive, there can be no determination of 
 the will ; and when conflicting desires or motives 
 exist, the strongest, of course, involves the voli- 
 tion, otherwise man must be conceived capable 
 of willing against his own will, which is an ob- 
 vious contradiction. In this sense then, it is uni- 
 versally true, that the will is determined by the 
 strongest motive, for the opposite supposition 
 
 / 
 
78 MORAL FREEDOM. 
 
 evidently destroys the nature of a voluntary 
 agent. 
 
 With regard to the various sorts of motives by 
 which the human mind is influenced, all the sus- 
 ceptibilities of our constitution, it is plain, are di- 
 rectly or indirectly the source of desire and 
 hence of motives. The senses, the appetites, 
 the affections, the passions, the moral and reli- 
 gious feelings, are all, in their turn, excited and 
 prompt us to action. Many of them, as was just 
 hinted, do not directly influence the will, that is, 
 constitute motives in the second sense of that 
 term ; for in this sense nothing but desire or aver- 
 sion, which necessarily implies desire, constitutes 
 an element of volition. The feeling of pain, for 
 instance, which we experience by means of the 
 sense of touch has power to produce volition 
 only by exciting that desire to escape the unea- 
 siness by which it is always accompanied. So it 
 is with our appetites and passions and feelings 
 generally. The desire to escape or to obtain the 
 object by which they are excited is that which 
 directly Axes the determination of the will or, 
 more strictly speaking, is itself the principal ele- 
 ment of volition. 
 
 Hence, in estimating the power whicli any 
 sensation, appetite, or passion possesses to influ- 
 ence the will, we must consider not the strength 
 and vividness of the feeling itself, but of the de- 
 sire of which it is the parent. The strength of 
 
MORAL FREEDOM. 79 
 
 every desire indeed is always in proportion to 
 the strength of the feehng from which it results ; 
 but the various feelings, relatively considered, 
 possess the power of producing desire in very 
 different degrees. A regular and most beautiful 
 gradation seems to pervade all the feelings of the 
 human constitution. Those which depend most 
 directly upon the judgment, such as the feeling 
 of moral approbation, will be found to possess 
 the greatest relative power to produce desire and 
 hence to fix volition. The less any feeling de- 
 pends upon the understanding, the less becomes 
 its influence over the will, till we come to the 
 appetites and sensations which last, of all our 
 feelings, exhibit relatively the least degree of 
 power over our voluntary determinations. 
 
 Any one who has reflected on his own mind 
 while enduring corporal pain, or who has found 
 it necessary to submit to a painful surgical opera- 
 tion, must be acquainted with this constitutional 
 law. In such circumstances he may have ob- 
 served, that while the desire which induced him 
 voluntarily to submit to suffering was, of course, 
 far more powerful, with respect to its influence 
 over the will, than the natural desire to escape 
 present pain, the feeling which gave birth to the 
 predominant desire was much less vivid and in- 
 tense than the painful sensation by w^hich it was 
 opposed. The apprehension of some future 
 evil, or the desire of some remote and perhaps 
 
80 MORAL FREEDOM. 
 
 uncertain happiness, enables a man of ordinary 
 fortitude steadily to encounter and calmly to 
 endure the most excruciating sensations, which, 
 as feelings, are vastly more vivid and intense than 
 those conflicting motives by which they are 
 triumphantly overcome. To this law^ of our sen- 
 tient constitution, Mr. Hume seems to allude in 
 his Discourse on the Passions, when he speaks of 
 what is called reason in a popular sense, being 
 nothing but a general and calm passion, and justly 
 conceives that what is usually termed strength 
 of mind consists in the prevalence of the calm 
 passions over the violent. 
 
 By this law of our nature, the wisdom and be- 
 nevolence of the Creator has admirably provided 
 at once for our preservation as animals and our 
 moral freedom as responsible agents. Being ex- 
 posed to numerous dangers from without, it was 
 necessary, for self-preservation, that the sensa- 
 tions of bodily pain should be sufficiently vivid 
 to guard us against external injuries ; and, ac- 
 cordingly, there is no ordinary feeling — for we 
 do not speak of remorse, despair and others of a 
 similar nature, which virtuous minds should never 
 experience — which is capable of greater intensi- 
 ty than corporal pain. Had sensations of this 
 class possessed the same relative strength in the 
 excitement of desire, and in the determination 
 of the will as the feelings which arise wholly from 
 within, the human agent, it is obvious, would 
 
MORAL FREEDOM. 81 
 
 have been reduced to a condition more un- 
 happy than that of the brutes, and have been 
 placed at the mercy of the wantonness or villany 
 of every one who might feel disposed to injure him. 
 By the infliction of a little bodily pain, he could 
 have been compelled at any time to violate the 
 most sacred dictates of his conscience, and have 
 been hurried into tlie commission of the most fa- 
 tal crimes. By the influence of the law under 
 consideration, he escapes so unhappy a condi- 
 tion, and retains his moral liberty uncontrolled 
 and superior to the violence of men. The pa- 
 triot can despise the dungeon and the gibbet ; 
 and the martyr, regardless of the faggot and the 
 wheel, can smile at the demoniacal ingenuity of 
 the persecutor. And it is not in such circum- 
 stances that the strength of the principle is seen to 
 best advantage. Tiie young American Indians, 
 we are told, with no stronger motives than those 
 called forth by the playful humours of childhood, 
 cheerfully rival each other in the patient endur- 
 ance of the most intense bodily suffering. 
 
 Such being the important law regarding the 
 relative strength of motives, let us now briefly 
 illustrate the process by which the intelligent 
 and rational being regulates his will by means of 
 their influence. 
 
 Though many of the human motives are com- 
 mon to man with the brutes, and would lead to 
 action, without the superintendence of a higher 
 
 o 
 
St MORAL FREEDOM. 
 
 faculty, the cases in which they do not come' 
 under the cognisance of the understanding are 
 certainly much less numerous than some philo- 
 sophers have seemed to believe. In all the ordi- 
 nary actions of life, it cannot be doubted that 
 the conscience is active, approving or condemn- 
 ing the various motives by which mankind are 
 prompted to fix their voluntary determinations. 
 In many instances, when the statement, with ap* 
 parent justice, might be called in question, the 
 actions are familiar, the motives have been long 
 approved and are acted on with the fullest 
 knowledge and most entire confidence of their 
 propriety. 
 
 When a man is stimulated by any desire of 
 which he approves, he finds it agreeable to yield 
 to its impulse. If it is an appetite or any other 
 feeling simply natural, without assuming the cha- 
 racter of virtue or vice, it is indulged without 
 exciting any other feeling to augment or dimi- 
 nish its intensity ; and the strength of the voli- 
 tion consequent upon it, and the amount of 
 pleasure derived from its gratification, are in pro- 
 portion to the intensity of the desire. Tiiis is 
 one of the simplest cases of approved volition. 
 
 When motives of a contrary tendency are expe- 
 rienced, the process becomes more complex. 
 Suppose two opposite motives of a prudential 
 nature, but both morally right, to sohcit the 
 will, the individual considers the advantages or 
 
MORAL FREEDOM. S3 
 
 disadvantages attending each of the proposed 
 measures, compares them together, judges on 
 which side the advantages preponderate, and de- 
 termines, in consequence, to act in the manner 
 which he conceives most conducive to his inte-* 
 rest. In such a case, the lawful desire of wealth, 
 of pleasure, or of honour is the motive which 
 solicits the will, and which might impel the 
 man to action without any decision of the judg- 
 ment j but, though the judgment determines 
 only the best means of obtaining the most com- 
 plete gratification, since it approves of both con- 
 flicting motives as morally right, the resolution 
 which is ultimately taken obtains, in every re* 
 spect, the sanction of the understanding. : 
 
 But the finest instance of the power which the 
 understanding possesses to direct the will, is ex* 
 hibited in a virtuous mind, exposed to the temp-' 
 tation to commit an action wliich it judges mo- 
 rally wrong. The conscience, as formerly said, is 
 a complex principle, composed of a perception of 
 the understanding and the susceptibihty of the 
 vivid, deep and solemn feelings, which, in un- 
 corrupted minds, are awakened by the percep- 
 tion or consciousness of right and wrong in mo- 
 ral conduct. By the perception, it is able to 
 take cognizance of its objects ; by the feehng, it 
 is calculated to influence and regulate the will. 
 In all instances of appetite, sensation and passion 
 in general, the object is without, and affects the 
 
84 MORAL FREEDOM. 
 
 feelings of the man whether he chooses or not ; 
 but the direct objects of the conscience are the 
 agent's own feeUngs, motives or desires and voli- 
 tions, and hence, in regulating his will by its 
 perceptions, he is acting wholly from himself. 
 In this consists the grand difference between the 
 human agent and the brute. The latter, on per- 
 ceiving an external object, must act on the im- 
 pulse of the feeling which it excites, and has no 
 means of otherwise fixing his volition : the for- 
 mer, on the excitement of a feeling from with- 
 out, contemplates it as right or wrong, and, by 
 the constitution of his nature, the powerftil emo- 
 tions of conscience are awakened, by which he 
 is able to check the rising desire, and hold back 
 his will from the incipient purpose. The un- 
 worthy desire is the restraining motive, in the 
 first sense which is given of that word ; the feel- 
 ing of disapprobation, excited by the conscious- 
 ness of the unlawful desire, is the opposing mo- 
 tive, in the second sense in which that term is 
 used. Thus it is that, in a mind endowed with 
 the faculty of conscience, every vicious feeling 
 carries along with it its own antidote, and the 
 motive or desire which tempts to sin is the very 
 motive by which it is itself resisted and destroyed. 
 This is the admirable provision to secure the free- 
 dom of the moral agent. When assailed by 
 temptation, a moral power is always ready to 
 support the decisions of his understanding j and, 
 
MORAL FllEEDOM. 35 
 
 in the citadel of his own heart, the moral agent, 
 authoritatively approving and condemning the 
 various emotions as they arise, keeps secure pos- 
 session of his soul and maintains his authority 
 within, successfully resists the allurements and 
 violence of temptation without, and vindicates 
 his right to exercise supreme control over all his 
 own desires, volitions and actions. 
 
 These simple instances of volition may be, at 
 present, sufficient to illustrate the manner in 
 which the will is at first determined ; and we 
 now proceed to offer some remarks respecting 
 the process by which the purpose is altered, when 
 it has already been taken. 
 
 Every one must have experienced, that a 
 change of will is generally attended with un- 
 easiness, and, in some instances, with extreme 
 reluctance. Let a man have long cherished 
 some favourite scheme, in the success of which 
 he has been accustomed to conceive his inte- 
 rest deeply involved, and in support of which 
 all his sanguine feelings have been long engaged; 
 and let a more discerning friend succeed in con- 
 vincing him, that the execution of his projected 
 undertaking might be hazardous or impracti- 
 cable, its consequences useless or perhaps perni- 
 cious, and that to act in a different manner will 
 certainly, in all respects, be more beneficial j and 
 he will experience the struggle to which I al- 
 lude. In such circumstances, many men, whose 
 
MJUAL FREEDOM. 
 
 feelings have not been sufficiently inured to sub- 
 mit to their judgment, would find little difficulty, 
 in opposition to the conviction of the imprudence 
 and dangerous consequences of the attempt, and 
 encouraged by little more than the bare possibi- 
 lity of success, to persist in their purpose, till 
 failure might teach them moderation. But let 
 a man even of the most powerful and best dis- 
 ciplined mind be placed in such a situation, and 
 he will feel that the determination of the will 
 does not immediately and without a struggle, 
 follow the conviction of the judgment. He will 
 experience a strong propensity to cling to every 
 argument and probability in favour of his pur- 
 pose, and to shut out from view every considera- 
 tion which would tend to alter it ; and it will 
 not be till after repeated struggles with himself, 
 that he will cheerfully embrace a measure which 
 he cannot but conceive more advantageous than 
 that which he abandons. 
 
 In cases of this nature, instead of what has 
 been unmeaningly termed the self-determining 
 power of the will, the human agent, in the exer- 
 cise of a superior power, does a sort of violence 
 to his own volition, and forces his will to adopt 
 resolutions to which it was most obstinately op- 
 posed. It is plain too, that were the understand- 
 ing the only power independent of the will, 
 #uch changes of purpose could take place only 
 when some new information or some forgotten 
 
ItfORAL FRIEDOM. Z^ 
 
 and neglected truth was forced upon his atten- 
 tion from without ; but he could never, of him- 
 self, alter a resolution when once taken. The 
 author of our nature has wisely provided against 
 such an abridgement of human liberty, by fur- 
 nishing the mind with another faculty, in a great 
 measure free and independent of the will. This 
 principle is what is usually explained under the 
 title of the Association of Ideas. 
 
 Without disputing with Mr. Locke whether or 
 not tliinking be essential to mind, it is granted 
 by all, as a matter of fact, that, so far as we are 
 conscious, the thinking principle is incessantly 
 active. The doctrine of the Association of Ideas 
 is nothing more than the statement of this fact, 
 in connection with the additional fact, that the 
 mind pursues its ideas in a certain order, ac- 
 cording to certain relations between the ideas 
 themselves, or certain feelings in the mind re- 
 specting the associated ideas. 
 
 It is of little moment to our present purpose 
 which enumeration of the laws of Association 
 be adopted — whether that of Dr. Brown, who 
 divides them into primary and secondary laws of 
 suggestion; or whether, allowing Dr. Brown's se- 
 condary laws a more important place, to which 
 they are justly entitled, we divide them into two 
 classes, which may be named the intellectual dindi 
 sentient laws of Association — the former includ- 
 ing all the associating relations among things 
 
88 MORAL FREEDOM. 
 
 themselves as perceived by us ; the latter all the 
 feelings of our own minds wliich have reference 
 to the objects of thought, and which therefore di- 
 rect the train of ideas. This latter class of laws 
 depends on the well known fact, that whatever 
 interests the affections engages the attention. 
 We think most on what we love best. Hence 
 every feeling and emotion of our nature draws 
 the attention towards its object, and exercises a 
 powerful influence in directing and modifying 
 the current of thought. 
 
 This class of laws, it may be remarked, was 
 strangely neglected by writers on association, till 
 Dr. Brown took more particular notice of them 
 under the name of the secondary laws of sug- 
 gestion. That acute philosopher, though he has 
 the merit of having been the first writer who 
 gave them, to a considerable degree, the place 
 to which they are entitled, does not appear to 
 have perceived the great extent of their influ- 
 ence. In moral questions, indeed, they are the 
 only laws which deserve notice ; for it is to them 
 that we owe all the voluntary power which we 
 exercise over the understanding. On this prin- 
 ciple, too, depend abstraction, attention, and 
 other powers usually enumerated by mental phi- 
 losophers. * 
 
 Leaving, however, the principle of association 
 to be elsewhere illustrated, the fact of the mind's 
 
 • See Note B. 
 
MORAL FREiiDOM. 89 
 
 unceasing activity is undisputed. Though, by 
 the admirable wisdom of our Creator, the will 
 possesses the power of modifying and directing 
 the current of thought so far as is necessary 
 for our improvement and comfort, the mind 
 continues to pursue its train of ideas whether we 
 will or not, and often in direct opposition to our 
 most ardent wishes. How often does the think- 
 ing principle recur to ideas from which we would 
 most gladly escape, and which we cannot but 
 consider the disturbers of our peace. The guilty 
 know the force of the principle ; and the virtu- 
 ous man, when exposed to temptation, is aware 
 how helpless he frequently must have been, had 
 the train of his thought depended upon his will. 
 When already his better judgment was obscured 
 by the rising emotions of passion, and his better 
 purposes completely shaken, the unwearied acti- 
 vity of thought, like a guardian angel, has pre- 
 sented to his consideration some neglected truth, 
 and thereby awakened a new set of feelings, 
 which enabled him triumphantly to resist the al- 
 most successful temptation, and resolutely to hold 
 fast his integrity. The villain, in like manner, 
 hastening to execute a criminal purpose, some- 
 times feels his resolutions unexpectedly shaken 
 and his arm unnerved ; and is filled with remorse 
 at the conception of the deed which but a little 
 before he was eager to commit. In all such 
 cases, it is plain that the thinking principle acts 
 
90 MORAL FREEDOM. 
 
 without the concurrence of the will, and by its 
 peculiar power effects a change in the voluntary 
 determinations. 
 
 It is usually taught by writers on this subject, 
 that the thinking and rational powers are, at least 
 to a certain extent, passive. This mistake seems 
 to have arisen by paying attention too exclusive- 
 ly to mechanical action, and has been favoured 
 by the unnatural division of the powers of the 
 human mind into intellectual and active. " Ac- 
 tion," says Dr. Beattie, *' implies motion." If 
 this indeed were universally true, the intellec- 
 tual powers of course cannot be classed with the 
 active ; for motion is no property of intellect and 
 volition. But this principle, it is obvious, re- 
 gards only animal action, which necessarily im- 
 plies motion, without including the activity of 
 spiritual agents. Whenever we allow the exist- 
 ence of spiritual and moral beings, we must 
 extend the induction, and consider the sort 
 of action which is peculiar to such agents, be- 
 fore it can be admitted, as an axiom in moral 
 science, that action always implies motion. 
 
 An action is properly an effect produced by an 
 agent. Wherever therefore there is an effect 
 produced there is action. In order to ascertain 
 then, whether the intellectual powers are active 
 or not, we have only to consider whether they 
 produce any effect. Now every one knows that 
 
MORAL FREEDOM. 91 
 
 certain views of truth produce certain feelings 
 and fix certain volitions, as surely and uniformly as 
 those volitions produce mechanical action. Here 
 then we have an effect produced by the intellec- 
 tual as well as one by the sentient powers ; and 
 why should w^e term the one active more than 
 the otlier ? Each is followed, with equal certain- 
 ty and uniformity, by its peculiar effect. The 
 thinking and judging principle produces volition; 
 the volition produces animal motion ; and it were 
 as reasonable to seek moral feeling in the hand 
 or judgment in the foot, in order to render it ca- 
 pable of motion, as it were to seek motion from 
 the understanding in order to pronounce it ah 
 active power. Its activity consists in the excite^ 
 ment of feeling, in like manner as that of the 
 will consists in the production of muscular mo- 
 tion. There is no room tlien for declaring the 
 one class of powers active in opposition to the 
 other, for both are equally active in the produc- 
 tion of their proper effects. And were we dis- 
 posed to make such a distinction among the fa- 
 culties of the mind, the active powers, as they are 
 usually called, should in reality be considered 
 passive, and the intellectual active. Volition in 
 every instance is produced, either by sensation 
 and appetite, which arise wholly from the state 
 of the body altogether independently both of the 
 will and the understanding, or from the percep- 
 tion of an object addressed to some susceptibility 
 
9^ MORAL FREEDOM. 
 
 of feeling or passion. In either case, volition is 
 wholly an effect and as such is purely passive. It 
 does indeed produce another effect in the muscu- 
 lar motions of the body, with reference to which, 
 it is a cause, and is to be considered active ; but 
 as it is passive with respect to its own production, 
 its action is similar to that of a ball which commu- 
 nicates to another body the motion which itself has 
 received. With respect to the intellectual powers 
 by which it is produced, it is altogether a passive 
 effect, and they alone are truly active. The na- 
 tural division of the human faculties then, with 
 reference to the mind itself, is into active or in- 
 tellectual powers and passive susceptibilities, 
 among which are included all the sensations, feel- 
 ings, desires and volitions. 
 
 The intellectual powers then exhibit a two- 
 fold activity ; they produce volition in the same 
 manner that volition is the cause of action, and 
 are besides possessed of an activity pecuhar to 
 themselves. This peculiar activity deserves the 
 attention of the inquirer respecting liberty. The 
 argument which the fatalist has sometimes em- 
 ployed, as if the activity within were produc- 
 ed by the influence of objects without, by means 
 of sensation, is utterly undeserving of notice. 
 The senses, it is true, are the original source of 
 the ideas with which the intellectual powers are 
 employed ; and hence it is sometimes insinuated, 
 that sensation is the cause of thought. Since the 
 
MORAL FREEDOM. 93 
 
 doctrine of innate ideas is not to be supported, 
 there may be a period previous to which the think- 
 ing powers are in a state of inaction, in which 
 they might for ever remain, were they not arous- 
 ed by sensation. But even then, it is needless 
 to say, sensation is only the object of thought, and 
 the occasion of mental activity, not the cause. 
 Were there not a mind to feel and to think, in 
 vain might the visual ray strike the eye, or the 
 fragrant effluvia assail the olfactory nerves. The 
 dog which accompanied Sir Isaac Newton might f'\ ^ 
 mark the fall of the apple as quickly and dis- / ' i 
 
 tinctly as its master ; but it was the mind of the ^ ^"^ 
 philosopher alone which could take the hint re- 
 specting the universality of gravitation, and by 
 its application unfold the delightful harmony of 
 the seemingly discordant universe. And after 
 objects of thought have been obtained by sensa- 
 tion, we are conscious that the mind never ceas- 
 es to think. Sensation then only introduces new 
 ideas, and diverts the current of thought, by call- 
 ing away the attention of the mind to external 
 objects, but does not necessarily increase the men- 
 tal activity. Though sensation were, at any pe- 
 riod, to be altogether obstructed, the rudest mind, 
 with the scantiest stock of ideas, might be not 
 less busy than when prompted by the most vivid 
 sensation ; and certainly would never entirely 
 cease to think. 
 
 Hence then the thinking powers are entitled 
 
94 - MORAL FREEDOM. 
 
 to be considered active, not only on the same 
 ground as the voUtions, but also on account of 
 their own pecuHar activity, exhibited in the cease- 
 less current of ideas. This activity of thought 
 is an ultimate fact in the philosophy of mind ; 
 and is not to be explained, like action and voli- 
 tion, by a reference to any higher faculty as its 
 cause. It is a pure fact of existence. While 
 the mind exists, it thinks, must ever be esteemed 
 an axiom in mental philosophy. It is not so with 
 regard to feeling or volition. Man is not always 
 in motion ; and his desires are frequently at rest, 
 and leave the mind void of any present purpose ; 
 but the wakeful thinking principle ceases not 
 from its wonted action. Like the Father of spi- 
 rits, by whose inspiration it was at first bestowed, 
 it slumbereth not nor sleepeth. And as it seems 
 to depend on the spiritual essence of the human 
 soul, there is no room to doubt, that when the 
 head by which it perceives, and the heart by 
 which it feels, are mouldering in dust, it will re-, 
 turn still vigorous and active to God who gave' 
 it 
 
 . It is this ceaseless activity of thought then, 
 combined with the judgment, which secures to 
 man the power of altering his own voluntary de- 
 terminations. This power could not be enjoyed 
 to any great extent, merely by the exercise of 
 the understanding, which judges of the right and. 
 wrong, t^ie advantageous and disadvantageous. 
 
MORAL FREI^DOM. 95 
 
 of objects, when brought before it, without being 
 able to call forth those ideas which are not al- 
 ready present. And never would the will, when 
 once determined, effect its own change, by di- 
 recting the attention to considerations unfavoura- 
 ble to itself. The active principle of thought 
 alone is able to change the purpose, by bringing 
 into view all the facts, arguments and considera- 
 tions, connected with the proposed measure, and, 
 by this means, giving the inteUigent agent an 
 opportunity to examine the whole case, and judge 
 truly what is right or advantageous, and fix his 
 volition accordingly. Association thus does for 
 a man a service often rendered him by a better 
 informed and more prudent friend. When, on a 
 sudden emergency, or under the influence of pas- 
 sion, he has been hurried into a resolution which, 
 were all the circumstances considered, he could 
 not approve, the active principle of thought 
 comes to his aid, brings some neglected conside- 
 rations into view, awakens new feelings and de^ 
 sires, and hence leads him to reconsider his for- 
 mer reasons, and finally to change his purpose* 
 In certain instances of this sort, in vain may th^ 
 volition struggle to maintain itself, by its ten- 
 dency to direct the attention exclusively to the 
 arguments in its own favour, and to exclude the 
 opposite considerations ; the principle of associ- 
 ation, notwithstanding all opposition, forces new* 
 reasons and neglected trutJis upon the attention, 
 
96 MORAL FREEDOM. 
 
 and constrains the judgment to alter its former 
 decision, and give a new direction to the will 
 which was already decided. 
 
 Thus the thinking and judging principles are 
 the source of the power by which the human 
 agent controls his volitions, and asserts his moral 
 freedom. Except those two faculties, all the 
 powers of the mind are, strictly speaking, passive 
 susceptibilities. As animal motion depends on 
 volition, so volition, when most independent, is 
 the result of the thinking principle. Both the 
 thinking and judging faculties, or, as Dr. Brown 
 would express them, simple and relative sugges- 
 tion, are independent of desire and volition. The 
 man thinks whether he wills it or not ; and the 
 judgment is ever ready to pronounce its decisions 
 on the objects which simple suggestion presents. 
 It is this circumstance that renders them ade- 
 quate to be the governing principles of a moral 
 and responsible agent. The brutes are prompt- 
 ed to action by sensation and appetite, in the 
 same manner as man ; but, being destitute of an 
 understanding capable of perceiving moral dis- 
 tinctions, and hence, of controlling their desires 
 and feelings, their volitions are regulated en- 
 tirely by external circumstances, over which 
 they have no control. It is not so with the hu- 
 man agent. He can contemplate the circum- 
 stances in which he is placed, judge what con- 
 duct is morally right or most for his advantage, 
 
 4 
 
MORAL LIBERTY. 97 
 
 resolve to act in the manner his conscience ap- 
 proves, and defy the power of man and all creat- 
 ed beings to force him from his purpose. The 
 history of Christianity affords many illustrious 
 examples of human power and of moral freedom. 
 It was not without reason that the angel forbade 
 the apostle to worship him, and there was no 
 condescension in confessing his equality as a 
 fellow servant — the human being, in the exercise 
 of his conscience, acknowledges inferiority to 
 none but the Creator. 
 
9§ INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 OF INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 
 
 It is admitted, then, as a matter of fact, that 
 the human agent, in the exercise of his under- 
 standing, has, in many instances, the power to 
 change the determinations of his will, as well as 
 to fix them at first. This power of changing the 
 will, it is plain, can be enjoyed only within cer- 
 tain limits — in those cases, namely, in which the 
 volition has been the result of partial knowledge, 
 or of a mind under the undue influence of pas- 
 sion. When a resolution has been taken by an 
 enlightened mind, in the deliberate exercise of 
 its faculties, no change can be effected by means 
 of the understanding. To retain his moral free- 
 dom, the man must then act according to his vo- 
 lition and cannot act otherwise. Hence an ar- 
 gument is derived against the existence of hu- 
 man liberty. 
 
 In entering upon this part of the investiga- 
 tion, it is necessary to premise tl at, ahhough 
 the facts now to be considered are universally 
 acknowledged without difference of opinion, the 
 
INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 99 
 
 inquiry, regarding what we have termed the free- 
 dom of the understanding, is not to be considered 
 any idle logomachy respecting the use of the 
 term necessity. It is of some importance to true 
 science to class things aright, and not to con- 
 found objects essentially different under the same 
 term. All the sciences afford striking proofs of 
 the pernicious consequences of such a mode of 
 proceeding, and none more strikingly than the 
 subject under consideration. By the improper 
 use of the term necessity, and by confounding 
 opposite things under that name, men have been 
 led, and apparently with good reason, into the 
 much more dangerous mistake of calling good 
 evil and evil good ; and hence have been involved 
 in all the dreadful consequences of moral guilt. 
 The perusal of the writings of the French scepti- 
 cal school, and the consideration of the causes of 
 the tragical scenes during the revolution in that 
 country, will convince any one that it is not un- 
 important to settle the right meaning of the terms 
 liberty and necessity, and deliver us from the 
 unmeaning use of them. For as Dr. Brown well 
 observes, " to remove a number of cumbrous 
 words is, in many cases, all that is necessary to 
 render distinctly visible, as it were to our very 
 glance, truths which they and they only have 
 been for ages hiding from our view.'* 
 
 Since the understanding, then, to resume our 
 subject, perceives multitudes of truths to be as 
 
100 INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 
 
 they really are and cannot perceive them other- 
 wise ; if, in those instances, the man regulates 
 his will by the decisions of his judgment, he is no 
 longer, it is contended, a free but a strictly ne- 
 cessary agent. The decision of his judgment 
 and determination of his will depend on circum- 
 stances over which he has no command. By 
 these circumstances the man's conduct is and 
 must be determined with the most absolute cer- 
 tainty. He must inevitably judge, and will, and 
 act in a certain manner. No choice nor alterna- 
 tive of conduct is left him. It is vain then, it is 
 argued, to contend for human liberty. If the 
 man act upon his judgment, he is shut up to a 
 certain line of conduct as certainly and as una- 
 voidably as if he were compelled to act under 
 the irresistible law of physical necessity. 
 
 All the facts here stated are frankly admitted ; 
 and it is granted that they do indeed prove a sort 
 of necessity. But let us for a moment consider 
 its nature. It is in truth nothing but the neces- 
 sity which is implied in the proposition, a 
 thing cannot be and not be at the same time ; 
 that is, it is the simple fact of existence. While 
 matter exists, it must be extended, figured and 
 solid ; while grass is green, it must be green ; 
 while the earth revolves, it must be in motion ; 
 and, in like manner, while man remains an in- 
 telligent being, he must perceive truth to the 
 extent of his knowledge. The very essence, as 
 
INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 101 
 
 known to us, of an intelligent and rational being 
 is to perceive truth. To suppose a man indiffer- 
 ent with respect to the perception of all truth, 
 is to conceive him to be no longer an intelligent 
 being. When we say, therefore, that man per- 
 ceives truth to be true, and of necessity cannot 
 perceive it otherwise, we state nothing more than 
 the simple fact, that man is an intelligent crea- 
 ture. 
 
 Mr. Hume's doctrine of necessity, we formerly 
 saw, is the bare trutli, that all the substances and 
 accidents with which we are acquainted, derive 
 their existence from some cause ; that is, it 
 is nothing but the fact of the universal preva- 
 lence of causation. With regard to substances, 
 it states, that all those around us are created 
 beings ; with respect to actions, it affirms that 
 every action implies an agent acting according 
 to the attributes of bis nature. The contrast of 
 the first part of this necessity is self-existence, 
 that is, uncaused, unbeginning existence, which 
 belongs only to the Deity ; who, in this sense, 
 therefore, is the only free being in the universe. 
 The hist part, since we cannot conceive an acci- 
 dent without a subject, nor an action without an 
 agent, has no contrast, unless we find it in the 
 substantial forms of the school-men ; who have 
 the merit of having maintained the reality of 
 something, not only non-existent but inconceiv- 
 able and contradictory, and of having afforded a 
 
102 INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 
 
 fine specimen of words absolutely without mean- 
 ing. The necessity of which we are now speak- 
 ing, though different from Mr. Hume's, and in 
 some respects opposite, is so much the more ir- 
 rational. The mere fact of existence is necessi- 
 ty. The Deity, as being self-existent, is, in this 
 sense, the most necessary of all beings. As an 
 intelligent being, whose understanding and know- 
 ledge is infinite, and who, therefore, perfectly 
 perceives all possible truths, and cannot but per- 
 ceive them, he is placed under an infinitely 
 greater degree of necessity than any of his finite 
 intelligent creatures, who are necessary only in 
 proportion to their intellectual power. The con- 
 trast of this necessity is non-existence. To de- 
 liver any being from the necessity of being what 
 he is, or an intelligent being from the necessity 
 of perceiving truth, he must be annihilated; and 
 then, indeed, he will, in this sense, be perfectly 
 free. Nothing is necessary respecting a non- 
 entity. Deprive a man of his rational and mo- 
 ral faculties, and he will be indifferent to all 
 truths not common to him with the brutes ; but 
 he will still be under the necessity of being a 
 sentient and voluntary agent. Deprive him, 
 again, of sensation and volition, and reduce him to 
 mere matter, and he will be free from the neces- 
 sity of feeling and of spontaneous motion ; but he 
 will still be under the greater necessity of being 
 sohd, extended and figured. Reduce him to a 
 
INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 10^ 
 
 nonentity, and he is completely free from all 
 necessity. He will then be perfectly indifferent 
 to truth, and will no longer be under any neces- 
 sity to think, to judge, or to reason. But while 
 an intelligent and rational mind really exists, 
 he must be under the necessity of doing them 
 all; that is, he must retain the high and glorious 
 attributes which render him what he is, and in 
 which consists all his capabihty of enjoying free- 
 dom. He cannot be and not be simultaneous- 
 
 Hence appears the ridiculous misconception 
 and absurdity of the arguments which are occa- 
 sionally urged against the existence of liberty, 
 that to render man free " he must not be neces- 
 sarily determined to assent to truth only — he 
 must be indifferent to propositions notwithstand- 
 ing any evidence for them — he must be able to 
 reject what appears true to him and assent to 
 what seems to him absurd — he must be capable 
 of judging contrary to reason." Utterly absurd 
 as such suppositions must appear, they are, how- 
 ever, not more inconsistent with the existence of 
 man, as an intelHgent being, than it is inconsis- 
 tent with his existence, as a voluntary agent, to 
 conceive that he can act without motives or in 
 opposition to the strongest. Writers on both 
 sides of the question of liberty and necessity are 
 equally chargeable with the absurdity of main- 
 taining contradictions. They have generally ne- 
 
104 INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 
 
 glected what should have constituted the preli- 
 minary question, the nature of the being respect- 
 ing whose liberty they proposed to inquire. And 
 hence, as might have been anticipated, the liberty 
 of which they have dreamed has, at one time, 
 supposed an intelligent being without intelli- 
 gence ; at another, a voluntary agent without vo- 
 lition. 
 
 It is altogether unreasonable, therefore, to con- 
 sider the mere fact of existence necessity. Be- 
 fore any inquiry can be instituted respecting the 
 necessity or liberty of any being, its existence 
 must be admitted as a matter of fact, and then 
 we may proceed to ascertain how far it enjoys 
 liberty or labours under necessity. In the pre- 
 sent Essay, therefore, we have assumed as the ba- 
 sis of our investigation, that man really is what 
 he is, an intelligent and rational being, that is, 
 that he perceives truth to be true, what is morally 
 right to be right, and, in general, things to be as 
 they really are. 
 
 This fact being admitted, and conducting the 
 inquiry on the true and obvious principle which 
 we have hitherto observed, namely, that the en- 
 joyment of the power peculiar to the nature of 
 the being is freedom, but that weakness is ne- 
 cessity ; what is the liberty which belongs to the 
 human understanding ? Is the man free who, in 
 the exercise of a sound judgment, perceives 
 truth to be as it is, or he who from the weakness 
 
INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 105 
 
 or derangement of his intellectual faculties, 
 judges true what is really false ? Were a propo- 
 sition of Euclid presented to an accomplished 
 geometrician and to a man of weak mind, desti- 
 tute of mathematical knowledge, which would 
 enjoy intellectual freedom ? Would it be he who is 
 able to comprehend nothing about the matter, and 
 who perhaps beUeves an absurdity ; or he whose 
 acute and unclouded intellect at once unravels 
 all the intricacies of a perplexing diagram, traces 
 out all its manifold relations, and quickly beholds 
 the truth in all its force of demonstration ? The 
 answer cannot be mistaken. It were utterly ab- 
 surd to reduce ourselves to the necessity of pro- 
 nouncing weakness and ignorance free, by main- 
 taining that the opposite condition of power and 
 knowledge is necessity. If we will employ the 
 contradistinctive terms, it is obvious to which of 
 the states each of them must be assigned. 
 
 Lord Bacon understood perhaps more than he 
 expressed by his celebrated maxim. Knowledge 
 is power. Knowledge is not only power but 
 freedom. Besides being true in augmenting our 
 animal freedom by extending our control over 
 physical nature, it is true also more directly in 
 reference to the understanding itself. A man's 
 intellectual liberty is exactly commensurate with 
 his knowledge. With respect to what a man does 
 not know, or, from want of capacity, cannot 
 know, he is under necessity. The higher, there- 
 
106 INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 
 
 fore, a creature ascends in the scale of intelligent 
 being, the greater becomes his capacity and the 
 wider his sphere of liberty ; the lower he de- 
 scends the more is he subject to the stern control 
 of necessity, till he sink to the irrational brute or 
 the unconscious clod, which is altogether a neces- 
 sary agent. The Deity alone, whose understand- 
 ing is unlimited, is the only being possessed of 
 absolutely unlimited freedom. As he is almighty 
 in power, his physical freedom is unbounded ; 
 as he is perfectly holy, his moral liberty is infi- 
 nite ; so, since he is the father of lights, infinite 
 in knowledge, his intellectual liberty is equally 
 extensive. Hence, in the mighty chain of being, 
 the nearer any creature approaches to his Crea- 
 tor, if we may be permitted to speak of finite ap- 
 proaching infinity, the wider is his sphere, and 
 the greater his enjoyment of intellectual freedom. 
 A creature, however, it may be remarked, en- 
 joys within his own sphere a perfect, though 
 finite freedom of intellect, when he fully knows 
 all the circumstances and relations in which he 
 is placed, and on which his security and happi- 
 ness depend. Man, therefore, in his primitive 
 state of innocence, enjoyed a perfect, though, 
 no doubt, a very limited freedom. He under- 
 stood all the relations in which he was placed, 
 as a moral being, and by which he required to 
 regulate his conduct ; and hence, by acting on 
 his knowledge and discharging his duty, he pos- 
 
INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 107 
 
 sessed all the means of securing to himself the 
 permanent enjoyment of complete felicity. By 
 extending his sphere of knowledge, he might 
 gratify curiosity, but could add nothing to his 
 happiness ; or, by extending it in a wrong direc- 
 tion, he might involve himself in ruin, as we 
 know has been the case. Hence generally, in com- 
 paring the degree of freedom enjoyed by two 
 beings of different orders, it must not be con- 
 ceived that the additional amount of liberty en- 
 joyed by the being of the higher order implies 
 an equal amount of necessity imposed upon the 
 other. AH beings who enjoy freedom to the ex- 
 tent of their capacity, each within his own sphere, 
 are possessed of a perfect liberty. The brute 
 possesses all the freedom of which it is capable, 
 when, within the inclosures of the meadow on 
 which it grazes, it is able to gratify all its appe- 
 tites and desires ; and it would be absurd to say, 
 that because it does not enjoy moral freedom, it 
 therefore labours under moral necessity. Both 
 moral liberty and necessity, with regard to it, 
 are nonentities ; and it can as little be oppress- 
 ed with the one as rejoice in the possession of 
 the other. The case is exactly similar with re- 
 gard to man and beings of a higher order, or 
 even the Deity himself. The extent of know- 
 ledge, the degree of holiness, and the amount of 
 physical power possessed by an archangel, must 
 vastly surpass our loftiest conceptions, and hence 
 
108 INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 
 
 his sphere of intellectual, moral and physical 
 freedom must, in tlie same degree, be superior ; 
 but the humblest being in the moral creation, 
 who knows the relations in which he stands to 
 God and his fellow creatures, who regulates his 
 will by this knowledge, and who is able to gra- 
 tify his desires, which, when so regulated, must 
 needs be easily gratified, enjoys a freedom as 
 perfect and complete, in all its departments, as 
 the bright occupant of the throne nearest that of 
 the Almighty. The two vessels, to borrow the 
 striking illustration employed by an eminent di- 
 vine for a similar purpose, are of different capa- 
 cities, but they are equally full. Nothing taken 
 from the copious contents of the one can be add- 
 ed to the perfect fulness of the other. In such 
 a state of perfect enjoyment, there is no place 
 for envy ; which must be the vice not less of a 
 miserable than of a wicked being. 
 
 But to return from this digression, it must be 
 admitted that, if we will employ the terms liberty 
 and necessity with any rational meaning, and 
 apply them according to any real diiference in 
 the objects, the intelligent being must be consi- 
 dered free who judges correctly of things as they 
 truly are ; and that he alone who labours under 
 misconception and mistake is enthralled by ne- 
 cessity. To such a being knowledge is power ; 
 his weakness consists in ignorance. 
 
 But with regard to the independent existence 
 
INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 109 
 
 of the circumstances and relations by the percep- 
 tion of which man regulates his volition, if it be 
 still urged that he is under necessity, inasmuch as 
 his perceptions and consequent voUtions are in- 
 fallibly certain, this also is nothing but the neces- 
 sity of existence, and is implied in the fact, that 
 man is an intelligent being; for to a created mind, 
 destitute of innate ideas, there can be no thought 
 or intelligence where there is nothing to be 
 known and understood. It were an insult to the 
 understanding of the reader, in the present age, 
 to offer a refutation of Hartly and Priestley's 
 mechanical theory of association, or to attempt 
 to prove that, in thought, external objects are the 
 mere occasions or subjects, and not the cause. The 
 mind is the sole agent, surrounding objects are 
 the passive subjects of contemplation. Except 
 the objects which produce sensation, whose influ- 
 ence, it appeared, man is perfectly able to con- 
 trol, nothing can become a motive and regulate 
 the will which is not actually perceived and 
 whose relation to us is understood. In the per- 
 ception of the manifold relations of things, the 
 intelligent mind is not less active than in its de- 
 termination of the subsequent volition. The 
 agency and power are solely on the part of the 
 thinking being, and the surrounding objects, 
 which he contemplates, are merely the passive 
 subjects of his thought. And the excellence of 
 this sort of agency consists in the fact, that it is 
 
110 INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 
 
 the power of judging what is right and best, and 
 hence of fixing the will in the manner most con- 
 ducive to the present and future interest of the 
 individual. Man, whether considered as a con- 
 templative being in the perception of truth, or as 
 a moral being in the determination of his will, is 
 the sole agent ; the objects of the universe, which 
 he beholds, are the subjects of his power. He is 
 the sovereign, judging, willing, and command- 
 ing ; they are the obsequious ministers of his 
 pleasure, assiduously presenting objects of 
 thought to his understanding, watching every op- 
 portunity to recreate and delight his senses, con- 
 stantly providing occasion of salutary exercise to 
 his active powers, and thus enabling him, instead 
 of sinking into contemptible imbecility and insig- 
 nificance, to ascend in the scale of intellectual 
 and moral being, till he should be prepared for a 
 nearer approach to the source of all wisdom and 
 knowledge. 
 
 But not to insist longer upon an objection 
 which would declare an intelligent being under 
 necessity, because he has real and not imaginary 
 objects of thought, and has thereby an opportu- 
 nity of exerting the very power and agency in 
 which freedom consists ; let us rather proceed to 
 notice the practical consequences, and to consi- 
 der the argument derived from the certainty of 
 future actions. 
 
 No being but the Deity, when prior to all crea- 
 
INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. Ill 
 
 tion he existed alone in his uncreated glory, has 
 ever been otherwise situated than surrounding by 
 a number of circumstances, by the perception of 
 which he, less or more, regulates his conduct. 
 The first subject of creative power found himself 
 in the relation of a creature towards his God, and 
 placed the Creator himself in a new relation by 
 which, as a moral Governor, unchangeable in 
 justice and holiness He thenceforth unalter- 
 ably determined his conduct towards a moral 
 creature under his administration. As the num- 
 ber of creatures was increased, the extent was 
 enlarged to which the Deity fixed his future ac- 
 tions, with as much absolute certainty as could 
 be those of his creatures by the laws of their con- 
 stitution. Should we hence conclude that the 
 divine freedom was abridged ? No, certainly ; 
 quite the reverse. His liberty, we might rather 
 say, was augmented, inasmuch as he had then 
 an opportunity of enjoying it, by the exercise of 
 his inherent power, which otherwise must have 
 remained for ever inert. Though as a holy moral 
 being He had infallibly fixed, for the future eter- 
 nity, his conduct towards his moral creatures, 
 this necessity was nothing but the fact that, hav- 
 ing determined to act in a certain manner, and 
 having expressed his determination by the crea- 
 tion of moral beings, he would indeed act accord- 
 ing to the rule which He himself had laid down, 
 and not contradict his own decree. The infal- 
 
112 INTELLECTUAL LIBKUTV. 
 
 lible certainty of the future actions, which he 
 has declared his purpose to perform, just proves 
 the irresistible and infinite degree of his power, 
 and hence the infinitude of his moral and physi- 
 cal freedom. 
 
 So groundless then is the supposition that the 
 pre-determination of future actions, by external 
 circumstances, as occasions not as causes, lays an 
 agent under any necessity which is inconsistent 
 with freedom, or rather which itself may not be 
 the most absolute freedom. The fact of tha 
 certainty of future actions, depending, as it does, 
 on causation, is, like it, perfectly indifferent to 
 the question of liberty or necessity. It may be 
 necessity, or it may be liberty, according to the 
 agency employed in the determination. If a 
 being have his actions pre-determined by the 
 power of another, without his approbation and in 
 opposition to his will, he is placed under a real 
 necessity ; but if by his own agency, the more 
 infallibly certain they are, the greater his power 
 and the more extensive his freedom. Hence ap- 
 pears the soundness of the views, on this subject 
 entertained by the vulgar understanding of man- 
 kind, uncorrupted by a false and blundering phi- 
 losophy. A man conscious of his own power, 
 looks forward with full confidence to multitudes 
 of actions which he purposes to perform, and 
 never dreams that because, if nothing unforeseen 
 intervenes, his conduct is fixed, that therefore his 
 
INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 113 
 
 liberty is impaired. He feels himself an agent, 
 and the certainty of his future conduct is enjoy- 
 ed as one of the sweetest fruits of his freedom. 
 He has resolved and feels confident of his ability 
 to perform ; and the more certainly and for the 
 longer period liis future conduct is unalterably 
 determined, the more we admire his powder and 
 the greater is his liberty. Were there any doubt 
 of his performance of the purposed actions, or 
 did we imagine that they were subject to contin- 
 gency, instead of believing him free, we would 
 at once pronounce him weak and subject to a real 
 and painful necessity. But could he, in the ex- 
 ercise of a clear and comprehensive intellect, and 
 prompted by great and aspiring wishes, declare 
 that thus and thus shall I act through life ; and 
 could he, in opposition to every obstacle, with 
 dauntless and unbending resolution, make good 
 his purpose ; he would justly be considered as a 
 man of no ordinary power, and be held to pos- 
 sess a degree of liberty far above that which man- 
 kind usually enjoy. His power and the cer- 
 tainty of his future actions, are exactly commen- 
 surate ; and if he once imagine that the execu- 
 tion of his purpose is contingent, it is from the 
 painful consideration that he is weak, and may 
 want the ability to do as he has determined.* 
 
 * Thus the doctrine of our most holy faith, that God knoweth 
 the end from the beginning, is proved consistent with free agency; 
 nay, it is directly implied in the fact that men are free agents, or 
 
 I 
 
il4 INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 
 
 Though therefore it is peculiar to the Deity, 
 that in all his actions He is only carrying into 
 effect his own decree, which was at first an act 
 of his absolute sovereignty, emanating wholly 
 from himself and independent of all foreign cir- 
 cumstances and relations ; man is really, so far 
 as action is concerned, precisely in a similar si- 
 tuation. The difference consists solely in the 
 manner in which they have been brought into 
 their respective situations, and not in the situa- 
 tion itself or its practical consequences. The 
 Deity, by an act of sovereign power, placed 
 himself in his present relation to his moral crea- 
 tures : man was placed in his present circum- 
 stances, by the will and power of another, with- 
 out his previous consent, which could not be 
 given, when as yet he did not exist ; but after 
 having been placed in their respective relations, 
 the moral Creator, acting according to the immu- 
 table attributes of his being, and the moral crea- 
 ture, acting upon the uncorrupted principles of 
 his nature, are precisely in the same condition 
 with respect to their mode of conduct. 
 
 This is obvious, when it is considered that the 
 mind of man is not an arbitrary thing, formed 
 
 lather that they are agents ; for if a man really be an agent, he is 
 free. This doctrine, as well as others which are generally consid- 
 ered most hostile to liberty, are indeed equally consistent with li- 
 berty or necessity, though certainly incompatible with the imagin- 
 ary liberty of a nonentity — which contingency implies. 
 
S^ or THE '^ 
 
 INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. |(U NI YfiE. S I T i 
 
 upon no model, and acting on principt^ SfitE ^ K^^^^ 
 liar to itself. Revelation informs us that man 
 was created in the image of God. This similarity 
 of man to his Creator respects the Deity, both as 
 an intelligent and moral being ; and consists 
 therefore, as we learn from the same source, in 
 knowledge and moral holiness. Hence human 
 knowledge, though finite, is true knowledge, and 
 differs not in kind from that of God and of supe- 
 rior beings, who possess his image in a higher de- 
 gree. What man, on sufficient evidence, per- 
 ceives to be true, is true also in the sight of 
 God ; and what he perceives to be right, God 
 also judges right. The knowledge of the one is 
 infinite, that of the other exceedingly limited ; 
 but so far as it extends, the finite and the infinite 
 exactly coincide. Whatever, therefore, God sees 
 meet to reveal, as tlie expression of his moral 
 will, enlightened man cannot fail to approve. 
 His natural perceptions of right and wrong, or, as 
 divines express it, the law originally written on 
 his heart, and the revealed law of God speak the 
 same language. Even in the present state of ig- 
 norance and moral corruption, it is the native 
 dictate of the human mind, that all the com- 
 mandments of his Creator are right. The infidel 
 may please himself with the ingenious sophistry 
 with which he attempts to support his paradoxes ; 
 or rather, conscious of his guilt, he may seek to 
 remove the uneasy feelings of self-reproach and 
 
116 INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 
 
 shame, by labouring to convince himself and 
 others of his moral consistency ; but, if he will 
 consult the secret sentiments of his own heart, he 
 will feel constrained to confess, that the law 
 which enjoins nothing but supreme love to God 
 and benevolence to man must needs be holy, 
 just and good. 
 
 Observe then what would be the practical re- 
 sult, were man uniformly regulating his will by 
 the dictates of an enlightened understanding. 
 Judging all the precepts of the divine law right, 
 he would will what God wills, and act as God 
 commands. His volition and the will of the 
 Deity would constantly coincide. The expres- 
 sion of the moral will of God, contained in the 
 sacred Scriptures, would be the supreme and in- 
 variable rule of all his volitions and actions. The 
 moral Creator and the moral creature approving 
 the same thing, the one would will it to be 
 obeyed, the other would dehght to obey. The 
 sentiments of every heart would be those of the 
 generous king of Israel, " Oh how love I thy 
 law ! how sweet are thy words unto my taste ! 
 yea sweeter than honey to my mouth, more to be 
 desired are they than gold, yea much fine gold ; 
 sweeter also than honey, even the honey comb." 
 And what would be the physical consequences 
 of this state of feeling and manner of acting? 
 By the constitution of human nature, and by the 
 appointment of the eternal Governor, happiness 
 
INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 117 
 
 would be the only result. The feeling of a good 
 conscience — that most elevating and delightful 
 of all the states of mind of which a perfect moral 
 being is capable, is the necessary and immediate 
 fruit of moral innocence. And under the go- 
 vernment of a just and holy being, perfect hap- 
 piness is the certain condition of all his innocent 
 creatures. Innocence and happiness are indisso- 
 lubly connected, both by our constitution and by 
 divine justice. Light and heat do not more ne- 
 cessarily flow from the sun, while the present 
 constitution of the universe remains unchanged, 
 then is perfect felicity the consequence of moral 
 innocence. The apostle spoke not less truly as a 
 mental philosopher than as an inspired teacher of 
 the Gentiles in faith and verity, when he laid 
 down the. grand principle of the divine adminis- 
 tration with respect to innocent beings, " glory, 
 honour, and peace to every man that worketh 
 good, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile." 
 
 Such, then, is the only necessity, if, for want of 
 a better, we may still employ the term, under 
 which man is laid by his uncorrupted con- 
 stitution. It is the necessity of being wise, vir- 
 tuous, and happy, or, as the apostle finely ex- 
 presses it, of seeking glory, honour, and immor- 
 tality. To escape from this glorious necessity, 
 an intelligent and moral being, while he actually 
 exists, has no alternative but to be foolish, vi- 
 cious, and wretched ; and then, indeed, he is in 
 
118 INTELLECTUAL LIBEllTY. 
 
 a condition most remote from a state of freedom. 
 There is no medium between these two opposite 
 conditions 5 for it is utterly unmeaning to talk of 
 indifference being essential to a state of liberty. 
 For an intelligent being to be indifferent to truth, 
 he must become an idiot, or, rather, indeed, be 
 annihilated ; and the moral being, who is indif- 
 ferent to virtuous conduct, if not enthralled by a 
 degrading necessity, is just at the point which 
 separates servitude from fireedom, and is lost to 
 virtue, if not abandoned to vice. To consider 
 indifference as necessary to freedom is to forget 
 a first principle of the right mode of philosophiz- 
 ing, and to borrow our conceptions of moral 
 beings from the equilibrium of a balance, and not 
 from the nature of the beings themselves. The 
 more firmly and immutably a moral agent is at- 
 tached to moral rectitude, the greater is his mo- 
 ral power and the greater becomes his moral li- 
 berty. We say of our friend, whose character 
 we admire and on whose firm and unwavering 
 principle we rely with perfect confidence, that he 
 cannot commit such and such a crime ; and we 
 well know that the strength of his generous and 
 pious feelings rendei-s any act of meanness mo- 
 rally impossible ; but that, in given circumstances, 
 he will, with absolute certainty, act in a manner 
 becoming himself. If it be otherwise, it is a 
 proof of his weakness and degradation, and of the 
 moral imperfection of his present condition. The 
 
INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. HQ 
 
 conduct of the Deity alone, as possessed of infi- 
 nite physical, moral and intellectual power, and, 
 therefore, infinitely free, is immutably determin- 
 ed. Had man, in like manner, kept his first 
 estate and acted upon the law of his constitution, 
 his conduct, with respect to his Creator and his 
 fellow-creatures, had been determined for eter- 
 nity, when, by the inspiration of God, he became 
 a living soul ; and never would he have been, as 
 he now is, enthralled by the galling yoke of a 
 degrading necessity. 
 
 Mr. Locke, though he did not fully under- 
 stand the doctrine of liberty, was too sound a 
 philosopher, and too well acquainted with human 
 nature, to conceive the fact of existence incom- 
 patible with freedom. " Is it worth the name 
 of freedom," he indignantly demands, " to be 
 at liberty to play the fool and draw shame and 
 misery upon a man's self? If to break loose 
 from the conduct of reason, and to want that re- 
 straint of examination and judgment which keeps 
 us from clioosing and doing the worse, be liber- 
 ty, madmen and fools are the only freemen. But 
 yet, I think, nobody would choose to be mad 
 for the sake of such liberty, but he that is mad 
 already. The constant desire of happiness, and 
 the constraint it puts upon us to act for it, no- 
 body, I think, accounts an abridgement of liber- 
 ty 5 or, at least, an abridgement of liberty to be 
 complained o£ God Almighty himself is under 
 
120 INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 
 
 the necessity of being happy ; and the more any 
 inteUigent being is so, the nearer is its approach 
 to infinite perfection and happiness." * 
 
 This is the true doctrine of Uberty. That the 
 Deity is infinitely wise and holy, and perfectly 
 happy, are matters of fact ; which must be, sim- 
 ply because they are. ** I am that I am," the 
 name by which Jehovah revealed himself to 
 Moses, states the whole doctrine of this necessi- 
 ty. The more any intelligent and moral crea- 
 ture resembles his Creator in these attributes, 
 the higher his perfection and the greater his free- 
 dom. The enlightened understanding and the 
 holy heart truly constitute the freeman. When an 
 intelligent being perceives true what is true, and 
 right what is really right, he is under no neces- 
 sity which is not necessarily implied in the fact, 
 that he is ; and from which, therefore, he can 
 be delivered only by annihilation. But who 
 would be annihilated in order to escape so glo- 
 rious a necessity ? It is nothing but the delight- 
 ful fact, that the Eternal has called us out of 
 dreary nothing to constitute a part, and no con- 
 temptible part, of his moral universe, and to share 
 that intelligence and holiness which form the 
 strength and the beauty of his own moral cha- 
 racter. Away then for ever with the hateful 
 name and doctrine of necessity, dishonourable to 
 God and degrading to man, of which the very 
 * Human Understanding, Book IL Chap. 2L § 60. 
 
INTELLECTUAL LIBERTY. 121 
 
 suspicion strikes at the root of all the moral worth 
 of the universe, and chokes every generous and 
 grateful emotion. Let the man whom the divine 
 Redeemer has made free rejoice in his freedom, 
 with joy unspeakable and full of glory, knowing 
 that by the grace of God he now is, and hence- 
 forth, secured by the power and faithfulness of 
 his Redeemer, shall he coeval with his Creator. 
 
122 MORAL NECESSITY, 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 MAN, IN THE EXERCISE OF HIS UNDERSTANDING, IS 
 OCCASIONALLY UNABLE TO REGULATE THE DE- 
 TERMINATIONS OF HIS WILL ; THAT IS, IS SUB- 
 JECT TO MORAL NECESSITY. 
 
 We have now considered man as an animal, a 
 moral and an intellectual being, and we have 
 found that in all these characters he is possessed 
 of freedom. As an animal or voluntary agent, he 
 is free, because he acts as he wills ; as a moral 
 agent, because he wills as he judges right ; and 
 thus it has appeared that the whole question of 
 liberty is ultimately to be resolved into the plain 
 fact, that man is an intelligent and thinking 
 being. We next proceed to inquire whether his 
 liberty is subject to limitations. 
 
 As a finite being, his intellectual and volun- 
 tary freedom are of course limited, though not 
 thereby necessarily imperfect and incomplete; for 
 as an intelligent being, he is not conceived to at- 
 tempt, like Icarus, to rival the flight of the eagle, 
 or like the giants, to pile Ossa on Pelion to scale 
 the heavens ; and if he know all that concerns 
 his present and future security and happiness, 
 and is able to execute all his volitions, he enjoys 
 
MORAL NECESSITY. V23 
 
 a freedom commensurate with his capacity. Moml 
 liberty alone in a perfect finite being, admits of 
 no limitations ; for so long as he retains his inno- 
 cence, he must invariably will as his understand- 
 ing directs, and discharge all the duties which 
 conscience enjoins. But this degree of liberty, in 
 consequence of the derangement which sin has 
 produced in the moral, political, and physical 
 worlds, is not in the present state enjoyed. Ani- 
 mal w^eakness, poverty, the opposition of others, 
 civil tyranny and numerous other untoward cir- 
 cumstances, frequently frustrate his fondest and 
 most approved purposes, and blast his brightest 
 hopes. With regard to intellectual freedom, too, 
 mental weakness, the want of information, preju- 
 dice and many circumstances of a similar ten- 
 dency, often render him unable to perceive truths 
 in which his welfare is deeply concerned. But as 
 neither animal nor intellectual necessity directly 
 involve the momentous distinction of innocence 
 or guilt, nor produce consequences which affect 
 his condition in an after life, nothing more res- 
 pecting them requires here to be said. Moral 
 liberty only is the subject of inquiry. 
 
 In proving the existence of moral freedom, it 
 will be recollected, we did not attempt to esta- 
 blish any universal principle, but considered it 
 enough to point out some instances in which man 
 is confessedly free, and leave it to be here ascer- 
 tained whether or not this liberty is subject to li- 
 
124 MORAL NECESSITY. 
 
 mitations. We there illustrated the general and 
 what, had man remained unfallen, must have been 
 the universal law of his moral constitution ; and 
 the object of the present section is to point out 
 and illustrate the exceptions to this law, and con- 
 sider man not as he should be, but as he really 
 is. 
 
 It has been long a received maxim among 
 philosophers, that the will is always fixed ac- 
 cording to the last dictate of the understanding. 
 President Edwards has clearly stated, and the 
 analysis of volition formerly given proves the 
 correctness of his views, that the only judg- 
 ment which uniformly accompanies the deter- 
 minations of the will is, that the object of vo- 
 lition is, at the time, the most agreeable con- 
 duct the man can adopt. To render any 
 thing most agreeable, it must become the 
 object of predominant desire ; and since the 
 predominant desire invariably involves volition, 
 that a man prefers, chooses, or judges most 
 agreeable what he wills to perform, must be in- 
 variably true. So far and no farther does the 
 judgment uniformly approve of the vohtion. 
 The action which the man resolves to perform is 
 judged, of all present alternatives, the most con- 
 ducive to his enjoyment ; in other words, he 
 desires it most, and, as a voluntary agent, he 
 necessarily wills it. 
 
 In cases of moral liberty, there is, besides this 
 judgment, the additional conviction, if the action 
 
MORAL NECESSITY. ISo 
 
 is moral, that it is right; if of a prudential na- 
 ture, that it is most advantageous upon the 
 whole. Whether such a decision of understand- 
 ing or conscience sanctions every vohtion, is our 
 present inquiry. 
 
 That this question is to be answered in the ne- 
 gative, scarcely any body will deny. No writer, 
 worthy of notice, holds a contrary opinion. All 
 the moralists, from Solomon and Socrates, to the 
 present day, agree in describing and deploring 
 the folly and wilful wickedness of men ; and 
 every one's daily experience must convince him 
 that their complaints are not without foundation. 
 Whenever a man does what he knows to be 
 wrong, he presents an instance of moral neces- 
 sity. I have acted wrong, I have sinned, my 
 conscience condemns me, I should have acted 
 otherwise, are the familiar expressions which state 
 the fact; and we have just, as formerly, to ap- 
 peal to those who use such language to prove 
 the truth of the principle in question, by an ex- 
 planation of their meaning. All that requires to be 
 done, therefore, in this place, is to illustrate the 
 process by which the man is deprived of his moral 
 freedom, and laid under the influence of necessity. 
 By the analysis of volition formerly given, 
 it appeared that the desire, or in cases in which 
 conflicting desires are experienced, the pre- 
 dominant desire of any thing which we believe 
 to be in our own power, constantly involves the 
 
196 MORAL NECESSITY. 
 
 determination of the will, or nither, in these cir- 
 cumstances, is itself an act of volition. To show 
 then how the will may be determined, in oppo- 
 sition to the conscience or understanding, we 
 have only to consider the circumstances on which 
 the strength of desires depends. If any circum- 
 stance, independent of the understanding, is 
 found able to give predominant vigour to any 
 desire, the same cause, of course, accounts for 
 the existence of disapproved volition. 
 
 The common error of metaphysicians, observes 
 a celebrated philosopher, who, when he had no 
 paradox to support, nor Christian doctrine to 
 subvert, must be allowed to have been a most 
 acute observer of facts — the common error of 
 metaphysicians, says he in his Discourse on the 
 Passions, has been in ascribing the direction of 
 the will entirely to reason, and supposing passion 
 to have no influence. There are two principal 
 circumstances on which the strength of a desire 
 depends : the strength of the susceptibility, and 
 the amount of perceived good by which it is ad- 
 dressed. Were there no susceptibility adapted 
 to a particular object, it is plain that no percep- 
 tion of it could awaken any feeling ; and it is 
 as plain that the strength of the feeling must al- 
 ways be in proportion to the strength of the sus- 
 ceptibility, as well as to the magnitude of the 
 object which addresses it. These two circum- 
 stances combined determine the strength of any 
 
MORAL NECESSITY. 127 
 
 desire. A great susceptibility, addressed by a 
 weak motive, may produce as vivid a desire as 
 the most powerful motive, when the susceptibi- 
 lity is weak ; and in every instance, the greatest 
 susceptibility, addressed by the most powerful 
 motive, will necessarily give birth to the most 
 intense desire. 
 
 That the various susceptibilities of our sentient 
 nature are found, in different individuals, of very 
 different degrees of strength, is a truth familiar 
 to all. It is this which is the cause of the varie- 
 ty of disposition and original character observ- 
 able among men. One man is naturally of an 
 irritable temper, a second timid, a third compas- 
 sionate, a fourth prone to sensuality. This dif- 
 ference in the natural strength of some of the sus- 
 ceptibilities does not always imply a like difference 
 in all, which would constitute superior strength of 
 character ; but in the same mind, one susceptibi- 
 lity is strong, another weak ; and generally, on ac- 
 count of the moral corruption of human nature, the 
 virtuous and higher susceptibilities are too feeble, 
 while the vicious and animal propensities possess 
 an undue degree of strength. To prove and il- 
 lustrate these facts, the slightest knowledge of 
 human character, or of the moral condition of 
 men in every age, will suffice. Vice has hither- 
 to been more prevalent than virtue ; and while 
 comparatively few have been eminently distin- 
 guished by the latter, myriads have been sunk to 
 
128 MORAL NECESSITY. 
 
 the lowest degree of moral degradation by the 
 former. 
 
 But leaving this subject to the moralist, the fact 
 of various susceptibilities of feeling and passion 
 being found in very different degrees is undisput- 
 ed. Let two men then of equally correct and 
 well informed judgment, but having any suscep- 
 tibility in different degrees of strength, contem- 
 plate any object addressed to that susceptibility, 
 and it will be seen how far the vividness of feel- 
 ing depends upon the understanding. With the 
 same judgment of the intrinsic magnitude of the 
 motive, the one may experience the livehest 
 emotion or be excited perhaps to passion, while 
 the other may remain unmoved. Let the same 
 individuals of dispositions so contrary, contem- 
 plate another object addressed to another suscep- 
 tibility, and their experience may be just the 
 reverse. Such instances are not uncommon in 
 daily life. And in all such cases, the difference 
 in the strength of the susceptibility is the sole 
 cause of the variety in the vividness of the feel- 
 ing to which it gives birth. A thief may have 
 the love of money so strong, and the feelings of 
 conscience so seared ; or the man of strict inte- 
 grity may be so moderate in his desire of wealth, 
 and have the susceptibility of moral disapproba- 
 tion so keen, that the perceived importance of 
 the motive, addressed to both, would have com- 
 paratively little influence in determining the rela- 
 
MORAL NECESSITY. 129 
 
 live strength of tlie desire which is produced. 
 A shiUing will prove a greater temptation to the 
 one than the largest possible sum to the other, 
 though both individuals may differ little in their 
 estimate of the real value of the object. The 
 rich miser may accept the bribe which the man 
 oppressed with all the evils of poverty and want 
 would reject with indignation. 
 
 In all cases of this nature, the judged value 
 of the object is but one, and often the least im- 
 portant of the circumstances which determine 
 the strength of an external motive, and enable it 
 to excite desire. The strength of the suscepti- 
 bility is the principle source of its power. The 
 man indeed may judge the thing highly valuable, 
 and certainly most desirable, but it is only from 
 its adaptation to gratify his violent passion, and 
 not from the perceived and intrinsic value of the 
 object itself; in the same manner as a man dis- 
 tressed with hunger strongly desires food, and 
 therefore attaches a high value to that which ap- 
 peases his craving appetite. The judgment, in 
 such a case, is not the result of an enlightened 
 understanding, estimating things as they really 
 are, but of a depraved susceptibility and an 
 imperious passion, over which, it may be, by a 
 course of vicious indulgence, the man has lost 
 all control. 
 
 This (act then of the undue strength and weakr 
 ness of certain susceptibiUties lays a ground for 
 
130 MORAL NECESSITY. 
 
 the will's being determined in opposition to the 
 understanding. But though it explains the man* 
 ner in which the volition may be at first fixed, it 
 does not account for all the satisfaction with 
 which disapproved volitions are usually attend* 
 ed. The consciousness of willing what we con* 
 demn naturally gives rise to the feeling of dis- 
 approbation, and to other painful feelings which, 
 even in the most depraved mind, are scarcely 
 ever altogether extinct; and were there not 
 another principle in human nature which delivers 
 us from this uneasiness, we would much less fre- 
 quently feel satisfaction in the commission of 
 what we know to be wrong, and imagine that 
 pleasure can be the attendant of guilt. 
 
 The principle to which I now allude is the 
 fact, that every sensation or feeling draws the 
 attention of the mind towards its object ; and 
 when therefore a number of feelings are present 
 together, the most vivid secures to its object the 
 greatest share of the attention. This is just the 
 principle which we formerly noticed, under what 
 we took the liberty to term the sentient law of 
 Association, Though now, in consequence of 
 the moral corruption of human nature, it is, like 
 9.11 our other powers, frequently perverted, it is 
 evidently calculated to serve most important pur- 
 poses in the economy of mind ; and is, as was 
 hinted before, the principle by which the wisdom 
 of our Creator has put the thinking powers, to a 
 C^rtmn extent, under our voluntary direction, 
 
MORAL NECESSITY. 131 
 
 The principle itself is familiar to all. Every 
 one must have felt how irresistibly his mind is 
 drawn towards any object which strongly engages 
 his affections. In some cases, as in that of violent 
 love, the mental abstraction is proverbial. The 
 mind, though powerfully solicited by numerous 
 present objects, finds itself carried away, by agen^ 
 tie but irresistible influence, towards the beloved 
 object which occupies the heart, and in the men- 
 tal contemplation of it, finds the whole attention 
 engrossed, to the exclusion of every other sub^ 
 ject of consideration. 
 
 This principle then, combined with the undue 
 strength of certain susceptibilities, accounts for 
 the anomalous fact, that the volitions of a rational 
 being are occasionally fixed without the sanction 
 of the understanding. Let two susceptibiUties 
 of an opposite tendency, one of which is strong 
 and the other weak, be addressed by their proper 
 motives, and observe the result. Two conflict- 
 ing feelings are instantly aroused, the one lively 
 and the other languid, and both solicit the atten^ 
 tion of the mind. The .stronger one, by the 
 principle last described, secures to its own object 
 a greater share of the attention, and in the same 
 proportion withdraws it from the object of the 
 feeling by which it is opposed. It thus obtains 
 a double advantage in strengthening itself and 
 weakening its rival ; and as soon as one of the 
 incompatible motives gains the decided ascend- 
 
132 MORAL NECESSITY. 
 
 ancy, the volition is fixed and action follows of 
 course.* 
 
 With this process every one who has been in 
 the habit of reflecting on the operations of his 
 own mind must be well acquainted. By the man 
 of sanguine temper, especially, it must have fre- 
 quently been experienced to his cost. Though 
 perfectly convinced of the impropriety, or rather 
 sinfulness of the undue indulgence of passion, 
 and how degrading to his character and hurtful 
 to his interests its gratification must prove, and 
 though determined by every interesting and 
 powerful consideration to check its impetuosity ; 
 let some sudden provocation be offered him, and 
 his settled judgment and previous resolutions 
 prove feeble barriers against the rising emotion. 
 The feeling of resentment instantly springs up, 
 his attention is engrossed, other considerations 
 are overlooked and excluded, he looks only at 
 the injury which has been done him, and judg- 
 ing from his partial view of the circumstances, 
 resolves to take a step, against which all his vir- 
 tue and prudence had combined to guard him, 
 and which perhaps he will never cease to regret. 
 
 In many cases of violent passion, the general 
 principle holds true, that the man acts upon the 
 decision of his understanding. By the influence 
 of the principle stated above, he takes a partial 
 
 # See the adnoirable views of Locke on this subject, Note E, 
 
MORAL NECESSITY. 133 
 
 viewofllie circumstances and consequences of 
 his conduct, and forming his judgment on that 
 alone, he seems to himself to act as rational a 
 part as when, in the season of deUberate thought, 
 he exercises all his powers, and calmly exa- 
 mines all the relations and consequences of his 
 conduct, before he form his resolution. This is 
 true, however, only when the passion is extreme- 
 ly violent, and when the man has lost all self- 
 command. In the great majority of instances of 
 moral necessity, the individual retains the use of 
 his reason so far as to see clearly enough, that 
 his conduct is wrong ; while, by tlie prevailing 
 power of the disallowed feeling, he is hurried for- 
 ward to gratify his desire, though its gratification 
 is mingled with the painful feelings arising from 
 self-reproach and conscious guilt. His conduct 
 is wrong, he will acknowledge, at least to him- 
 self if not to others, — it is foolish, it is absurd, it 
 may prove ruinous ; but it is the most agreeable, 
 and he is resolved so to act. This is indeed the 
 only reason which can, in every instance, be 
 given. The action is the most conducive to his 
 present happiness ; and man, as a voluntary 
 agent, is determined to perform it. This being 
 his resolution, he naturally favours the principle 
 of sentient association, and endeavours to shut 
 out all better considerations, which to him at the 
 time are necessarily painful ; and when he suc- 
 ceeds in having his attention completely engross- 
 ed with the sinful desire, its gratification affords 
 
i34f MORAL NECESSITY. 
 
 iinmingled enjoyment. Such pleasure, however, 
 in a mind not wholly depraved, is dearly pur- 
 chased by succeeding pain. When the forbid- 
 den passion is extinguished by gratification, the 
 mind recovers its self-possession, considers all the 
 consequences of th^ action, and calls forth the 
 feeling of remorse, as the immediate avenger of 
 guilt, and as the solemn and awful monitor of 
 the tribulation and anguish which, by the law of 
 our constitution as well as by the law of God, 
 are due to acts of moral transgression. 
 
 To these principles is chiefly to be attributed 
 the well-known infatuating influence of passion ; 
 but there is another fact which, as a source of hu- 
 man delusion, deserves notice in passing. After 
 a violent passion, gratified without the approba- 
 tion of the understanding, has subsided, remorse 
 and penitence, in minds not hopelessly depraved, 
 generally succeed. In these moments, a man is 
 filled with horror at the moral turpitude of his 
 conduct, wonders how he could act so foolish a 
 part, and believes that were he again exposed to 
 the same temptation, he would not fail to resist 
 it with success. This is not altogether a delusive 
 feeling, as Lord Kaimes imagined. Though the 
 external motive should* remain the same, or be- 
 come more powerful, the state of the mind has 
 undergone so considerable a change, that there 
 is frequently no probability that were the same 
 temptation again presented, it would really pre- 
 vail. A man smarting under the remorse and 
 
MORAL NECESSITY. 133 
 
 sliame which a fit of resentment has brought up- 
 on him, willj with serenity and dignity, sustain 
 an injury much more galHng than that which, a 
 httle before, he deemed intolerable. Hence, in 
 the seasons of repentance, men consulting their 
 present feelings alone, without considering the 
 changes which take place in their minds, conceive 
 it impossible that they should ever again commit 
 the offence which they so keenly regret, and form 
 resolutions to that effect. These purposes are, 
 at the time, perfectly sincere, and are supported 
 by moral power sufficient to carry them into ex- 
 ecution. It is not till time has produced a change 
 in the mental circumstances, by allaying the feel- 
 ings of penitence and regret, and by restoring the 
 susceptibilities of an opposite tendency to their 
 wonted vigour, that the man discovers, that his 
 most resolute purposes rest upon no surer foun- 
 dation than mutable and transient emotion. Let 
 the sensualist rise from the couch on which he 
 has suffered for his intemperance, and on which 
 perhaps, in the view of death, he uttered the most 
 ardent vows and conceived the strongest resolu- 
 tions, and be once more exposed to the tempta- 
 tion which he fondly believed could never again 
 prevail, and he finds himself, as before, placed un- 
 der the same irresistible law of moral neces- 
 sity. 
 
 Moral necessity, it is to be recollected, is so 
 called merely from the difference of the subjects, 
 
136 MORAL NECESSITY. 
 
 and not from any essential difference which sub- 
 sists between it and the necessity usually termed 
 physical. They both depend on the same prin- 
 ciple of causation ; and are equally absolute and 
 certain in their results. The common belief of 
 the difference which is imagined to subsist be- 
 tween them is a mistake, in consequence of the 
 multiplicity of circumstances on which moral 
 effects depend. Moral causes, that is, moral 
 agents acting in certain circumstances, are con- 
 nected with their effects as indissolubly and in- 
 variably as cause and effect are universally ac- 
 knowledged to be in the physical world; and it is 
 in this indeed that all their power consists. This 
 truth, however, as was formerly seen, lays no 
 foundation for the absurd and unchristian doc- 
 trine of fatalism. Intelligent agents, as shall after- 
 wards appear, have the power of altering the cir- 
 cumstances, and hence of varying the effects in 
 the manner which they judge proper. 
 
 With regard to the degree of moral necessity^ 
 if the certainty of the result is alone considered, 
 no gradations are conceivable. Every cause pro- 
 duces its effect with absolute certainty. Though, 
 in popular language, we talk of chance and con- 
 tingency, when we mean nothing more than that 
 the cause of a particular event is unknown to us, 
 we never imagine that any effect takes place 
 without a cause, or that a cause, when left to 
 operate without opposition, does not involve the 
 
OF THE 
 MORAL NECESSITY. /?TT JT T TT^fCfc S I T Y 
 
 absolute certainty olM:he effect, fl^^t^iile, ifty . v^\^^ 
 this sense, there can be no degrees eitfter of li- 
 berty nor necessity, in another, and in the pro- 
 per sense, they are capable of gradations. Com- 
 parative power and weakness are the sources of 
 these two contrary states ; and as the former are 
 confessedly possessed in very different degrees, 
 the same is true also of the latter. A man who 
 endeavours to remove an obstacle which offers 
 resistance but a few pounds greater than the ut- 
 most degree of his muscular strength, is subject 
 to a less degree of necessity than he would be, 
 were he to attempt to change the site of a moun- 
 tain. A little mechanical ingenuity would gain 
 his purpose in the one case ; no possible con- 
 trivance nor effort could enable him to gratify 
 his desire in the other. In like manner, a man 
 is under a much higher degree of moral necessity, 
 when hurried away by the overwhelming vio- 
 lence of some habitual and confirmed passion, than 
 when he is gently and softly drawn by the influ- 
 ence of a desire, which is powerfully opposed, 
 and all but overcome by another motive which 
 his judgment approves. In the one case, no ar- 
 gument nor motive has any power to check the 
 impetuosity of the guilty passion ; in the other, 
 the sight of a friend, the least hint, the view of 
 a landscape or a picture, or any other circum- 
 stance the most trivial, will divert his attention, 
 and change his scarcely formed purpose. 
 
 The original ground of moral necessity is laid, 
 
138 MORAL NECESSITY. 
 
 as has just been stated, in the fact that, in con- 
 sequence of the moral corruption of our nature, 
 the animal susceptibihties, and those of a vicious 
 tendency are too strong ; while those of a virtu- 
 ous and religious character are too weak. A 
 number of circumstances combine to strengthen 
 the causes of moral servitude 5 but as we can- 
 not here enter into detail, it may be enough to 
 mention what is usually termed hahity as the chief 
 circumstance in which all the rest unite their in- 
 fluence. By the expression, habit, or the influ- 
 ence of habit, is meant merely the fact, that any 
 faculty often exercised, or any susceptibility or 
 feeling frequently indulged, acquires a greater 
 degree of strength ; while on the other hand, a 
 faculty and susceptibility neglected, or a feeling 
 frequently suppressed, loses its original power. 
 This fact is a general law of the human consti- 
 tution, regarding man as an animal, an intelli- 
 gent, and chiefly as a moral agent. It is not 
 an original faculty as Dr. Reid imagines, but 
 a fact which regards all our faculties ; nor is it, 
 according to Dr. Brown, to be reduced to 
 simple suggestion ; for it regards man in all 
 his capacities, bodily as well as mental, and 
 not merely as a thinking and sentient being. 
 In a being infinite in all perfection, the influ- 
 ence of habit, of course, can have no place. It 
 seems the law of our constitution, by which the 
 Deity has provided for the progressive improve- 
 ment of his finite creatures in intelligence and 
 
MORAL NECESSITY. 139 
 
 moral worth. But though originally designed 
 and admirably calculated to raise mankind in 
 the scale of being, when perverted and abused, 
 as was remarked respecting another law, it ne- 
 cessarily secures their intellectual and moral de- 
 gradation. By the influence of this principle, 
 there is no resting place in the progress of a mo- 
 ral being like man : — he must either advance in 
 knowledge and virtue, or gradually sink into a 
 state of mental imbecility and moral worthless- 
 ness. 
 
 Let a man then repeatedly indulge any vicious 
 propensity, in opposition to the dictates of his 
 conscience, and habit begins to exert its influ- 
 ence. The vicious susceptibilities and passions 
 acquire new strength, and the feelings of disap- 
 probation and remorse, and others of a virtuous 
 tendency are, in the same proportion, weakened. 
 Let the process go on for a length of time, and 
 the sinful passion grows beyond all control, the 
 conscience becomes seared, and all the barriers, 
 which, by our constitution, have been raised 
 against the encroachments of vice, are gradually 
 broken dowp. In proportion as the vicious sus- 
 ceptibility becomes acute and the feeling result- 
 ing from it strong, the susceptibilities and feel- 
 ings of an opposite tendency are weakened ; 
 and thus, while the man naturally finds greater 
 enjoyment in the indulgence of the guilty passion, 
 he loses his power to resist its influence. In the 
 
140 MORAL NECESSITY. 
 
 beginning of his career, the sinful desire was per- 
 haps so nearly counterbalanced by his better 
 feelings, that had he been placed in more favour- 
 able circumstances — a little less exposed to 
 temptation, a little better instructed, and asso- 
 ciated with companions of a different character, 
 the feeling, which has now become the ruling 
 passion, might have been completely suppressed 
 by better principles, and have never overleaped 
 the bounds of duty. He was then almost in that 
 state of indifference, which if not liberty, as 
 has been most falsely supposed, is the turning 
 point between liberty and necessity. Habit 
 would have inclined the almost even scales either 
 way, and might easily, by the attention of others 
 in conveying instruction, and guarding the in- 
 dividual from temptation, have turned the beam 
 to the side of freedom and virtue. Vicious in- 
 dulgence quickly effects his complete enthral- 
 ment ; for it is a lamentable truth that, in the 
 present state of human corruption, habits of vice 
 are much more speedily formed than those of 
 virtue. A guilty passion soon usurps the domi- 
 nion of the heart, and suppresses and extin- 
 guishes every better feeling by which it could be 
 opposed ; and then with respect to that passion, 
 the moral feedom of the individual is totally, 
 and so far as depends on human power, hope- 
 lessly lost. 
 
 In this process of moral degradation and en- 
 
MORAL NECESSITY. 141 
 
 thralment, the judgment is weakened as well as 
 the approved susceptibilities and feelings. We 
 forbear to inquire whether, as the ground of the 
 well known maxim, what we desire we easily be- 
 lieve, the will exerts any influence upon the un- 
 derstanding, in the same direct manner that the 
 understanding acts upon the susceptibilities, in 
 the excitement of feeling and emotion. Though 
 there are some curious facts which might seem to 
 support the affirmative, it appears, after careful 
 examination, improbable that it does ; and the 
 principle of sentient association alone seems suffi- 
 cient to account for all the phenomena.* But 
 whether or not the will exercises any direct in- 
 fluence over the understanding, every one who 
 has cultivated his mind by the study of any 
 science is aware, that the intellectual powers are 
 subject to the influence of habit. As by frequent 
 
 * " Intellectus humanus luminis sicci non est ; sed accipit infu- 
 sionem a voluntate et affectibus : id quod general ad quod vult 
 scientias. Quod enim raavult homo verura esse id potius credit. 
 Rejicit itaque difficilia, ob inquirendi impatientiam ; sobria, quia 
 coarctant spem ; altiora naturae, propter superstitionem ; lumen 
 experientiae, propter arrogantiam et fastura, ne videatur mens 
 versari in vilibus et fluxis ; paradoxa, propter opinionem vulgi ; 
 denique innumeris modis iisque interdum iraperceptibilibus, afiec- 
 tus intellectum imbuit et inficit." — Nov. Organuniy Aphor. 49. It 
 is to the principle of sentient association that all these eflPects are 
 to be ascribed. This principle alone will explain how it happens 
 that, in the warmth of controversy, men equally candid and up- 
 riciht take very different views, and support very opposite opinions; 
 and any one acquainted with this profound and admirable apho- 
 rism of Bacon, will not conceive every man dishonest and a villain, 
 who, in such circumstances, when a variety of feelings are excited, 
 acts an uncandid, and, it may be, a dishonest part. 
 
142 MORAL NECESSITY. 
 
 exercise in the contemplation of any class of 
 truths, the intellect acquires a vigour and acute- 
 ness which at first it may have seemed impossible 
 to possess, so by the want of cultivation, it loses 
 its original energy. No man can habitually in- 
 dulge any criminal passion without, in a great 
 measure, discarding the consideration of right 
 and wrong. Perceptions of this nature are the 
 certain source of uneasiness, and the less fre- 
 quently they are possessed the greater will be his 
 enjoyment in the commission of crime. He will 
 not therefore recur to them unless when forced 
 upon his attention from without ; and thus habit 
 will be allowed to exert its full influence. Hence 
 his moral perceptions will become feeble, confus- 
 ed and obscure. And though it does not appear 
 that the understanding, when not destroyed by 
 insanity, can be rendered altogether insensible of 
 moral distinctions, the perceptions of right and 
 wrong may be rendered so feeble and indistinct 
 as to be practically inefficient. And besides the 
 usual influence of habit, sensual indulgence pro- 
 duces an effect on the understanding similar to 
 that of old age. A sort of mental palsy seizes 
 the intellect of the habitual debauchee, and he 
 becomes incapable of forming any large, distinct 
 and vigorous conceptions of moral truths. His 
 enfeebled faculties, no longer directed to their 
 proper objects, by the feelings of which his sear- 
 ed conscience has lost, in a great measure, the 
 susceptibility, and warped by the guilty propen- 
 
MORAL NECESSITY. 143 
 
 sities by which his heart is possessed, scarcely 
 serve to convince him that there is any real dif- 
 ference in actions except in their effects. He 
 first palliates his crimes and then defends them. 
 The action indeed is not in itself right, he may 
 admit, but, in his particular case, there are so 
 many alleviating circumstances, that surely he is 
 not much to be blamed. He would at once con- 
 demn the same fault in another ; but in that case 
 he considers, it may be, only the aggravations : 
 in his own, the palHating circumstances alone are 
 taken into view. He thus neglects one precept 
 of the divine law, and violates another, till every 
 command of the decalogue has been trodden un- 
 der foot ; and still he sees not how sin should be 
 considered so criminal, and how he can be de- 
 serving of the punishment which God and man 
 have pronounced to be due to moral transgres- 
 sion. Though the conclusion which the Author 
 of the Treatise of Human Nature would draw 
 against the reahty of moral distinctions is not to 
 be admitted, his premises state but the fact, that 
 the grossest crimes, by frequent repetition, seem 
 to the criminal himself to lose their moral turpi- 
 tude. As to all practical effects, at least, the 
 statement is true ; and when the influence of 
 habit is considered in conjunction with the nu- 
 merous feelings, which, in a mind conscious of 
 guilt and determined to persevere in its criminal 
 course, favour and augment its effect, it is not 
 difficult to account for the fact. 
 
144? MORAL NECESSITY. 
 
 In this manner then vicious habits dry up the 
 very sources of virtue and freedom. A darkened 
 and enfeebled understanding, and deadened sus- 
 ceptibiHties, render the individual incapable, at 
 least to all practical purposes, both of moral per- 
 ceptions and virtuous volitions. The unhappy 
 man though polluted with every crime and loaded 
 with infamy and reproach, appears among men 
 with all the effrontery and composure of a brute ; 
 and it might be doubted whether the degraded 
 being was ever endowed with a moral nature, 
 were it not recollected that, at a former period 
 of his life, he could blush with the consciousness 
 of guilt. Of this he is no longer susceptible; 
 and regardless of the disapprobation of men, and 
 unmoved by self-reproach, he seems to himself 
 to enjoy perfect freedom ; but it is the freedom 
 of the selfish animal, and not of the being who 
 does one thing because it is right, and refrains 
 from another because it is morally wrong. He 
 judges of the nature of actions only by their ef- 
 fects, and he newer Jeels that he has acted amiss, 
 unless his conduct injure his selfish interests and 
 diminish his enjoyment as a sentient being. The 
 distinction of right and wrong, sinful and holy, 
 is to him practically unknown : advantageous 
 and disadvantageous, hurtful and profitable, agree- 
 able and disagreeable, are the characters which 
 all his actions assume. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that an individual in 
 
 7 
 
MORAL NECESSITY. 145 
 
 this state of moral degradation, may not conduct 
 himself with all the external propriety of the 
 most virtuous character, or may not discharge all 
 the external duties which morality and religion 
 require. His degradation consists in this, that he 
 is incapable of acting on the virtuous and holy mo- 
 tives which should direct the conduct of a moral 
 agent. Though virtuous and religious in exter- 
 nal conduct, he is nothing but the selfish animal 
 within, endowed indeed with a little more saga- 
 city than the horse and the dog, but acting not 
 more than they on the motives peculiar to moral 
 agency. Like them he acts not because it is 
 right, and refrains not because it is wrong, but 
 from other considerations altogether, different 
 from theirs, it may be, but not more of a mo- 
 ral nature than is the emulation of the horse 
 or the appetite of the dog. And this is true not 
 merely in cases of degraded profligacy, when the 
 wretchedness without indicates the thraldom and 
 turpitude within: in instances of successful am- 
 bition or avarice, the man may possess a charac- 
 ter more estimable than that of the enslaved and 
 abandoned voluptuary, but may, in reality, be 
 nothing more than the intelligent, accompUshed, 
 prudent, selfish voluntary agent, as incapable of 
 the higher moral feelings as the most worthless 
 of the brutal creation. The eloquent and highly 
 gifted statesman, or the merchant eminent for the 
 punctual discharge of every engagement, may. 
 
14() MORAL NECESSITY. 
 
 with all their seeming virtue, act as Kttle from the 
 feehngs of right and wrong as the most aban- 
 doned criminal, who recklessly violates all the 
 duties of religion and social life. The ruling 
 passions of the characters are different, and cer- 
 tainly their conduct produces very different 
 effects on their own happiness and the welfare of 
 society, but they all follow the impulse of their 
 predominant feelings, equally regardless of the 
 moral nature of their actions, and are equally 
 incapable, from the simple consideration that the 
 thing is wrong, of refraining from any action 
 which they believe conducive to what they deem 
 their paramount interest. When some criminal 
 but advantageous measure is suggested to the 
 prostituted minister of state, he may feel utterly 
 incapable of deciding on the propriety of the 
 scheme, by estimating its moral character, and of 
 rejecting with detestation the idea of serving his 
 personal interest by the commission of a crime ; 
 and if he reject the measure, it may not be be- 
 cause it is wrong, but because he judges some 
 other plan more advantageous and favourable to 
 his views. Whether or not he may be still ca- 
 pable of moral perceptions, he is utterly incapa- 
 ble of acting on the moral feelings, in opposition 
 to the feeblest motive which interest or ambition 
 may suggest. 
 
 Hence is illustrated the correctness of the 
 statements of the sacred Scriptures respecting the 
 
MORAL NECESSITY. 147 
 
 moral inability and necessity of man as a religious 
 being. It is not affirmed that man may not ex- 
 ternally yield almost perfect obedience to all the 
 precepts of tlie divine law, for this is admitted. 
 Nor is it maintained that man does not frequent- 
 ly act on virtuous motives which the law of God 
 approves, or is incapable of regulating his con- 
 duct, to a considerable extent, by the feelings of 
 conscience, — doing what is right because it is 
 right, and abstaining from what is sinful merely 
 because it is wrong ; for instances of this sort are 
 recorded, and consciousness establishes the facts. 
 The Scriptures affirm that man, in his present 
 state of depravity, is incapable of acting on the 
 motives by which, as a moral being standing in a 
 certain relation to God, he should uniformly re- 
 gulate his conduct. And when the paramount 
 importance of the relation between the creature 
 and the Creator is considered, and the extent to 
 which man violates the consequent obligation is 
 duly estimated, the general and emphatic state- 
 ments of the word of God respecting human de- 
 pravity will not appear to exaggerate the truth. 
 The relation of man to his fellow imposes duties 
 of an inferior class ; but the gross violation and 
 contempt of them is justly esteemed to involve 
 a high degree of guilt, and to prove the criminal 
 utterly destitute of moral wortli. How much 
 greater a degree of moral corruption and guilt 
 does it bespeak, that the duties wliich man ovv^s 
 
148 MORAL NECESSITY. 
 
 to his Creator and Redeemer are neglected and 
 violated, not only without regret and remorse in 
 the criminal himself, but almost without excit- 
 ing a feeling of disapprobation in the minds of 
 the beholders. 
 
 But to illustrate fully the extent of the neces- 
 sity under which man, as a religious being, now 
 lies, must be left to the theologian. It is how- 
 ever but justice to say, in passing, that this im- 
 portant and arduous subject was never more 
 ably treated than by Luther, and some of those 
 illustrious men who were the means of eifecting 
 the Reformation in the beginning of the sixteenth 
 century. In the midst of the profound ignor- 
 ance with which they were surrounded, and 
 which is more unfavourable to the discovery of 
 truth, among the absurd dogmas on this subject 
 held by tlie scholastic philosophers, they clearly 
 illustrated the doctrine of universal causation, and 
 hence, in consequence of human depravity, the 
 moral necessity by which the whole race of man- 
 kind are less or more enthralled. From the ab- 
 surdity of the contingency which virtually denies 
 the existence of the universe, as well as from that 
 of indifference, as essential to moral freedom, 
 which virtually deprives man of his moral nature, 
 they are equally free. They described man as 
 they found him, — an agent possessed of a moral 
 nature, and who hence, in a state of purity, would 
 invariably act consistently with the principles of 
 
MORAL NECESSITY. 149 
 
 moral rectitude, but who in the state of moral 
 corruption consequent to a fall, would, to a great 
 extent, as invariably and necessarily commit 
 nothing but sin. They did not, indeed, in com- 
 mon with all the philosophers of the age, and 
 perhaps of all ages before, with the exception of 
 the inspired writers, clearly perceive some of the 
 important relations of their subject, and, conse- 
 quently, occasionally seem to make contradictory 
 and inconsistent statements ; but, enlightened 
 and guided by revelation, they always were, what 
 no philosophical writer, ancient or modern, ever 
 was, right in their practical conclusions. And 
 after all the wretched attempts which superficial 
 observation, ignorance, false philosophy, and 
 party zeal have made to refute their doctrine, 
 every candid and careful observer of human na- 
 ture will readily assent to the great truths so 
 skilfully and ably maintained by Luther against 
 the contemptible sophistry of Erasmus, that in 
 man, as he is now found, there is, with respect to 
 God, no good thing, but that it is God who 
 worketh in him both to will and to do of his good 
 pleasure. 
 
 When then, to conclude this subject, by the 
 habitual indulgence of any vicious propensity, 
 an approved susceptibility and feeling have been 
 weakened, and the feelings which act as oppos- 
 ing motives have been strengthened to a cer- 
 tain degree, the individual is placed, with regard 
 
150 WOHAL NECESSITY* 
 
 to the approved feeling, under moral necessity. 
 He is irresistibly compelled to will and to per- 
 form what he disapproves and condemns. The 
 arguments and motives which are calculated to 
 arouse his moral strength in support of the decision 
 of conscience, have lost their power ; for the un- 
 derstanding itself may have been rendered incapa- 
 ble of forming vigorous and adequate conceptions 
 of the motives, and their proper susceptibilities 
 may be completely destroyed. In many such 
 cases, it is vain to talk to the unhappy man of 
 the wickedness, the folly, the absurdity, the ruin- 
 ous consequences of his conduct. He may ad- 
 mit most honestly the truth of all your arguments, 
 and in moments of reflection when his passions 
 are laid to rest by satiety, he may feel and de- 
 plore the horror of his thraldom ; but the languid 
 emotions which his deadened susceptibilities are 
 able to produce will, in the season of temptation, 
 be quickly suppressed by the powerful and tu- 
 multuous passions, which opposite motives awak- 
 en. He will feel, as some unhappy men are con- 
 strained to confess, that he cannot do otherwise 
 than he does. In certain circumstances lie truly 
 cannot do otherwise, but is under the ab- 
 solute necessity of committing such and such 
 crimes. The wretched being has sold him- 
 self under sin, to use the language of the apos- 
 tle, and is completely the slave of a master, 
 whom, whether he approve or not, he is compel- 
 
MORAL NECESSITY. 151 
 
 led to obey. The laws of his constitution, which, 
 if not corrupted, render him strong to obey 
 the dictates of his conscience, now in conse- 
 quence of the indulgence of sinful habits, bind 
 him hopelessly down to the practice of iniquity. 
 As soon may he resist the law of the philoso- 
 phical necessity by which the planets revolve or 
 the mountains stand upon their bases, as resist 
 the philosophical necessity by which he is impel- 
 led to the commission of crime. Tlie prophet 
 correctly states this law of our nature, when he 
 demands, " Can the Etliiopian change his skin, 
 or the leopard his spots ? then may ye also do 
 good that are accustomed to do evil."* From 
 this state of degraded thraldom, the Creator of 
 the human soul alone can deliver the miserable 
 being whom habit has confirmed in vice. 
 
 • Jeremiah, xiii. ^3. 
 
152 DELIVEKANCE FROM NECESSITY, 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 THE MEANS OF BEING DELIVERED FROM MORAL NE- 
 CESSITY AND THE UNIVERSALITY OF MORAL 
 
 RESPONSIBILITY. 
 
 From the doctrine of moral necessity, as just 
 stated, an argument is usually drawn against the 
 responsibiUty of the human agent. No being, it 
 is said, can be under any obhgation to work im- 
 possibilities. If man, by his constitution, is plac- 
 ed under the necessity of acting in a certain man- 
 ner and cannot act otherwise, he cannot incur 
 moral guilt. Neither the justice of the Deity, it 
 is contended, nor the moral judgment of man 
 can impute guilt, when there is no power to act 
 in a different manner. Power and liberty to re- 
 ject the wrong and to choose the right must ever 
 form the ground of moral responsibility. 
 
 The argument here employed is confessedly 
 legitimate, and the conclusion cannot be denied. 
 If any being, without any act of his own, is placed 
 in such circumstances as render all his actions 
 necessary in the proper sense j and has no means. 
 
DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. 158 
 
 direct or indirect, of delivering himself from tliis 
 condition, he cannot be the subject of moral re- 
 sponsibihty. Such however is not the condition 
 of man. The necessity under which he labours 
 is the result, to a great extent, of his own crimi- 
 nal conduct ; and he has the power, by indirect 
 means, of effecting his own deliverance. 
 
 The source of all moral necessity is the moral 
 corruption of human nature in consequence of 
 the fall. The strong bias to evil, on account of 
 the derangement of our moral susceptibilities, is 
 now natural to man and is entailed upon him, as 
 an individual of the fallen species. So far a man 
 is not personally chargeable with crime. But 
 the natural corruption of the human heart is the 
 direct cause of but a small portion of the neces- 
 sity under which mankind labour. Their own 
 criminal conduct and their sinful indulgences are 
 the cause of that hopeless necessity, by which 
 they are generally enthralled. Hence their re- 
 sponsibility and their guilt remains ; and they 
 must in justice be chargeable, as moral and in- 
 telligent beings, with the consequences of their 
 own voluntary actions. 
 
 But it is not on this fact alone that we would 
 rest the responsibility of man. To convince a 
 miserable being, who is impelled by the irresisti- 
 ble influence of moral necessity to the commis- 
 sion of crime, that his own criminal conduct has 
 placed him in this unhappy condition, and that 
 
\54f DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. 
 
 he is therefore still responsible for his actions, 
 establishes the justice of the divine administra- 
 tion in the punishment of moral transgression ; 
 but does not illustrate the glorious economy of 
 mercy under which we now live. The truth 
 which we now wish to exhibit, as the ground of 
 moral responsibility, is, that man possesses the 
 means of delivering himself from the thraldom of 
 moral necessity, and that multitudes actually ef- 
 fect their deliverance. 
 
 That the same cause, in the same circum- 
 stances, will constantly and invariably produce 
 the same effect, is the general principle of causa- 
 tion on which moral necessity depends. Hence, 
 when a human being has once acted in opposi- 
 tion to his judgment, by the wilful commission 
 of a crime, when again placed in the same cir- 
 cumstances, external and internal, he will uni- 
 formly act in the same manner. To act in a 
 different manner, he must change either his own 
 dispositions and feelings, or avoid the external 
 temptation ; and both of these are, to a certain 
 extent, in his own power. 
 
 The source of all human liberty, and of the 
 power of man to rescue himself from necessity, 
 is the enlightened understanding. In every in- 
 stance of moral necessity, when guilt is incuried, 
 the man is aware that his conduct is wrong, or 
 at least, is not certain that it is right ; for what 
 is not of faith, or done with the confidence of 
 
DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. 155 
 
 its being right, must, to a moral agent, be ad- 
 mitted to be sin. When this conviction is not 
 present, the individual is not in a state of moral 
 servitude, nor does he, in the proper sense, con- 
 tract moral guilt. This is the doctrine of en- 
 lightened reason, as well as of the sacred Scrip- 
 tures. The law of Moses expressly provided for 
 sins of ignorance ; and our Saviour himself and 
 the apostles state the same principle. The ser- 
 vant who knows not his master's will, and con- 
 sequently does it not, shall be beaten with fewer 
 stripes than he who wilfully neglects it ; and 
 they who sin without the revealed law, shall be 
 judged by the law of nature with which they 
 are acquainted ; for as another apostle beauti- 
 fully adds, and justly lays down the great prin- 
 ciple of moral obligation, " to him that knoweth 
 to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin."* A 
 man, therefore, who ignorantly violates a divine 
 precept, is guilty only so far as his ignorance is 
 wilful, and the result of his own criminal negli- 
 gence ; but if, in any case, he is unavoidably 
 ignorant of any law, he does not incur guilt, nor 
 is subject to moral necessity, though he act in 
 opposition to it in the discharge of what he falsely 
 conceives to be his duty. He mistakes falsehood 
 for truth, and is under what w^as termed intellec- 
 
 • James iv. 17; also Rom. ii. 12. 
 
J 
 
 156 DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY- 
 
 tual necessity ; but, as a moral being, he enjoys 
 freedom, and is free from blame. 
 
 Since, then, in all cases of moral necessity — 
 for it is unnecessary here to mention those cases 
 in which a man, by a long course of profligacy, 
 has rendered himself, to a certain extent, incapa- 
 ble of moral perceptions — the man is aware that 
 he is acting amiss and should act otherwise, it is 
 obvious where hes his power to vary his circum- 
 stances, and prevent the conduct which he con- 
 demns. The intelligent being is free, and is 
 able to devise means of altering his circumstances 
 and of preserving his freedom. He is like a 
 man who finds an obstacle, which he attempts to 
 put out of the way, offer a resistance greater 
 than his physical strength, and who, though he 
 cannot increase his muscular power, can easily, 
 by the aid of a little mechanical ingenuity, apply 
 it in a manner which enables him to effect what 
 he desires. It is true, a case of moral necessity is 
 not altogether analogous to this or any other in- 
 stance of animal necessity, where the will of the 
 individual co-operates with his judgment in carry- 
 ing his purpose into effect; for as a voluntary agent, 
 a man will never spontaneously employ means to 
 enable him to frustrate his own volition. But, 
 besides the fact that the thinking and judging 
 principles are, to a great extent, independent of 
 the will, and act without its concurrence, it is to 
 
DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. 157 
 
 be recollected that in few instances of moral en- 
 thralment is the will, at all times, determined to 
 act in the manner which the conscience con- 
 demns. The most habitual passion, and parti- 
 cularly the violent passions, as anger, lust, &c. 
 by which men are most usually enthralled, are 
 not always active ; but leave numerous intervals 
 when the individual experiences the influence of 
 better feelings, and is conscious of moral power 
 sufficient to carry into effect the dictates of his 
 understanding. The man is then free, and has 
 the power to secure his future freedom ; and it 
 is not till temptation again occur that he is en- 
 slaved by moral necessity.* 
 
 When an individual then is aware that he has 
 once been overcome by any passion, he is able 
 either to shun the external circumstances in 
 which he is exposed to temptation ; or by the 
 
 * The reader will perceive that, in order to obtain a full view of 
 the subject now before us, it is necessary to reason by turns in the 
 character of the philosopher, the Arrainian, and the Calvinist. 
 Neither the sceptical moralist, who talks of the omnipotence of 
 virtue ; nor the Arminian, who descants largely on the power of 
 the knowledge of the sublime and affecting doctrines of Christiani- 
 ty to renovate and ameliorate the heart ; nor the Calvinist, who 
 maintains that the grace of God is all in all in the moral deliver- 
 ance of the human soul, is to be considered altogether in the wrong. 
 Man can do something to effect his moral freedom ; by the know- 
 ledge of Christianity he is enabled to do more, and by the word of 
 God is required to co-operate in his own deliverance; though all 
 natural power, and all use of means, are perfectly nugatory for the 
 great purpose of moral redemption, unless God himself '^ create a 
 clean heart and renew a right spirit within him." 
 
15S DELIVERANCE FIIOM NECESSITY. 
 
 consideration of virtuous motives, he can cliange, 
 to a very considerable extent, the state of his 
 own mind, and by the strength of his better feel- 
 ings, arm himself against the approaching danger. 
 This accordingly is frequently done. A man of 
 ordinary virtue and prudence, who has fallen be- 
 fore temptation, is careful ever after not to ex- 
 pose himself in a situation which he has formerly 
 found so hazardous ; or if he cannot avoid ex- 
 posure, he endeavours, by reflection and argu- 
 ment, to arouse every motive which may enable 
 him to resist the assault which he apprehends. 
 He shuns the company which has seduced him, 
 he seeks better society, he considers every argu- 
 ment which should strengthen his virtuous reso- 
 lutions, he watches over his own mind, checks 
 every train of ideas, and suppresses every emo- 
 tion which would tend to arouse the desire which 
 before had hurried him into crime. By these and 
 numerous such expedients, he maintains his mo- 
 ral power, and secures himself the enjoyment of 
 freedom. 
 
 To curb any powerful propensity in this man- 
 ner always produces a struggle with one's own 
 feelings, and in many cases, gives rise to an ar- 
 duous and painful conflict. It is not, however, 
 a hopeless or interminable warfare. Habit ex- 
 erts its influence on the side of virtue as well as 
 in favour of vice. The virtuous feehngs, which 
 at first could scarcely check the criminal desire. 
 
DELIVERANCE FKOM NECESSITY. 159 
 
 daily acquire new accessions of strength j and the 
 vicious desire, which is habitually suppressed, 
 becomes weak in the same proportion. A strong 
 passion may not indeed be reduced to easy sub- 
 jection, till after years of incessant warfare and 
 the pain of repeated defeats ; but by steady per- 
 severance, the individual will not fail to experi- 
 ence an increase of moral power, by which the 
 agreeable feelings of a good conscience will be 
 less and less embittered, with the uneasiness of 
 an internal conflict. Though the path of recti- 
 tude, to borrow the idea of an ancient moralist, 
 may at first be rugged and difficult, it will by 
 and by become smooth and agreeable ; and the 
 traveller will be convinced, by a delightful con- 
 sciousness, that virtue is its own reward. The 
 feelings of a good conscience are the most de- 
 lightful and exhilarating of all the emotions of 
 which the human mind is by nature susceptible ; 
 and if any thing can add to the joy which they 
 afford, it must be the consciousness of being res- 
 cued from the cruel thraldom of a degrading 
 passion, which was ever ready to hurry the man 
 into infamy and guilt ; and of having obtained 
 the power of successfully directing all the facul- 
 ties and feelings of the soul to the accomplish- 
 ment of wise and virtuous ends, which at once 
 confer true dignity and substantial glory, and 
 secure permanent and unfaihng enjoyment. 
 Among a people enjoying the advantages 
 
160 DELlVEUANCli FROM NF.CKSSITY. 
 
 afforded by Christianity, it is scarcely possible to 
 ascertain to what extent a man, without the aid 
 of revelation, could maintain his moral freedom, 
 and advance towards moral perfection. Profane 
 history presents some distinguished examples of 
 virtue ; and every man must be conscious that 
 something may be done, by the natural percep- 
 tion of right and wrong. But though individuals, 
 without the benefit of a revelation, have been 
 eminent for particular virtues, it may be doubted 
 whether man, by his unaided powers, does not, 
 in consequence of his natural corruption, uni- 
 formly descend, and not rise in the scale of moral 
 being. It is certainly so with the great body of 
 mankind. The conscience, unenlightened by 
 revelation, can do little more than convince a 
 man of his guilt in acting against its dictates, 
 without being able to furnish motives sufficiently 
 powerful to rescue him from moral necessity, by 
 enabling him to act in the manner he approves. 
 The history of all nations confirms the truth of this 
 statement. While the body of the people may 
 improve in civilization, they sink in moral worth. 
 They cultivate, it may be, some virtues, but they 
 indulge in a greater number of vices ; and hence, 
 by the usual influence of habit, their motion is 
 retrograde, and they rapidly subject themselves 
 to the degrading yoke of moral as well as, it 
 frequently happens, to political servitude. The 
 rude shepherd, who tended his flocks on the 
 
DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. l6l 
 
 Palatine and Capitoline hills, was often a more 
 virtuous and independent character than the 
 admired and applauded imperator, who, in after 
 ages, rode amid the splendour of a triumph to 
 lodge in the capitol the spoils of the vanquished 
 nations. 
 
 The Christian revelation alone presents mo- 
 tives adequate to secure, to any considerable de- 
 gree, the moral emancipation of mankind. The 
 motives afforded by the conscience, requiring us 
 to love virtue for its own sake, and to hate vice 
 because it is wrong, are addressed to men as 
 unfallen beings, and in that state are no doubt 
 perfectly adequate to command obedience j but 
 they are not adapted to a state of guilt and moral 
 depravity. The motives presented by Christianity 
 are suited to man as a fallen being to be restored, 
 and address all the most powerful susceptibilities 
 of human nature, both in a state of the lowest 
 degradation and of the highest moral perfec- 
 tion. By revealing the future condition of 
 men as vicious or as holy beings, all the strong 
 selfish but natural and lawful feelings are en- 
 gaged on the side of the conscience. The cha- 
 racter and conduct of the Godhead, in the won- 
 drous economy of redemption, addresses all the 
 solemn feelings of conscience itselfi as well as all 
 the benevolent and generous principles which, 
 of all the feelings of the human heart, most 
 powerfully and directly support the principles 
 
 M 
 
162 DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. 
 
 of right and wrong. Every susceptibility of our 
 nature indeed is addressed, and every motive 
 presented which is calculated to affect us as sel- 
 fish, as moral, or as rational beings. 
 
 Did Christianity, therefore, do nothing more 
 for mankind than furnish them with a number of 
 new and powerful motives which reason could 
 not afford, it would be of incalculable service to 
 the cause of human liberty. If men have been 
 found who, with very limited knowledge, and 
 furnished comparatively with few powerful mo- 
 tives, have done so much in subduing imperious 
 passions, cherishing the virtuous and amiable 
 feelings, and preserving themselves, to a consi- 
 derable degree, in a state of moral freedom ; 
 what might not be effected by the honest Chris- 
 tian ? A man, possessing the knowledge of the 
 great doctrines of revelation, and convinced on 
 rational evidence of their truth, has his intellec- 
 tual and moral power vastly augmented ; and, 
 without any supernatural aid, might, by the 
 natural influence of motives, be expected to do 
 much to recover, or at least, to maintain his 
 freedom. The state of some of the modern na- 
 tions of Europe proves such to be the case. Mul- 
 titudes, who are not Christians in the strict sense 
 of the term, feel the practical influence of Chris- 
 tianity more or less, and exhibit a degree of 
 integrity and moral worth vastly superior to the 
 virtue of the Greek and Roman population, in 
 
DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSItV. l6S 
 
 their best times, when, with the exception of the 
 knowledge of Christianity, they were in a situa- 
 tion certainly more favourable to the growth of 
 virtue. The conviction, or it may be, rather 
 the surmise and the doubt that there may be a 
 future judgment and an eternal state of rewards 
 and punishments, imposes a restrahit on the 
 vicious passions of the most abandoned, and gives 
 a sacredness to virtue which, in their eyes, it 
 could not otherwise possess. And the notion, 
 if not tlie firm belief, that the means of salvation 
 and of future felicity have been procured by so* 
 amazing a display of the divine love, and are 
 faithfully put in the power of all, must awaken 
 a feeling of remorse in numerous instances, in 
 which a man altogether unacquainted with Chris- 
 tianity would feel nothing but satisfaction in 
 the violation of the law of God. 
 
 But these are the effects when the facts of re- 
 velation are scarcely believed, and but inciden- 
 tally considered. Were a man to be thoroughly 
 convinced, as he may be, of the truth of the doc- 
 trines of the gospel, and to receive them in an ho- 
 nest and good heart, that is, sincerely to act upon 
 them so far as he is confessedly able and as mul- 
 titudes of others do, how much might he accom- 
 plish in delivering himself from the dominion 
 of guilty passion ? Perhaps in the character of 
 those who are usually termed legal Christians, 
 we may be considered to have a specimen of what 
 
164 DELlVEIlANCfi FROAf NECESSITY. 
 
 the belief of the principles of Christianity is able 
 to effect, without divine influence. If there is 
 not supreme love to God, how much correct 
 knowledge and subhme sentiment may there 
 be respecting his character? what clear and 
 vigorous conceptions of the evil nature of 
 sin ? what honest dread to offend ? how much 
 anxiety to discharge all commanded duty? 
 what self command ? what temperance ? what 
 benevolence? Such characters are certainly to 
 be found, as the young ruler mentioned in 
 the gospel. Compare such individuals with 
 the ordinary standard of human worth, and their 
 superiority will appear. It was such a character 
 that in the pure and searching eye of the Redeem- 
 er appeared lovely ; and it is only when the ques- 
 tion, " what lack I yet," is honestly put and can- 
 didly answered, that it is discovered that men of 
 this sort have not yet reached the perfection of 
 their moral nature, nor are acting on the high 
 principles which- become moral beings aspiring 
 to immortality. 
 
 These considerations, however, may give us 
 some idea of the extent to which men may pre- 
 serve and extend their moral freedom. But we 
 must not stop here. We should see little of the 
 foundation which is laid for moral liberty, were 
 we to remain within the limits which have been 
 arbitrarily fixed, as the department of moral 
 science. Morality without theology is a non- 
 
DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. l65 
 
 entity, existing in the dreams of the sceptical 
 philosopher, but is not to be found in human na- 
 ture. 
 
 Much as a man of enlightened understanding 
 can effect in support of his moral freedom, and to- 
 wards his dehverance from moral necessity, his 
 utmost efforts are far from, being able to obtain 
 any thing like complete emancipation. The 
 agency of the Holy Spirit of God is declared in 
 Scripture, and is proved by the experience of 
 those who most obstinately deny it, to be neces- 
 sary to effect the deliverance of a corrupted and 
 degraded moral being. The Spirit of the same 
 God, who created the thinking mind and heart 
 susceptible of moral feeling, can alone restore 
 the moral constitution, when deranged and im- 
 paired by the commission of sin and by vicious 
 habits. As the utmost skill of the physician can- 
 not repair the constitution of the body, shatter- 
 ed and broken down by disease, though he may 
 check for a little the progress of the malady and 
 mitigate the sufferings of the patient ; so human 
 wisdom, by argument and motive, may perhaps 
 prevent the further enthralment of the moral be- 
 ing, and restore him some degree of moral vi- 
 gour, but it cannot effect a complete renova- 
 tion of the mental susceptibilities, and enable the 
 man to love, with all his heart and soul and mind, 
 the being who of all others is most deserving of 
 his love. To restore the fallen creature to this 
 
166 DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. 
 
 state of perfection must be th^ work of the spirit 
 of the Creatpr. The man, to use the language 
 of Scripture, must be created anew, — he must 
 be born again and made a new creature, by the 
 3ame power which at first gave him existence and 
 endowed him with a moral nature. 
 
 It is not necessary to illustrate further, in this 
 place, this most important doctrine, which, with 
 that of the atonement, constitutes the peculiar 
 glory of the Christian economy. It is enough 
 for our present purpose to be assured, that the 
 9,id of the Holy Spirit of God is faithfully and 
 truly offered to every individual by whom the 
 gospel is heard ; and that nothing is necessary to 
 obtain it but to ask it from God in prayer. There 
 is no previous change of character, — no reforma- 
 tion of conduct — no moral holiness required to 
 entitle a man to the promised blessing. It is 
 solely for his mercy's sake that God bestows it ; 
 and He offers it to corrupted and sinful beings, 
 not a,s a reward of their virtue and holiness, of 
 'which they have none, but in order to render 
 them holy and virtuous, which they otherwise 
 never could render themselves. Let a man, as a 
 rational being, be convinced of the matter of fact, 
 th^t he is in a state of degradation and exposed 
 to. misery ; and let him, as a sentient being, de- 
 sii'e to escape suffering and obtain happiness, and 
 nothing more is necessary, by way of motive, to 
 render his prayer such as God will hear. It is 
 
DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. 16? 
 
 tlie atonement of the divine Redeemer alone 
 whicli renders the prayer of fallen man accepta- 
 ble to God. Though there is nothing holy in his 
 motive, and nothing assuredly meritorious, if a 
 man, as a rational being, believe that God is will- 
 ing to deliver him from the wretchedness of mo- 
 ral servitude, and as a selfish being, desire to be 
 deUvered, he requires no other motive to give 
 him a title to obtain his request. His claim is 
 to be founded not in his own moral worth and 
 holiness ; but in the unmerited mercy of God, 
 who delighteth not in the death of the wicked, 
 but who, as a moral Redeemer, will have all men 
 to be saved. 
 
 It is true that before a rational being can come 
 to God in prayer, he must believe that He eV, 
 and that He is the rewarder of them who dili- 
 gently seek Him ; or, as the same idea may be ex- 
 pressed in refei-ence to this subject, that He is the 
 hearer and answerer of prayer. The belief of 
 the existence of God, as the hearer and answerer 
 of prayer, is the ground of prayer to the rational 
 being, in the same manner as the desire of the 
 thing sought must be its source in the sentient 
 and voluntary agent. Both these states of mind 
 are necessary to give birth to any unfeigned and 
 honest prayer. The desire to obtain the thing 
 renders it sincere ; the behef that God is the 
 hearer and answerer of prayer renders it rational. 
 Without the desire of the thing, prayer is a hy- 
 
168 DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. 
 
 pocritical form, and without the belief of the 
 promise of God to hear and to answer it, a ra- 
 tional being cannot be sincere in praying to God. 
 
 These two states of mind combined evidently 
 constitute what, in the language of Scripture, is 
 usually termed faith, and it is interesting to ob- 
 serve the analogy between this and volition. 
 Volition, as was shown, is a complex feeling, re- 
 sulting from the desire to perform an action or 
 attain an object, and the belief that the object 
 will be attained, because we know its attainment 
 depends upon an exertion of our own power. 
 Faith is the similar desire of an object combined 
 with the belief that we will attain it, because the 
 faithfulness and power of God are pledged to be- 
 stow it. The desire is the same in both cases : 
 the belief, in the one case, rests on the know- 
 ledge of our own power ; in the other, on our 
 knowledge of the power and faithfulness of God. 
 With this difference the states of mind are pre- 
 cisely the same. The object of volition is some- 
 thing which we believe to be in our own power j 
 the object of faith is something which God has 
 promised to man. We believe that we shall at- 
 tain the desired object in the former case, be- 
 cause we are able : we believe that we shall ob- 
 tain it in the latter case because God is able and 
 faithful. 
 
 To give rise then to the prayer of faith, which 
 is the only real prayer, and that of which we have 
 
DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. l69 
 
 now been speaking, a man must desire what he 
 prays for, and he must beheve, since God has de- 
 clared that they who seek what He offers to be- 
 stow shall find, that he will certainly obtain his 
 request. If a man has not this belief, it must 
 arise from one of two causes, either that he does 
 not desire the thing which he prays for, or that 
 he doubts whether God is faithful and able to 
 bestow it. If he does not desire the thing, his 
 prayer, of course, is feigned, and he has no rea- 
 son to expect that God will hear him ; but if he 
 is conscious of desiring it, he must then deny the 
 ability of God to answer his prayer, or which is 
 equivalent, his faithfulness to fulfil his promise, 
 and then though he may be sincere in desiring 
 the thing, he is not sincere in asking it from 
 God. To render prayer to God unfeigned both 
 states of mind are equally necessary, — the con- 
 sciousness of desiring the thing, and the belief 
 that all who ask v/hat God has promised to be- 
 stow by a general promise to men, will most cer- 
 tainly obtain their request. The general promise 
 of God pledges his faithfulness ; and heaven and 
 earth may pass away, but they who ask shall 
 find. 
 
 It is true, as was remarked respecting volition, 
 that the feeling may not always amount to abso- 
 lute certaintij, but there must always be such a 
 degree of probability as that on which a rational 
 man could act with confidence in any ordinary 
 
170 DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. 
 
 transaction. This is indispensable even in in- 
 stances in which it may seem least necessary. 
 The beggar who sits by the way-side could not 
 be rational or sincere, but must be in jest, were 
 he to ask an alms from an incidental passenger, 
 without any hope of obtaining his petition. 
 Unless a man, convinced by rational evidence of 
 the power and faithfulness of God, present his 
 prayer with a probability of success at least 
 equal to that on which he could act without he- 
 sitation in temporal affairs, he may desire the 
 thing for which he prays, but he cannot be honest 
 in asking it from God. His prayer is a mere 
 form, irrational as well as insincere, and though 
 it may conveniently serve the purpose of sup- 
 porting the decent ceremonial of religion, and 
 enable the man in office to earn a comfortable 
 livelihood, it is detestable in the sight of the 
 searcher of hearts, and though he make many 
 prayers the Lord will not hear him. 
 
 The conclusion to which we have been natur- 
 ally led, by the analysis just given, is exactly 
 conformable to the doctrine of the sacred scrip- 
 tures. ** Let a man ask in faiihy^ saith the 
 apostle, " nothing wavering ; for he that waver- 
 eth is like a wave of the sea driven with the 
 wind and tossed : Jbr let not that man think that 
 he shall receive any thing of God*^^ Our bless- 
 
 * James i. 6, T. 
 
DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. I7I 
 
 ed Redeemer states this doctrine more explicit- 
 ly and fully. " Wherefore I say unto you, what 
 things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe 
 that ye receive them, (or that ye shall receive 
 them,) and ye shall have them,*^* This passage 
 contains the whole philosophy, most admirably 
 stated, of the doctrine of faith and prayer. The 
 desire of the thing, and the belief that God will 
 bestow it are, on the principles of the human 
 constitution, absolutely necessary to give birth to 
 any prayer which is not, even at best, an un- 
 meaning form. It is a mistake to conceive, as 
 some have imagined, that the faith which our 
 Saviour here describes, is that extraordinary sort 
 called the faith of miracles ; for it should be re- 
 collected that all sorts of real faith differ only in 
 their object, but not as states of mind. The 
 faith of miracles has the performance of a miracle 
 for its object, saving faith has justification, and 
 the faith of which we have been speaking has 
 sanctification ; but as states of mind, the desire 
 and belief must be found in them all. Specula- 
 tive or historical faith is the belief of facts or 
 doctrines without any desire to obtain the objects 
 which they reveal. The cares of this world and 
 the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and 
 suppress the good desires to which it should give 
 rise.t 
 
 * Mark xi. 24-. 
 
 t Faith, the Christian may object, is the gift of God, and the 
 argument given above seems to suppose that a man of himself is 
 
172 DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. 
 
 Let a man then, who is groaning under the 
 physical evils of moral necessity, desire to be de- 
 livered — not because he hates sin for its own 
 
 able to believe : how are these things compatible ? This is an ob- 
 jection which every honest and well informed believer should be 
 expected to urge ; and to which I rejoice to be able to present a 
 satisfactory answer. If there be a plain doctrine in Scripture it is, 
 that the faith which constitutes a man a Christian is the gift of 
 God ; and if any pretended philosophy should teach otherwise, the 
 plainest believer, with the Bible in his hand, may boldly pronounce 
 the philosophy false and its conclusions illegitimate. 
 
 Faith, as a general state of mind, is one of our most ordinary 
 and universal feelings ; and it is acted upon by the statesman, the 
 agriculturist, the merchant, and indeed by mankind universally in 
 all their transactions which regard the future. In all of them 
 there is a desire of something and a belief of its attainment, as the 
 principle of action to a rational and voluntary agent. The mer- 
 chant desires payment of his account, and knowing the ability and 
 honesty of his customer, believes that he shall receive it, and thus 
 presents an instance of strong faith. From the mere circumstance 
 then that a man has faith, nothing can be inferred respecting his 
 true character in the sight of God. This, it is plain, must be as- 
 certained, not by the general nature of faith, but by its specific 
 character, which depends upon the object, or which is equivalent, 
 upon the nature of the feeling which accompanies the belief. Ac- 
 cordingly the apostles are very careful to specify the nature of the 
 faith which is peculiar to the Christian. It is faith which work- 
 eth by hve. And it so worketh from the circumstance, that the 
 sinner, feeling himself hopelessly undone and knowing the power and 
 faithfulness of the Redeemer, has trusted on Him for righteousness 
 and strength ; and hence, he loves God because He first loved him. 
 Such is not the specific character of any faith besides. The faith 
 of the natural man, of which only we have been speaking above, 
 may be characterized as the faith which worketh by fear ; in as 
 much as it arises principally from the fear of punishment, or, at 
 best, from the consciousness of guilt. This feeling a man must 
 experience before he will ever have recourse to the Redeemer, or 
 
DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. 173 
 
 sake, or loves holiness, but because he fears suf- 
 fering and desires happiness, present his prayer 
 to God, beHeving that he will receive his request, 
 and he shall prevail. The power and the faith- 
 fulness of the Most High secure the fulfilment 
 of his promise. The desire of the petitioner 
 may be languid, and his belief weak, and hence 
 his faith feeble ; but God is waiting to be gra- 
 cious, and is more ready to answer than he is to 
 ask ; and if he only really believe, according to 
 
 employ the means of grace ; and it is a matter of fact that it is ex- 
 perienced every day by multitudes, who notwithstanding do not 
 become believers. But when the gospel is clearly and distinctly 
 presented to a man, he has no encouragement from God, and no 
 promise in Scripture to warrant him to expect any further blessing, 
 unless considering the truths and evidence which are laid before 
 him, and acting upon such feelings as he has, he seek the aid of 
 the Holy Spirit which the gospel offers. He must act upon the 
 faith which worketh hy fear, in order to have wrought in him by 
 the power of the Holy Ghost, the faith which worketh by love; 
 and in so doiri-r, he does nothing more difficult, and certainly 
 nothing more holy, than is done every day by one man trusting to 
 another. Hence numerous passages, which speak both of the 
 agency of man and of God in the work of moral renovation, are 
 easily explained ; as the following — " But as many as received Him, 
 to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them 
 that believe on His name." — John i. 12. — The receiving and be- 
 lieving seem to refer to that natural faith, consisting of rational 
 conviction, such as many of the unconverted Jews possessed, that 
 Jesus was the Messiah, attended with a desire to obtain from 
 Him salvation. The power to become the sons of God, which 
 was conferred in consequence of this, seems to imply that renova- 
 tion of the Holy Spirit which converts the selfish, natural faith, 
 which worketh by fear, into that confiding, holy, purifying faith 
 which worketh by love.— See Note E. 
 
174 DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. 
 
 his faith shall it be done unto him. If he do 
 not obtain his request, it is because he denies the 
 power or the faithfulness of God. Though there 
 is nothing holy in his motive, but rather the re- 
 verse, inasmuch as it falls far short of the mo- 
 tive which should actuate a moral being ; it is 
 the distinguishing glory of the Christian econo- 
 my, that the means of grace are suited to man, 
 as a fallen creature who can merit nothing by 
 his moral worth, but who has every thing mo- 
 rally good to receive fjom on high. It is not of 
 perfect, but of fallen men, and of the prayer 
 which they are able to offer, that the Saviour 
 speaks, when by so affectionate and forcible an 
 argument, he seeks to encourage confidence in 
 God. " If a son shall ask bread of any of you 
 that is a father, will he give him a stone ? or if 
 he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a ser- 
 pent ? or if he ask an egg, will he offer him a 
 scorpion ? If ye then, being evil, know how to 
 give good gifts unto your children, how much 
 more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy 
 Spirit to those that ask him ?"* 
 
 With regard to what the Holy Spirit of God 
 does in renovating the heart of man, nothing can 
 be said; our knowledge extends only to the 
 feelings and actions, which the man, in conse- 
 quence of divine influence, is enabled to perform, 
 and not to what the Spirit does to the man. Re- 
 
 •Lukexi. 11— IS. 
 
DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. J 75 
 
 specting these moral effects, the sacred scriptures 
 afford the most ample information. But we may 
 remark, in this place, that they are all produced by 
 means of argument and motive, according to the 
 established laws of mind ; and in a degree which 
 leaves room for the influence of habit. A man 
 must not wildly imagine that by one act of faith 
 or by a few prayers, supposing them to be honest 
 and to be truly answered, that he will obtaiil 
 complete deliverance from the thraldom of guil- 
 ty passions, and procure such a degree of moral 
 power as will enable him henceforth, without 
 further divine aid, to maintain his freedom. 
 Divdne strength is given, like the heavenly manna 
 to the Israelites, day by day, according to our 
 wants, and must be sought by daily and habitual 
 prayer. The man must pray literally without 
 ceasing ; not indeed with the audible utterance 
 of words, but with that constant dependence on 
 God which constitutes the essence of prayer. 
 By this means he will be gradually delivered j 
 and in his progressive advancement towards the 
 perfection of his moral nature, he will experience 
 the truth of the maxim of the apostle, " where 
 the Spirit of the Lord is, there is hberty." Hi^ 
 moral power will be daily augmented, or as the 
 Psalmist expresses the same idea, his heart will 
 be enlarged, and he will with ease and joy run 
 the way of God's commandments. An under- 
 standing enlarged and enlightened with moral 
 
176 DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. 
 
 truth, and approved feeling ever ready and able 
 to support its dictates, will produce a peace and 
 a joy of heart M^hich the slave can never experi- 
 ence, and which will afford the most convincing 
 and delightful of all proofs, that God, whose will 
 is the law of the universe, created man to be 
 free. Political freedom, which men have so ar- 
 dently sought, and for which they have sacrificed 
 so much, is to a certain extent common to man 
 with the brutes, and is chiefly to be desired from 
 the consideration of its moral effects : the free- 
 dom which the Spirit of God bestows, involves 
 all the important advantages for which political 
 freedom is truly valuable, and secures, besides, 
 our future happiness as spiritual and immortal 
 beings. The man whom God makes free is free 
 indeed. Poor and neglected he may be, and as 
 from the obscurity of the condition in which, ta 
 borrow the beautiful idea of the poet,* divine 
 providence has hid him from the evils w^hicb 
 oppress the great, he feels the yoke of despotism 
 comparatively light, he may as little experience 
 the advantage of civil freedom, in mitigating the 
 toil and poverty to which he is perpetually 
 doomed ; but he is a denizen of heaven, and 
 though excluded from the society of the great 
 
 ' AoAM.->Heureux qui, satisfait de son humble fortune, 
 Libre du joug superbe ou je suis attache, 
 Vit dans I'etat obscur ou les dieux I'ont cache. 
 
 Iphigenie, Acfe T. 
 1 
 
DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. 177 
 
 and the court of kings, he has a place prepared 
 for him before the throne of God, and will here- 
 after hold no subordinate rank under the go- 
 vernment of the King of kings. 
 
 Hence then, to conclude from all the facts 
 which have been stated, appears the ground 
 which is laid for moral obligation and responsi- 
 bihty. The original source of all moral distinc- 
 tions is the moral attributes of the Creator, and 
 the expression of his moral will is the supreme 
 and only standard of duty.* But the immediate 
 source of moral obligation to man is the posses- 
 sion of a moral nature, — an understanding ca- 
 pable of perceiving the distinction of right and 
 wrong, and moral feelings to enable him to fix his 
 volitions according to this distinction. Were 
 the understanding incapable of moral perceptions, 
 or tlie heart not susceptible of moral feeling, the 
 human agent, like the brutes, would be no longer 
 a subject of moral obligation. Although there- 
 fore man has lost a considerable part of his origi- 
 nal moral power, in consequence of the fall, the 
 fact that he retains as much of it as enables him 
 to do something for the preservation of his moral 
 liberty j that the motives which a clear and well 
 authenticated revelation affords enable him to do 
 more ; and above all, that this revelation dis- 
 tinctly informs him how he may obtain the aid 
 
 * See Note F. 
 
 N 
 
178 DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. 
 
 of another to effect for bim his complete deliver- 
 ance, establish his moral responsibility undi- 
 minished, or rather increase it, inasmuch as he 
 now stands in relation to God, not merely as his 
 Creator and preserver, but in the far more en- 
 dearing and interesting relation of Redeemer. 
 His intellectual power is thus augmented ; and 
 though his moral power has been diminished, as 
 an intelligent being, he is amply furnished with 
 the means of restoring it. He is in full posses- 
 sion, therefore, of the two qualifications which 
 constitute a responsible agent — the knowledge 
 of his duty, and power sufficient to perform it. 
 
 In vain then may the sceptic or the fatalist ar- 
 gue against human responsibility, and from the 
 fact of the universality of causation, infer that 
 actions cannot be otherwise than they are. Such 
 a conclusion, as was formerly seen, proceeds al- 
 together on a mistaken view of the nature of 
 causation. Though every cause produces its 
 effect with absolute certainty, there is no cause, 
 except the all-wise and Almighty First Cause, 
 which may not be resisted, and its effect pre- 
 vented by another cause more powerful. Now 
 in every case of moral necessity, when a man 
 does what he knows to be wrong, there are two 
 opposing causes at work — the understanding or 
 conscience which approves of one thing, and an 
 appetite or passion which prompts the voluntary 
 agent to perform another. And these, it is to 
 
DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. 179 
 
 be recollected, are not unintelligent causes like 
 the weights of a balance, to which they are often 
 compared j but like two combatants engaged in a 
 conflict, or rather like an intelligent agent strug- 
 gling with blind, unintelUgent matter. The 
 rational and provident being knows the difficul- 
 ties with which he has to contend, and can em- 
 ploy means to overcome them. He is aware 
 that when placed in certain circumstances, and 
 exposed to certain temptations, he will infallibly 
 be brought under the law of necessity ; but he can 
 foresee and avoid those dangers, or previously 
 prepare himself to encounter them without in- 
 jury. He knows the action is wrong, he may 
 know his own weakness, he is aware of the means 
 of escaping the danger, and before the tempta- 
 tion assail him, he is perhaps, as a sentient being, 
 in a state of indifference, and is impelled by no 
 strong feeling to neglect the due precautions. 
 In all these circumstances, and they are all the 
 important circumstances which affect the case, 
 there is no necessity, except indeed the necessity 
 which is implied in the fact, that we must act 
 either in the one way or the other, which is, as 
 was before shown, the necessity or fact of exist- 
 ence, and is the very circumstance on which our 
 liberty depends. We are placed under no neces- 
 sity by God ; for his law commands us to do 
 what we know to be right and forbear what we 
 Mow to be wrong \ and besides He freely and 
 
180 DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. 
 
 faithfully offers us aid to enable us to perform 
 the one and reject the other. We are under no 
 necessity from our mental constitution ; for in 
 every instance of moral servitude, we do what 
 our conscience clearly convinces us we ought to 
 forbear. We are under no physical necessity ; 
 for we are equally able, in this respect, to act in 
 the one way as in the other. Nor are we under 
 any necessity from our feelings ; for if we have 
 desires which lead one way, we have other de- 
 sires which oppose them, and are able to keep the 
 forbidden desires sufficiently in check, till per- 
 haps, by our guilty imprudence, we expose 
 ourselves to danger, which, as intelligent beings, 
 we may foresee and by precaution escape. In 
 all these circumstances, there is no unavoidable 
 necessity. We may indeed, by a course of cri- 
 minal indulgence, have formed habits by which 
 we are irresistibly overcome ; or we may, by one 
 imprudent and criminal step, be laid under the 
 necessity of taking another ; but this proves our 
 guilt instead of palliating our crime. As rational 
 and moral beings, we are under no irresistible 
 necessity, except that of doing what God com- 
 mands because we judge it right. If we violate 
 this necessity, we not only commit an act of re- 
 bellion against the most High, but we do vio- 
 lence to the principles of our rational and moral 
 nature, or in the strong language of inspiration, 
 we sin against our own soul. 
 
DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. 181 
 
 Should the fataUst endeavour, by verbal sub- 
 tleties, to evade a conclusion which deprives him 
 of the satisfaction which he affects to derive from 
 the attempt to persuade himself that he never 
 does wrong, it would be easy, did our limits 
 permit, to recal to his attention a multitude of 
 facts which, if they did not convince him of the 
 right and the wrong of his conduct, would, at 
 least, prove to him that, if he were not a moral, 
 neitlier was he a rational being. Besides the 
 fact, that thousands escape from the necessity 
 which he pronounces absolute and irresistible, 
 his own conscience might be appealed to in sup- 
 port of the truth, that in numerous instances, he 
 really had the alternative to act in one way or 
 in another ; and that in indulging one desire in 
 opposition to another of which he approved, he 
 rendered himself criminal and deserving of blame. 
 Should the sophistry of a false philosophy, sup- 
 ported, as all such sophistry is, by the feeUngs 
 of a depraved and worthless heart, lead him to 
 deny the inference of his own demerit, he would 
 find himself, even then, as unable to escape the 
 conclusion as to divest himself of his nature. 
 Did his servant, to whom he had been uniformly 
 indulgent and generous, rob him or knock him 
 down, and as a proof of his respect for the opi- 
 nions of his master and of his gratitude for his 
 kindness, plead in his excuse that he was per- 
 fectly blameless, for he acted not without a mo- 
 
182 DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSIXy. 
 
 tive and could not do otherwise ; the philosopher 
 would be lost in the injured and indignant man, 
 and he would practically prove, either that he 
 was a moral as well as a rational being, or that 
 he was neither the one nor the other, but was to 
 be truly considered both an idiot and a brute. 
 
 But on these topics our narrow limits forbid 
 us to enter ; and indeed it is unnecessary. The 
 sophist may bewilder and perplex the reason ; 
 but he cannot alter the nature of the man, and 
 reduce him altogether to the brute which he 
 wishes to prove him. The understanding and 
 conscience, if suppressed at one place, will burst 
 forth at another, and bear clear and decided tes- 
 timony, both to the moral nature of the human 
 species, and to the justice of the Deity. If the 
 corrupted moral being will not readily acknow- 
 ledge demerit in himself, he will often grant it 
 in others ; and while he seeks to persuade him- 
 self that he cannot, by his constitution, act other- 
 wise, and therefore cannot do wrong, he will 
 fondly enough claim to himself the merit of do- 
 ing right, and thus virtually establish the dis- 
 tinction which he affects to deny. He will readi- 
 ly admit, in his own case, the justice of one of 
 the great principles of the divine administration : 
 " Say ye to the righteous that it shall be well 
 with them ; for they shall eat the fruit of their 
 doings."* The counterpart of this he would de- 
 
 * Isaiah iii. 10. 
 
DELIVERANCE FROM NECESSITY. 183 
 
 ny ; but he cannot divest himself of his moral na- 
 ture. At one time or other his conscience, in 
 spite of all the argum_ents and fancied demon- 
 strations which sophistry, not philosophy, has 
 ingeniously given, will be able to convince him 
 of the truth of the disagreeable but just and 
 equitable principle, necessary in conjunction with 
 the other to render the administration of a moral 
 government not merely just but merciful : ** Woe 
 unto the wicked ! it shall be ill with him ; for 
 the reward of his hands shall be given him." And 
 how dreadful to suffer the punishment of crime, 
 when tormented with the conviction that it is 
 justly merited. 
 
184 INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 THE INTRODUCTION OF MORAL EVIL. 
 
 The subjects which have now been briefly illus- 
 trated throw much light on several important 
 doctrines of Revelation ; but it is not the inten- 
 tion to employ them for this purpose at present, 
 but to leave the application, which would neces- 
 sarily lead to a long discussion, to be made in 
 another place. There is, however, one subject 
 so intimately connected with the preceding in- 
 quiries that this Essay would appear incomplete 
 without it, namely, the Introduction of Moral 
 Evil and with it moral necessity. 
 
 Whence comes evil ? is a question which has 
 been often put ; and it is confessedly neither un- 
 interesting nor frivolous. How, under the go- 
 vernment of a being infinite in power, in wisdom 
 and in holiness, moral evil could be introduced, 
 is an inquiry which cannot fail to be interesting 
 to man groaning, as he does, under its direful 
 effects ; and a satisfactory answer cannot but 
 prove beneficial, both in illustrating and justify- 
 
N^ or THx ^^ 
 INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. ll^ ^reJ ^ ^ ^ 1 i 
 
 oif 
 
 ing, to his apprehension, the character oi^w^* ^ 
 Deity, and in giving him a juster conception of 
 his own condition, as a fallen creature. Know- 
 ledge on such subjects, if it is to be acquired, 
 must always be useful ; and it is only ignorance, 
 or, which is much worse, science falsely so 
 called, which can prove hurtful to an intelligent 
 being, under the administration of a wise, and 
 just, and merciful Creator. 
 
 Happily to this important question, if we are 
 content to reason from facts and not from con- 
 jectures, a most rational and satisfactory answer 
 can be given. Our information, it is plain, must 
 be drawn exclusively from Revelation \ and the 
 sacred Scriptures conduct us to a certain point, 
 and give us an account of the introduction of 
 evil into our own worlds and among the race to 
 which we belong, in a manner worthy of Scrip- 
 ture given by inspiration of God. The mistake 
 of most writers on the origin of evil has been in 
 attempting to explain too much, forgetting that, 
 as finite beings, we are perhaps incapable, at 
 least in the present state, of comprehending the 
 whole truth ; and that, as moral and responsible 
 agents, we require to know only as much as con- 
 cerns ourselves — our present duty and our fu- 
 ture hopes ; and above all, that we have no data 
 on which to found any conclusion beyond the 
 history of our own species. While Revelation is 
 fully adequate for all the purposes for which it 
 
186 INTRODUCTION OF EVItr 
 
 was intended, and is perfect so far as it extends, 
 containing every thing that is necessary for the 
 instruction and salvation of mankind ; it must 
 not be imagined that it contains a complete sys- 
 tem of divinity, or gives a full account of the di- 
 vine administration of the universe. The astro- 
 nomer with his far reaching tube finds a limit to 
 his knowledge, and never imagines that he knows 
 all the universe, because he cannot see any 
 thing beyond the point to which his vision ex- 
 tends ; so the divine must be satisfied to confess 
 his ignorance beyond a certain limit, and recol- 
 lect that, though his knowledge is correct and 
 true, it is still but finite knowledge, and embraces 
 but a small portion of the moral empire of the 
 Almighty. A complete system of divinity, em- 
 bracing the universal administration of God, may 
 be compared to an immense circle, of which we 
 see only a part, and of which the extremities, of 
 course, appear to us to run in opposite directions. 
 Did we imagine that we saw the whole figure, 
 we would necessarily form a very erroneous con- 
 ception of its nature ; and did we attempt to 
 unite the opposite points, we would at once des- 
 troy its perfection and symmetry ; but could we 
 trace out the diverging hues, we would find how 
 they meet at length, with the nicest mathemati- 
 cal precision ; or did we apply the rules of art to 
 measure the portion which we behold, we would 
 immediately discover how beautifully all its parts 
 
INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 18? 
 
 were related to the whole and to one another. 
 Let us act thus in examining the doctrines of 
 Revelation respecting the origin of evil. We 
 cannot contemplate the whole of the divine ad- 
 ministration ; but let us apply the rule of justice 
 and mercy to all the parts of it which we know, 
 and it will appear that the revelation and law of 
 God is truly, as the sacred writer expresses it, 
 perfect, and altogether worthy of its infinitely 
 perfect Author. Let us acquire the knowledge of 
 the truths which are actually revealed ; or to re- 
 sume the illustration, let us trace the circle as far 
 as we can see it, and when we come to the ex- 
 tremities of the visible part, let us, as sound 
 philosophy requires, rejoice in what we know 
 and be content to remain ignorant of what lies 
 quite beyond the sphere of our knowledge. Let 
 us not attempt to form complete systems of 
 theology, and to reconcile difficulties which, with 
 our present partial knowledge, seem inexplica- 
 ble ; and hence, by our conjectures respecting 
 what is not revealed, limit and explain, or rather 
 explain away, what is revealed. Such a mode of 
 proceeding is repugnant to every sound principle 
 of rational inquiry. It is an attempt to measure 
 the knowledge of the Almighty, by our own 
 narrow capacity — to thrust together, with our 
 babyish grasp, two remote points of that immea- 
 surable circle, part of which we behold shooting 
 forth, like the arch in the clouds, in a curve of 
 
188 INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 
 
 perfect beauty, bright at every point with colours 
 of equity and mercy, to embrace the eternity of 
 past, present, and future. 
 
 To guard us against this hazard, two rules are 
 carefully to be observed, in endeavouring to as- 
 certain the nature of the divine administration 
 and the origin of moral evil. First, The charac- 
 ter and decrees of God can be known to us, only 
 by his works of creation and providence, or 
 by the economy of redemption revealed in the 
 sacred Scriptures. Second, If the inferences 
 from facts which take place under the divine ad- 
 ministration, or from any doctrine of revelation, 
 are at variance with any other express state- 
 ment of Scripture, our reasonings, though legi- 
 timate, but proceeding most probably on partial 
 data, must be considered fallacious, and give 
 w^ay to the authority of inspiration. The strict 
 observance of these rules will do much to pre- 
 serve us from error, in the present or any similar 
 inquiry, and will guard us against the presump- 
 tion of fancying that we know all things respect- 
 ing God, as well as from the danger of obscur- 
 ing what is clearly revealed, in our anxiety to 
 explain what is not revealed. 
 
 Respecting the origin of moral evil then^ 
 among the celestial spirits, the sacred Scriptures 
 afford us no information. We have simply the 
 fact that, at the creation of the world and of man> 
 there was a number of pow^erful spirits in a state 
 
INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 189 
 
 of rebellion against their Creator; but how they 
 came into this state we have no account. Any 
 attempt, therefore, to account for the origin of 
 moral evil among them is unphilosophical in the 
 extreme — a subject for the dreams of the poet, 
 but unbecoming the true philosopher and the 
 theologian. We have no information respecting 
 their condition, as moral beings, in their state of 
 innocence, nor of the circumstances in which 
 they were placed, and we know not the endless 
 variety of conditions and circumstances in which 
 moral beings may exist ; and any conjectures 
 respecting them, from the knowledge of our own 
 condition, must be extremely fallacious. The 
 best that can be said of the most plausible ac- 
 counts, which fancy and not judgment has given 
 to the world, is that they may possibly be right, 
 but that there is the highest probability that they 
 are wrong. This is true certainly of almost 
 the whole of them ; for they are directly oppos- 
 ed to the statements of the sacred Scriptures, as 
 well as to sound reason, and could be believed 
 only by a sceptical mind, entangled in the toils 
 of metaphysical subtlety. On the principles of 
 true philosophy and sound reason, we have no 
 alternative but to acknowledge that we are ut- 
 terly ignorant of the whole matter, and have 
 no means of acquiring information. The opi- 
 nion of a distinguished French philosopher, if 
 considered as respecting the origin of moral evil 
 
190 INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 
 
 generally and not merely, as he states it, its in- 
 troduction among men, contains much sound phi- 
 losophy, and deserves the attentive consideration 
 of every inquirer into the origin of evil. " Se- 
 veral considerations,'' says he, in publishing the 
 second edition of his work, " have struck me 
 which I had not formerly, and which produce in 
 my mind a fresh and stronger conviction than 
 ever, that the best answer which by natural 
 means (and we may add by revelation also) can 
 be given to the question, why has God permit- 
 ted sin ? is to say, I know nothing about the 
 matter."* 
 
 This is indeed the only answer which can be 
 given J and it is needless to say that there is a 
 vast deal more philosophy in confessing igno- 
 rance, and checking all propensity to enter the 
 regions of conjecture, than in furnishing ingeni- 
 ous and subtle, but false and fanciful solutions of 
 a difficulty. Every tyro in philosophy can in- 
 dulge his imagination in solving difficulties, or 
 rather finds it difficult not to please himself with 
 some fancied solution ; none but a well discip- 
 lined mind, long accustomed to ascertain, with 
 
 • II m'est venu de pensees, que je n'avois pas auparavant, et 
 qui me convainquent tout de nouveau et plus fortement que jamais, 
 que la meillure reponse qu'on puisse faire naturellement a la ques- 
 tion, pourquoi Dieu a-t-il permis que Thomrae pechat? est de dire, 
 je n'en &9ai rien. Je croi seulement qu'il en a des raisons tres 
 dignes de sa sagesse infinie raais qui me sont incomprehensibles.— 
 Bayh^s Dictionary, Art. PauHciens, Note M. 
 
INTRODUCTION OF EVIL, 191 
 
 accuracy, the true limits of human knowledge, 
 can say to himself decidedly, on such and such 
 a subject, I will form absolutely no opinion. 
 
 Let us then lay it down, as a first principle in 
 the present inquiry, that we are totally ignorant 
 how moral evil originated among the fallen 
 spirits ; and remain satisfied with the matter of 
 fact, that at the creation of man, these spirits 
 were actually in a state of revolt against their 
 Creator. Let us suppress every tendency to 
 form any conjectures respecting the manner in 
 which they came into that state ; and especially 
 guard against being influenced by such conjec- 
 tures, in any inquiries respecting the divine ad- 
 ministration subsequent to the creation. To 
 conduct the investigation in this manner, the 
 philosopher has only to reflect that he is totally 
 destitute of the means of information, and that 
 all attempts to solve the difficulties connected 
 with the subject must be, at best, but conjec- 
 ture, unworthy of being deemed, in any degree, 
 even probable. The Christian, to render him 
 satisfied with his present limited knowledge, has 
 the more interesting and generous consideration, 
 that " the Lord is righteous in all his ways, and 
 holy in all his works ;"* and that what he knows 
 not now respecting the divine administration, he 
 
 • Psalm U5. 
 
19^2 INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. i 
 
 may know hereafter. — Now he sees through a 
 glass darkly ; but then face to face : now he 
 knows only in part, but then shall he know even 
 as he is known.* 
 
 Our present inquiry, therefore, is limited to 
 the introduction of moral evil among men, re- 
 specting which we have ample and satisfactory 
 information. 
 
 Man, we are told, was created in the image of 
 God, which, we are taught, consists in know- 
 ledge, righteousness, and holiness. This just 
 states the fact, that he was created a perfect 
 moral being, possessed of an understanding ca- 
 pable of perceiving moral truth, and of a heart 
 susceptible of moral feeling, to enable him to 
 will and to act according to his moral percep- 
 tions. He was thus perfectly able to retain his 
 integrity, by constantly doing what he knew to 
 be his duty, and consequently was rendered a 
 fit subject of moral government. 
 
 In order to understand the nature of moral 
 government, it is necessary to distinguish the 
 different meanings of the phrase " will of God," 
 so often employed in the sacred Scriptures, and 
 in theological writings. This expression has 
 two very different meanings. It signifies what, 
 for the sake of distinction, may be termed the 
 j)hysical will of God, which always implies the 
 
 I Cor. xiii. 12. 
 1 
 
INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 198 
 
 exercise of his power ; as when, at the creation. 
 He said, let there be light, and there was light ; 
 when He divided the Red Sea ; and when, at his 
 command, the sun stood still. His will in this 
 sense is irresistible. He doth according to his 
 will in the armies of heaven, and among the in- 
 habitants of the earth, — none can stay his hand 
 from working, or say unto the Almighty, what 
 dost Thou ? The will of God, in its second signi- 
 fication, may be termed his moral will. It im- 
 plies only his moral approbation of certain actions 
 as right ; and hence, his authoritative command 
 to his moral creatures to act in such a manner, 
 and to refrain from the opposite conduct. In 
 this sense, the will of God may be resisted ; and 
 is resisted by every sinner, every time he violates 
 a divine command, and thereby opposes his will 
 to the will of his Creator. 
 
 Respecting the will of God in these two sig- 
 nifications, it is to be remarked, that the former 
 always necessarily involves the latter, but the 
 latter never the former. Whenever the Deity 
 exerts his power, it is always in perfect consist- 
 ency with his immutable rectitude and holiness ; 
 and all his volitions and all his actions are mo- 
 rally right. Justice and judgment are the habi- 
 tation of his throne, — -just and true are all his 
 ways. Every exertion of his physical will, not 
 less than his law, which is the expression of his 
 moral will, is holy, just, and good. 
 
 o 
 
194' INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 
 
 Of these two wills of God, the moral will 
 only, it is evident, has place in the government 
 of rational and moral beings. His physical will 
 is exerted in the creation and government of the 
 material universe, as it also is in the creation of 
 a moral being ; but after such a being is put in 
 possession of his moral faculties, physical force is 
 no longer admissible in ruling him, except, in- 
 deed, in his reward or punishment in case of 
 transgression. The use of physical force, in the 
 government of moral agents, would do violence 
 to their nature, as well as imply a contradiction 
 in the divine decrees. When God, by an act of 
 sovereign will, created man a moral agent, in his 
 own image. He virtually decreed that, during 
 the whole future eternity of his existence, He 
 would treat him in a way suitable to the nature 
 with which He had endowed him, and neither 
 contradict his own purposes, nor do violence to 
 the constitution of his creature. Accordingly, 
 in the whole history of the human species, no 
 instance occurs, except cases of punishment, in 
 which the Judge of all the earth employs physi- 
 cal force in conducting his moral administration, 
 but treats man always in the high character of 
 an intelligent and moral creature, often con- 
 descends to reason with him as an equal, and 
 seeks, by argument and motive, to enlighten his 
 understanding, and influence his heart. Even 
 in the Christian economy, when divine power is 
 
INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 195 
 
 employed to renovate the corrupted moral sus- 
 ceptibilities, the great law of moral government 
 is not neglected. When the gospel is sent to 
 a people, no violence is done to those who re- 
 fuse to employ the means of grace ; for the 
 Holy Spirit is promised to those only who ask 
 his aid. 
 
 The Creator, then, having endowed the first 
 man with a moral nature, adapted his mode of 
 government to the dignified character of the 
 subject. He simply signified to him his will, 
 forbidding him to eat of the tree of the know- 
 ledge of good and evil ; and having warned him 
 of the danger, left it to himself to obey. Though 
 a finite, he was a perfect being, and completely 
 furnished with all the means requisite to enable 
 him to yield perfect and uniform obedience ; for 
 he possessed an understanding capable of perceiv- 
 ing the rectitude and propriety of the command, 
 and physical and moral power to enable him to 
 act accordingly. Thus, he was provided with 
 the two requisites necessary, as was formerly 
 stated, to constitute a being the subject of moral 
 obligation : the knowledge of his duty, and 
 ability to discharge it. There was no ignorance 
 of wliat was right, nor of the fatal consequences 
 of disobedience ; and no turbulent passions and 
 vicious habits to mislead his judgment ; and he 
 might, therefore, have for ever maintained his 
 innocence, and remained in a state of purity. 
 
196 INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 
 
 Man, it is agreed, has all along been placed 
 in a state of trial ; and it is usually believed, that 
 the prohibition respecting the tree of the knowr 
 ledge of good and evil was given for the purpose 
 of probation. This was certainly one, but it 
 seems by no means the sole or the principal object 
 of the command. The principal design, it rather 
 seems, was the moral improvement of the being. 
 The influence of habit, as was formerly noticed, 
 is an admirable provision of the Creator to secure 
 the progressive advancement of his finite crea- 
 tures. But had no such prohibition as that 
 regarding the tree of knowledge been given, and 
 had man not been exposed to temptation, com- 
 paratively little opportunity would have been 
 afforded him to exercise his moral faculties ; and, 
 instead of advancing towards a higher state of 
 being, he would have remained for ever station- 
 ary, or rather might have retrograded ; and even 
 retaining his innocence, might have lost his moral 
 energy. The exposure to temptation rendered 
 this impossible. To preserve his innocence, his 
 moral faculties must have been in constant exer- 
 cise ; and thus, while he would daily become a 
 more powerful being, he would enjoy, in the 
 feelings of a good conscience, a pleasure more 
 delightful, and certainly far more ennobling than 
 all the sensual enjoyments, even of paradise. 
 Not only then was the prohibition of the tree of 
 life virtually a promise, as has been often justly 
 
INTRODUCTIOiN OF EVIL. 197 
 
 Baid, which coiifirined to him, so long as con* 
 scious of obedience, immortality and all the bless- 
 ings of paradise ; but it opened an additional and 
 nobler source of enjoyment in the vigorous exer- 
 cise of the moral feelings, and by his constitution, 
 secured to him the future possession of a higher 
 and more glorious state of being. Thus, the 
 temptation to which he was exposed, instead of 
 being a real evil, might have become a new 
 source of power and happiness ; and the first 
 Adam, as the second Adam has actually done, 
 might have converted the subtlety and wicked- 
 ness of his enemies into the most successful 
 means of promoting the glory of his Creator, and 
 of increasing his own moral dignity and power, 
 till, by the influence of habit, his knowledge and 
 holiness were so much increased as to render 
 him, thenceforth, for ever superior to all tempta- 
 tion, and to fit him for taking his place among 
 the principalities and powers of heaven. But, 
 omitting these considerations, so well supported 
 by the principles of the human constitution, and 
 so illustrative of the goodness and wisdom of the 
 Creator, let us rather view the prohibition given 
 to man as the means of his probation. 
 
 The individual would not deserve to be rea- 
 soned with, who would deny the right of the 
 Creator to impose upon his creatures any duty 
 which they have adequate power to discharge. 
 The man who requires from another a piece of 
 
198 INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 
 
 easy service, for which he has given a liberal re- 
 muneration, never conceives himself guilty of 
 injustice; but how much more equitable in the 
 Creator and Preserver of men, to receive from his 
 creatures their just and reasonable service ? The 
 duty imposed on man, so far from being burden- 
 some, was the easiest possible, and greatly less 
 than his moral power might have warranted. 
 His adversary might have been permitted, as he 
 now is, to assail him secretly, by means of his 
 internal feelings ; but the fact, that his duty was 
 embodied in an external object, restrained the 
 power of his enemy to an open attack, and he 
 was virtually secured from assault in every other 
 quarter. Thus man, though possessed of a body, 
 and acting under the guidance of sense, was put 
 on equal footing with all his spiritual antagonists, 
 and enabled to resist their power at a point where 
 their spiritual nature gave them no advantage. 
 So completely was this the case, that the tempter 
 was under the necessity of assuming the disguise 
 of one of the inferior animals, and notwithstand- 
 ing his spiritual essence, was able to employ no 
 invisible artifice, but to make his attempt directly 
 and openly. Let us now see the manner, then, 
 in which man fell from his primitive condition. 
 
 Satan, we learn, the powerful and* crafly chief 
 of the apostate spirits, was the seducer of man, 
 and the author of moral evil in the world in which 
 we live. Iliere is much in the mode of his 
 
INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 199 
 
 temptation which deserves notice, and proves 
 him to Iiave studied carefully the human consti- 
 tution, and to have known well on which side a 
 human being, in a state of innocence, could be 
 most successfully assailed. He assumed, in the 
 first place, the form, or rather took possession of 
 the body of a serpent, in order to draw the atten- 
 tion of the woman, and to be enabled to present 
 her with the interdicted fruit. This creature, by 
 the terms of the curse afterwards pronounced 
 upon it, seems to have undergone some change 
 much to the worse; but at all events, in a state 
 of innocence, before any prejudice existed in the 
 human mind against the reptile, it is easy to con- 
 ceive that it must have been one of the most 
 beautiful, or, at least, the most attractive and 
 interesting of the brutal part of the creation. 
 Its sagacity, its playfulness, its beautiful curva- 
 tures, its graceful movements and brilliant co- 
 lours, could not fail to render it the favourite 
 of the first pair, in a state in which pleasure ra- 
 ther than utility was sought from the inferior 
 animals. By assuming its form, therefore, Satan 
 would most easily secure the notice of his victim, 
 and be enabled in the most graceful and seducing 
 manner, to present her the fruit, which, as a spi- 
 rit, he could not otherwise have done. Whether 
 he spoke from the mouth of the serpent, or sug- 
 gested the ideas as he now does, we are not ex- 
 pressly informed. 
 
200 INTRODUCTION OF EVIL, 
 
 The attack too was. skilfully directed against 
 the female. From the narrative given us by the 
 inspired writer, it appears highly probable that 
 the woman was not created, when Adam receiv- 
 ed the command to abstain from the tree of 
 knowledge, and that slie therefore received the 
 prohibition by means of her husband. This did 
 not, it is true, lessen her obligation ; for all man- 
 kind, except those who received the law from 
 Mount Sinai, and those who heard the discourses 
 of our Redeemer, are in a similar situation j but 
 it certainly diminished the vividness of the im- 
 pression, which the command might otherwise 
 have made upon her mind. This circumstance, 
 in conjunction with the fact, that she was alone 
 during the time of the temptation, rendered her 
 situation pecuharly favourable to the designs of 
 the seducer. 
 
 He begins the assault by calling in question 
 the divine veracity and the certainty of the con- 
 sequences of disobedience. This method seems 
 most likely to have succeeded in the mind of an 
 innocent being, unacquainted with deceit. Con- 
 scious of no guile herself^ and prone, as the un- 
 corrupted mind naturally is, to beheve the state- 
 ments of others, she must have been perplexed 
 by a statement directly contrary to what she be- 
 lieved to be the word of God. She still had, 
 however, the divine command to direct her con- 
 duct, and she could not have hesitated which to 
 
INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 201 
 
 obey, had not a number of powerful feelings been 
 artfully excited in favour of the assertions of the 
 tempter. Her attention was engrossed and fixed 
 upon his statements, not merely by the senses of 
 sight and taste, but he skilfully awakened the de- 
 sire of knowledge and love of aggrandisement 
 — those powerful principles which seem to 
 have been implanted in the breast of finite 
 beings, in order to accelerate their ascent in 
 the scale of intellectual and moral worth ; 
 and which, in the human breast, particularly in 
 that of the female, exert a powerful influ- 
 ence. There was no want either of intellec- 
 tual or moral power to resist the temptation ; but 
 the one was employed to mislead and neutralize 
 the other. The understanding Was first perplex- 
 ed by false assertions, the sensations and feel- 
 ings were awakened to promote the delusion, and 
 thus, the resistance which conscience and pru- 
 dence would have offered, was eluded. When 
 the mutual influence of the understanding and 
 the feelings is considered, the force of the temp- 
 tation is obvious ; and it is plain that none but 
 a mind of a very superior order could have con- 
 ducted it so skilfully. The indiscretion of the 
 woman consisted in exposing herself in such cir- 
 cumstances, and in once listening to the insinua- 
 tions of her seducer ; but after she had allowed 
 his arguments to influence her mind, and shake 
 her belief of the divine word, or at least with- 
 
^2 INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 
 
 di'aw her attention from it, she could scarcely 
 fail to be beguiled, as she expressly terms it. 
 While doubting of the divine veracity, and see- 
 ing that " the tree was good for food, and that 
 it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be de- 
 sired to make one wise," it is not to be wonder- 
 ed that she took of the fruit thereof and did eat. 
 Her fault was principally in not resisting the be- 
 ginnings of evil, by repelling every insinuation 
 respecting the veracity of God, and in not refus- 
 ing to listen to any one who would dare to call 
 it in question. The first step was not, it might 
 be said, a crime, but rather an act of impru- 
 dence, resulting partly from the weakness and 
 partly from the goodness of her nature ; but it 
 was one of those steps which, as we daily see, 
 smoothly and almost unconsciously lead to crime, 
 ruin, and wretchedness. She was perfectly aware 
 of her duty, and possessed sufficient power to 
 discharge it ; but her own imprudence exposed 
 her to temptation, and the villany and artifice of 
 another hurried her into crime, of which indeed 
 she was as yet ignorant. 
 
 When the woman was seduced, complete suc- 
 cess was certain. Though the man, less ardent in 
 his feelings, and possessed of a more powerful 
 understanding, could not have been deceived by 
 such artifices, when his wife had fallen, his fall 
 was almost inevitable. The example and per- 
 suasion of one ardently beloved is scarcely to 
 
INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 203 
 
 be resisted ; and without unduly indulging 
 fancy at the expense of the simple narrative of 
 the inspired writer, it may be well conceived 
 that tiie man, possessing all the native generosi- 
 ty of his unfallen nature, seeing a person so dear 
 to him undone, and considering only the per- 
 sonal consequences of transgression, would not 
 hesitate to palliate, at least, the crime of the ob- 
 ject of his love, by sharing with her the guilt 
 and the punishment. 
 
 Such is the simple account of the introduction 
 of moral evil, given us, as it really was, by the 
 Spirit of inspiration. It is the only account which 
 is at once probable on the principles of the hu- 
 man constitution, and consistent with the attri- 
 butes of the Deity, and with the well known 
 phenomena of his moral administration. Satan 
 and man were the sole authors of moral evil ; 
 and of all the three, the seducer was obviously 
 the most culpable. And, accordingly, the pu- 
 nishment denounced against him was the most 
 severe, and that inflicted on them much lighter 
 than they must have anticipated, and which, no 
 doubt, they would have suffered had they sinned 
 more presumptuously. The sentence which se- 
 cured his final destruction was virtually a pro- 
 mise to them, that before they suffered the tem- 
 poral death to which they had subjected them- 
 selves, they might be encouraged by the sure 
 hope of an eternal life. 
 
204 INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 
 
 On reading the history of the fall given us in 
 the sacred Scriptures, some one perhaps may feel 
 disposed to ask, why was not Satan excluded 
 from paradise ? why were not the primitive pair 
 apprised of the way in which Satan would assail 
 them ? — might not an angel have been sent to 
 counteract his attempt ? and many other queries 
 of a similar nature. To answer these and a 
 thousand such questions, which may be started 
 respecting the most obvious subject, were the 
 purest trifling. Why do the planets revolve 
 from east to west ? it may be asked — why has 
 the earth but one moon ? miglit there not be a 
 greater number of planets in the solar system ? 
 To such inexplicable difficulties and objections, 
 if any one should take a fancy to consider them 
 such, the philosophy of Newton can afford no 
 answer. It can only be said that, as these things 
 are, they are very well ; and that the Creator 
 had no doubt wise ends in view in all his works, 
 though his reasons are utterly unknown to us. 
 The question, in like manner, respecting the in- 
 troduction of moral evil, is not whether the 
 Deity could not have employed a multitude of 
 means to prevent the fall, but whether, in acting 
 as He did, his conduct is consistent with the prin- 
 ciples of justice. It is not how the Deity might 
 have acted ; but how he did act, that we are in- 
 terested to know. He undoubtedly acted in a 
 
 manner conformable to his infinite wisdom and 
 
 0" 
 
INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 205 
 
 goodness; but since, with our limited knowledge, 
 we cannot understand nor duly appreciate the 
 wisdom and benevolence of his measures ; the 
 only question to which, as moral agents, we re- 
 quire an answer is, whether He acted on the prin- 
 ciples of equity ? That He acted with perfect 
 equity is evident : He furnished man with the 
 power of resisting temptation, and ap{)rised him 
 of the consequence of transgression ; and on 
 the estabUshed principles of justice, on which 
 men act with approbation every day, nothing 
 more could be required by a moral creature from 
 his moral governor. There was no injustice done 
 to man. He was not sacrificed to any consider- 
 ation of expediency, as has been wildly imagin- 
 ed ; but was treated in a manner perfectly con- 
 sistent with tlie principles of immutable recti- 
 tude. He knew his duty, and was physically 
 and morally able to perform it ; and if he failed, 
 he and his seducer were the sole authors of the 
 crime, and to them alone the guilt is to be im- 
 puted. Moral evil does not arise, as bishop 
 King strangely imagined, " from the very na- 
 ture and constitution of created beings, and could 
 not be avoided without a contradiction;" for 
 that is manifestly untrue, as the condition of un- 
 fallen creatures demonstrates. God made all 
 things at first in perfection : Satan primarily, 
 and then the depraved heart of man have been 
 the authors of all moral evil. 
 
206 INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 
 
 It is usually taught by theologians, in treating 
 of this subject, that God permits the commission 
 of moral evil : if, by the permission of God, it 
 is meant that He does not interpose his physical 
 power to hinder the perpetration of evil, the 
 doctrine is certainly correct; for this just states 
 the fact, that He governs his moral creatures by 
 moral means, and does not, by the use of physical 
 force, restrain their will and offer violence to their 
 nature. But though in this sense of the term, 
 permission, in which sense, indeed, it is most com- 
 monly employed, the doctrine is confessedly 
 true, the expression itself has a tendency to mis- 
 lead. In speaking of sin and obedience, we 
 have reference to man in his relation to God not 
 as a material being, but as a moral subject; and 
 in this character, God has given no permission 
 to commit sin. The Judge of all the earth can 
 never give any permission to perpetrate moral 
 evil. His immutable holiness renders this utterly 
 impossible. The very constitution of all his moral 
 creatures, as well as his authoritative command, 
 forbids that abominable thing which God hates. 
 The essence of sin consists in this, that it is done 
 without the permission of God, and in direct 
 opposition to his will. God, so far from per- 
 mitting, authoritatively prohibits all moral evil, 
 and by promises and threatenings, and all other 
 means consistent with the relation to which He 
 stands to man, seeks to prevent its commission ; 
 
INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 207 
 
 and the guilt of the sinner consists in this, that 
 in spite of the will of God, and notwithstanding 
 all the motives which He addresses to his con- 
 science, his love, his hopes, and his fears, he 
 wilfully commits what his Creator expressly for- 
 bids. We would banish then the expression, 
 God's permission of sin, as having a tendency 
 to mislead us; and state the truth more cor- 
 rectly by saying, that moral evil was at first in- 
 troduced to the world, and that all sins are now 
 committed, by men and by devils, without the 
 permission, and in direct opposition to the will 
 of God. They presumptuously oppose their 
 will, to the righteous and holy will of Him 
 whom the principalities and powers, the thrones 
 and dominions of heaven, find it their glory 
 and happiness to obey. The sinful creature 
 opposes and resists the will of the Creator, in the 
 midst of his own universe; while He, waiting to 
 be gracious even to the guilty, endures it a little, 
 but will finally express his awful indignation in 
 the fearful punishment of the impenitent trans- 
 gressor. 
 
 Respecting the origin of moral evil, there is 
 another doctrine which is sometimes maintained, 
 on which, also, it may not be improper to offer 
 a few remarks. It is admitted that all sin is in 
 opposition to the revealed will of God, by which 
 man is bound to regulate his conduct ; but it is 
 held that God has a secret will or purpose, by 
 
208 INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 
 
 wliich He brings about all events, sin as well as 
 every thing else. This is one of the most un- 
 hallowed of those unhallowed attempts to ex- 
 plain what the Spirit of inspiration has not seen 
 meet to reveal. For the sake of adding a little 
 to our limited knowledge, or rather, more truly, 
 to conceal our real ignorance, and gratify our 
 vanity by knowledge falsely so called, this hypo- 
 thesis would deny all the grand truths of Reve- 
 lation, destroy the moral attributes of the Deity, 
 and subvert all the grounds of the Christian's 
 hope. Happily, besides being contradictory to the 
 plainest statements of Scripture, and inconsistent 
 with the facts of the case, it carries along with 
 it its own refutation. If there be a secret will 
 of God, how is it known to us ? Who has 
 heard the secret of God? Hast thou been the 
 counsellor of the Eternal ? Such preposterous 
 attempts to conceal our ignorance, justify the 
 prophet's account of the presumption and folly 
 of man. — Man would be wise though born like 
 the wild ass's colt. 
 
 It would indeed be un candid to charge those 
 who have held such a doctrine with its blasphe- 
 mous consequences. It would make the God 
 of truth a wise and a subtle being indeed, like 
 the father of lies j but it w^ould deny his holi- 
 ness, his justice, and his veracity — those attri- 
 butes which are no less essential to his nature 
 than is the eternity of his existence, and which 
 
INTRODUCTOxV OF EVIL. 209 
 
 render it so glorious a trust to all the intelligent 
 and moral universe, that Jehovah, the Almighty 
 God reigncth king for ever. When men wander 
 beyond the sphere of their knowledge, they are 
 necessarily involved in endless mazes of error ; 
 and it must not be thought strange that, when 
 they endeavour to escape one absurdity, they are 
 plunged into another still more absurd. There 
 are not a few to be found who would reject, with 
 indignation and horror, the avowal of conse- 
 quences which are most directly implied in tiie 
 tenets which they hold. 
 
 But besides the absurdity of attempting to ex- 
 plain facts by principles which are confessedly 
 unknown, the notion of a secret will of God is 
 completely at variance with admitted truths, and 
 with the most obvious doctrines of Scripture. If 
 there be a truth which deserves to be considered 
 an axiom in theology, it is the fact that God is true; 
 and hence, that He cannot declare that to be his 
 will which in reality is not. Since, then, the physi- 
 cal and moral will of God, as was shown above, 
 uniformly coincide, to imagine that God can have a 
 secret purpose, involves the contradiction of hav- 
 ing two opposite wills respecting the same thing. 
 His ways indeed are unsearchable by us, and He 
 may have a multitude of secret purposes respect- 
 ing any object, but all of them must be consist- 
 ent with the will which He has vouchsafed to 
 reveal to us, unless we suppose the manifest con- 
 
^210 INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 
 
 tradiction of the Divine Being willing against him- 
 self. What, therefore, the Spirit of revelation 
 declares to be the divine will is in very deed the 
 will of God who cannot lie. Let God be true, 
 though every man a liar. His words are pure 
 words, like silver tried and purified seven times. 
 When He declares his will against sin, and so- 
 lemnly prohibits the commission of it, He has no 
 secret purpose to hting it about. We speak not 
 of the impiety of so horrid a supposition ; it is an 
 utter contradiction. The revealed will of God 
 is in reality the will of Him whose ways are all 
 just and true ; and any opposite will exists only 
 in the disordered andcorrupt imaginations of ig- 
 norant and foolish men, who would make God 
 such an one as themselves. He is not a God 
 that hath pleasure in wickedness, neither shall 
 evil dwell with Him. He hateth all the w^orkers 
 of iniquity, and abhorreth the bloody and deceit- 
 ful man. Such men act in most direct opposi- 
 tion to the will of the Most High ; and let them 
 not please themselves with the idea, that God by 
 any secret purpose favours their perpetration of 
 crime. The only secret will, in which they have 
 a momentous concern, is the ti7ne when he shall 
 reward them according to their works, and inflict 
 upon them those tremendous judgments which 
 his revealed word declares to be the reward of 
 sin. 
 
 It must be admitted indeed, that were one still 
 
INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 211 
 
 disposed to hold the opinion of a secret will of 
 God, opposite to that which is revealed, he may 
 derive, from the prescience and foreordination of 
 God, a number of powerful arguments which 
 seem to bring us to the conclusion, that God is 
 the author of evil in a way inconsistent with his 
 known attributes. We check the opponent who 
 would force us into such a dilemma, by remind- 
 ing him, that though his reasonings be legitimate, 
 our knowledge is exceedingly limited, and his 
 premises must surely be partial ; for his conclu- 
 sion is at variance with the statements of Scrip- 
 ture and acknowledged facts. <' God cannot be 
 tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man" 
 — much less does He impel to sin by some secret 
 exertion of power, as the doctrine of a secret will, 
 if it mean any thing, must imply ; " but every 
 man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his 
 own hist and enticed."* And lust was not creat- 
 ed by God ; for it is the fruit of our own moral 
 corruption, in consequence of the seduction of 
 Satan. 
 
 It is true that sin actually takes place under 
 the administration of God ; and since He was the 
 Creator of all things. He has been the author, 
 directly or indirectly, of every event which takes 
 place in his universe. But let us see in what 
 sense He has been so ; and in doing this, let us 
 
 • James i. 13, 11. 
 
SI 2 INTRODUCTIO^f OF EVIL. 
 
 keep within the limits of our own world, to which 
 alone our experience and information from Scrip- 
 ture extend, instead of wandering, as has been 
 often done, on the dark mountains of vanity, in 
 the world of conjecture. 
 
 Sin is actually committed in the world, and 
 God has been the Creator of all things, are the 
 facts on which our reasoning proceeds. Were 
 we reasoning on these facts alone, we are forced 
 to the conclusion that God is the author of evil 
 as well as of good ; which is the conclusion at 
 which unaided reason and a pseudo-philosophical 
 theology have usually arrived. The Christian how- 
 ever looks to his Bible, and at once explains the 
 difficulty, and corrects the reasonings of the phi- 
 losopher. One important fact is here left out of 
 the premises. God has been the Creator of all 
 things ; but He created them all very good, and 
 was not the Creator of corrupted man. He creat- 
 ed man morally holy, and perfectly able to remain 
 for ever in that condition. It was Satan alone, 
 acting in opposition to the will of the Creator, 
 who rendered man the corrupted being which 
 he now is ; and who, therefore, with the beings 
 whom he has seduced, is the only author of evil. 
 God, by his act of creation, indeed, gave occa- 
 sion to all the evil which has been produced ; 
 but not in any way repugnant to perfect holiness. 
 It is in the same manner as a man who has rear- 
 ed a house for the accommodation of his family, 
 
INTRODUCTION OF KVIL. ^15 
 
 is the cause of a burglary which has been com- 
 mitted in his premises. He has been the occa- 
 sion of the crime, but he has been the innocent 
 occasion, and is in truth the injured party : the 
 thief alone is culpable. Had he certainly fore- 
 seen the evil, as the Creator, who knows the end 
 from the beginning confessedly did, he was found 
 to employ every lawful precaution to prevent 
 the crime ; but while he did so, he might still 
 feel it right to prepare a house for his family, 
 and, as a moral agent, he was bound to do his 
 duty, whatever might be the conduct of others. 
 Though he should foresee ten thousand crimes, 
 and the misery of multitudes as the inevitable 
 consequence of his conduct, if the measure be 
 really his duty, he is bound to adopt it without 
 regard to the result. No principle of expediency 
 — no sacrifice of duty, can be admitted by a per- 
 fect moral agent. The only principle which must 
 regulate his conduct is the consideration of the 
 right and the wrong ; and what is right must be 
 performed. The case is precisely the same with 
 the Father of the universe ; for God and man, 
 as moral agents, act upon the same principle. 
 By endowing man with a moral nature, the Crea- 
 tor was bound, if we may so speak, to govern 
 him by moral means ; and the question, why did 
 not God prevent sin ? is a consideration, not of 
 physical power, but of moral rectitude. The 
 reasoning of Bayle and others, who from the 
 
214 INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 
 
 fact that the Divine Being had physical power to 
 prevent sin, would prove Him the author of 
 evil, is completely irrelevant and nugatory. The 
 question is not, as was said, had He physical 
 strength to prevent evil, but in acting as He did, 
 did He act justly ? Were the physical force of 
 a moral agent to be the measure of his efforts ; 
 how absurd were the consequences ? In multi- 
 tudes of instances, a man certainly foresees that 
 others will commit such and such crimes 5 but 
 he never asks, have I physical force to hinder 
 them, but have I a right to employ it ? If he 
 has not, he is content to employ all lawful and 
 moral means to prevent the perpetration of the 
 evil ; and if these fail, he never feels himself 
 guilty, though multitudes of crimes are commit- 
 ted which certainly he had power to prevent. 
 Were he acting otherwise, he would quickly find 
 himself the most criminal of all those whose 
 crimes he sought to hinder ; and the laws of the 
 country and the common sense of mankind would 
 unite to support the principle, that a moral agent 
 must not regulate his actions by his physical 
 power, but employ right means, as well as pro- 
 pose to himself a right end. 
 
 As then the Almighty's sufferance of sin is 
 not to be made a question of physical power, 
 neither must it be made by us, whose faculties are 
 limited, a consideration of wisdom or goodness. 
 We are able to perceive the justice of any action 
 
INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. f 15 
 
 of God towards us : not to estimate the benevo- 
 lence or expediency of his measures. Actions, 
 naked and isolated, may be perceived just or un- 
 just ; but to discover the expediency or goodness 
 of any action of the Deity, its effects on the uni- 
 verse and during eternity must be known, and a 
 degree of knowledge therefore is necessary of 
 which perhaps finite minds, or at least our very 
 limited understandings are incapable. Even in 
 the present state, however, we see as much of 
 his administration as leaves little room to doubt, 
 that all his measures are no less consistent with 
 goodness and mercy than with the most impar- 
 tial justice. In the economy of redemption, we 
 behold all his attributes combined to overrule the 
 wickedness of his fallen creatures, for the most 
 gracious and glorious purposes ; and to bring out 
 of evil, real not seeming evil, as the poet would 
 insinuate, an amount of good of which the influ- 
 ence in the universe cannot be duly appreciated, 
 till the multitude which no man can number, of all 
 nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, 
 stand before the throne, ascribing glory, and ho- 
 nour, and blessing, and thanksgiving, to Him 
 that reigneth for ever and ever. Then will it 
 appear to the complete satisfaction of every ra- 
 tional being, that God is infinitely benevolent and 
 merciful, as well as just and true. His wisdom 
 and mercy cannot, in the present state, always 
 be duly estimated, nor in some cases apprehend- 
 
216 INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 
 
 ed : it is enough if it is found universally true, 
 that He governs the world by no paltry principle 
 of expediency, which would sacrifice one portion 
 of his creation to promote the welfare of another; 
 but that justice and judgment are the eternal 
 foundations of his throne. 
 
 The justice of the conduct of God respecting 
 the fall of man has appeared manifest. A moral 
 agent who knows his duty and has power to dis- 
 charge it, can demand nothing more from a mo- 
 ral governor. The man who would deny this 
 principle would prove himself guilty of injustice 
 and villany ; for all the duties which he imposes 
 upon others, and the services which he claims 
 from tliem, proceed upon the truth of it. And 
 indeed all the objections which are urged against 
 the responsibility of man and the justice of the 
 Deity, are founded so much on misconception of 
 the nature of moral government, and of the cha- 
 racter of moral agents, that they are utterly un- 
 worthy of notice. Their direct tendency is to 
 degrade man from the high rank of the being 
 who can think, judge, and act a part for himself 
 in the universe, and whose destiny therefore was 
 put into his own hands, to the irrational brute, 
 made to obey the rein and the goad, till it sink 
 into the inert and insensible mass from which it 
 was formed. 
 
 To answer the question then, whence came 
 evil in our world ? we return to the statement of 
 
INTRODUCTION OF EVIL, ^17 
 
 the sacred writer, God made man upright, but 
 at the iwstigation and by the artifice of Satan, he 
 has found out many inventions. This is an ulti- 
 mate fact to our present knowledge and with our 
 present means of information. It is one of those 
 first principles which we can state as a fact, but 
 cannot attempt to explain or assign any reason 
 how or why it is. In so doing we imitate the 
 natural philosopher, who when asked what is 
 gravitation, can give no answer but such as 
 amounts merely to the truth that there is such a 
 principle as gravitation. Like all other powers 
 of the same sort, it is known to him only by its 
 effects ; from the observation of which he dis- 
 covers the laws of its action and the measure of 
 its intensity. By the just application of these 
 laws, he is enabled to explain all the mechanical 
 phenomena of the universe, and at one time, 
 constructs a steam-engine, and at another, 
 ascertains the path of a projectile or traces the 
 orbit of a planet. Taking, in like manner, the 
 fallen spirits as the principle of evil, we explain 
 all the phenomena of the moral world consistent- 
 ly with the agency and responsibility of man, and 
 with the moral attributes of the Creator. If we 
 attempt to go beyond this fact, we are bewilder- 
 ed in a more perplexing labyrinth than were the 
 physics of the schoolmen, with all their multi- 
 plicity of imaginary principles. Taking the fact 
 as it is, without trying to explain it, and reason- 
 
SI 8 INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 
 
 ing from it as the natural philosopher does from 
 gravitation, all is obvious and satisfactory. Our 
 reasonings then prove the world to be as it really 
 is. God is proved holy, just, and merciful, the 
 author of all good, from whom cometh every 
 good and perfect gift. Devils and corrupted 
 men are the authors of all moral evil, and, as 
 such, are responsible to the great Judge, who 
 will judge the world in righteousness and the 
 people with truth. 
 
 We cannot wonder at the partiality which a 
 distinguished French writer betrays for the doc- 
 trine of those ancient sects who held the exist- 
 ence of two opposite principles of good and evil.* 
 Ridiculous as the doctrine became in their 
 hands, when obscured by their numerous ab- 
 
 • This doctrine, as every body knows, was prevalent long before 
 the time of the Manichees and other heretical sects in the early 
 ages of Christianity. The older writers taught it more clearly and 
 consistently, and it might not be difficult to trace it up to the tra- 
 ditions derived from our first progenitors. Not to mention other 
 authors, every scholar recollects the celebrated passage in the 
 Odyssy. 
 
 'H 'ffO^Ol OtOV St] VV 6lOVi (i^OTOl UITIOa)>TXl' 
 
 E^ vif^iuv yccQ (patri xax' tfji.fji.tvu.t' it ^t xai autoi 
 
 '2(pyi(riv cira(r&oc>.i^inv'vn^ fio^ov dXyi ip(^ovffiv — Lib. /, 32, 34. 
 
 " How strange," says Jupiter, " that mortals accuse the gods ; 
 for they say that we are the cause of evil, while they suffer the 
 punishment of their own folly contrary to fate." If we under- 
 stand hy fate the will of the Almighty which governs the moral 
 universe, and which was originally expressed by the creation of 
 man as a perfect moral being, the doctrine is strictly true. All 
 evil is contrary to fate in this sense. 
 
 2 
 
INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. «19 
 
 surdities, it is nothing but that of the sacred 
 Scriptures, corrupted and disfigured ; and with 
 respect to the origin and prevalence of evil in 
 our world, it is practically correct. Since the 
 creation of man there has been a good and an 
 evil principle constantly at work, and a continual 
 warfare maintained between them. The evil 
 principle has been hitherto most prevalent, and 
 has sometimes almost succeeded, as at the de- 
 luge, in expelling virtue from the earth. And 
 even now the god of this world — the prince of the 
 powder of the air — the spirit that now worketh in 
 the children of disobedience, has the advantage 
 in the conflict, and reigns absolute sovereign 
 over the great majority of mankind, who are led 
 by him captive at his will. It shall not however 
 be so for ever. The author of evil is but the 
 creature contending against the almighty Crea- 
 tor. Though Satan has hitherto prevailed, God 
 has not been permitting sin, but waiting to be 
 gracious, willing that his unhappy victims should 
 come to repentance and obtain salvation, and 
 when this merciful design is accomplished, ven- 
 geance wdll no longer tarry. There is a day 
 appointed in which He will judge the world in 
 righteousness, by Him whom He hath ordained. 
 Then shall the wrath of God be revealed from 
 heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteous- 
 ness of devils and of men, and in sw^eeping for ever 
 moral evil and its authors from the universe, 
 
Q20 INTRODUCTION OF EVIL. 
 
 the Deity will give an awful proof to all his in- 
 telligent creatures, that though sinners have ren- 
 dered Him and his works the occasions of evil, 
 He is not its author, by any direct or secret pur- 
 pose inconsistent with his revealed will ; and the 
 real authors of it will then at length be convin- 
 ced, that they, and they only, were the criminal 
 perpetrators of the crimes for which they suffer 
 the vengeance of eternal fire. 
 
REVIEW OF EDWARDS. 221 
 
 SECTION VII 
 
 REVIEW OF PRESIDENT EDWARDS* ACCOUNT OF THE 
 FREEDOM OF THE WILL. 
 
 The brief, but not, we trust, altogether unsa- 
 tisfactory illustrations of some of the most im- 
 portant questions, involved in the inquiry respect- 
 ing the liberty of man, which have been now 
 offered, may serve to protect us from the beUef 
 of the fate of the Stoicks on the one hand, and of 
 Epicurean contingency on the other ; and enable 
 us to form our conceptions of the human agent 
 as he really exists. It has not appeared neces- 
 sary to refute a multitude of opinions which are 
 entertained respectingsomeof the topics, or to an- 
 swer a number of objections which may be start- 
 ed ; which, indeed, were as idle as, in the present 
 age, to bring forward a formal refutation of the 
 philosophy of Aristotle, or of the hypothesis of 
 the vortices of Descartes. To guard us, how- 
 ever, still farther against some of the practical 
 consequences into which certain views of the sub- 
 ject necessarily lead, it may not be unacceptable 
 to examine a few of the principal opinions held 
 
2^2 REVIEW OF EDWARDS. 
 
 by writers on both sides of the controversy. And 
 as President Edwards and Dr. Whitby may be 
 justly considered to stand at the head of the 
 writers of the opposite parties, w^e now propose 
 to present some observations on the celebrated 
 works of these distinguished authors. President 
 Edwards' work first claims attention. 
 
 Before proceeding to examine the leading 
 principle of this work, it may not be amiss to ob- 
 serve how judiciously the author has given us the 
 true account of the mode of the determination 
 of the will. " The will," says he, ** always is as 
 the greatest apparent good is," or as ** what ap- 
 pears most agreeable."* He prefers this mode 
 of expression to the more common phraseology, 
 justly observing, that the ** appearing most 
 agreeable or pleasing to the mind, and the mind's 
 preferring and choosing, seem hardly to be pro- 
 perly and perfectly distinct." He then enume- 
 rates a number of circumstances, both of the ex- 
 ternal motive and of the mind itself, which tend 
 to render any action the most agreeable, and 
 concludes the argument in support of his prin- 
 ciple with the following powerful passage. 
 " However, I think so much is certain, that vo- 
 lition, in no one instance that can be mentioned, 
 is otherwise than the greatest apparent good is, 
 in the manner which has been explained. The 
 
 * Part I. Sect. II. 
 
REVIEW OF EDWARDS. 223 
 
 * 
 
 choice of the mind never departs from that 
 which, at that time, and with respect to the di- 
 rect and immediate objects of that decision of 
 the mind, appears most agreeable and pleasing, 
 all things considered. If the immediate effects 
 of the will are a man's own actions, then those 
 actions wliich appear most agreeable to him he 
 wills. If it be now most agreeable to him, all 
 things considered, to walk, then he now wills to 
 walk. If it be now, upon the whole of what at 
 present appears to him, most agreeable to speak, 
 then he chooses to speak ; if it suits him best to 
 keep silence, then he chooses to keep silence. 
 There is scarcely a plainer and more universal 
 dictate of the sense and experience of mankind 
 than that, when men act voluntarily and do what 
 they please, then they do what suits them best, 
 or what is most agreeable to them. To say that 
 they do what they please or what pleases them, 
 but yet they do what is most agreeable to them, 
 is the same thing as to say that they do what 
 they please but do not act their pleasure, and that 
 is to say that they do what they please, and yet 
 do not do what they please."* 
 
 This reasoning is perfectly conclusive. To 
 render any action the most agreeable it must 
 be the object of the predominant desire : now 
 from the analysis of volition, it was obvious that 
 
 * Part I. Sect. II. 
 
224 REVIEW OF EDVVAKDS. 
 
 the desire which, at the time, predominates 
 uniformly involves the determination of the 
 will ; and hence, as he himself has acutely hint- 
 ed above, to appear most agreeable to the mind, 
 and the mind to prefer or choose, are, in truth, 
 identical, or at least, the one uniformly involves 
 the other. 
 
 In establishing this conclusion, this acute 
 metaphysician has not committed the mistake, 
 into which some writers, who seem to follow 
 him in other respects, have fallen. He evinces 
 too great an acquaintance with the human mind 
 to imagine, that men, in the present state of 
 moral derangement, act uniformly under the 
 guidance of their understanding. " It will appear 
 from these things,'^ says he *' that m mme sense, 
 the will always follows the last dictate of the 
 understanding. But then the understanding 
 must be taken in a large SL>nse, as including the 
 whole faculty oi' j)erception or apprehension^ and 
 not merely what is called reason or judgment. 
 If j by the dictate of the understanding be meant 
 what reason declares to be best, or most for the 
 person's happiness, taking in the whole of its 
 duration, it is not true that the will always fol- 
 lows the last dictate of the understanding. Such 
 a dictate of reason is quite a different matter 
 from things appearing now most agreeable \ all 
 things being put together which pertain to the 
 mind's present perceptions, apprehensions, or 
 
REVIEW OF EDWARDS. 2^25 
 
 ideas, in any respect. Although that dictate of 
 reason, when it takes place, is one thing which 
 is put into the scales, and is to be considered as 
 a thing that has concern in the compound influ- 
 ence which moves and induces the will ; and is 
 one thing that is to be considered in estimating 
 the degree of that appearance of good which 
 the will always follows, either as having its in- 
 fluence added to other things, or subtracted 
 from them. When it remains with other things, 
 then its weight is added to them, as put into 
 the same scale ; but when it is against them, it 
 is as a weight in the opposite scale, where it re- 
 sists the influence of other things ; T/et its resis- 
 tance is often overcome by their greater weight, 
 and so the act of the will is determined in oppo^ 
 sition to it"* 
 
 This is the correct statement of fact, which 
 we have endeavoured to illustrate. Section IV. 
 under the name of Moral Necessity, and which 
 has been observed by moralists in all ages, and 
 has given occasion for all the complaints of the 
 folly and inconsistency of man. It is true that, 
 in one sense, the judgment or understanding 
 always approves of the volition, in as far as it 
 is the most desirable and agreeable at the time, 
 though, perhaps, neither right nor most advan- 
 tageous upon the whole. But such approba- 
 
 ♦ Part I. Sect. II. 
 S 
 
226 REVIEW OF EDWARDS. 
 
 tion is not strictly the judgment of the under- 
 standing j it is rather, as our author justly ob- 
 serves, a fact consequent upon the volition, 
 which the understsindmg perceives ; for the action 
 or object of the volition is rendered the most 
 agreeable, by causes independent of the judg- 
 ment ; and notwithstanding the pleasure which 
 the action affords, the understanding, it may be, 
 does not cease to condemn it as a crime. 
 
 Let us now examine the nature of the necessi- 
 ty which the work under consideration so ably 
 estabUshes. After very judiciously explaining 
 the common and proper meaning of the term, 
 necessity y and others of a like import, and show- 
 ing clearly that they are relative terms, always 
 implying opposition, and that an action is neces- 
 sary to us, when no endeavour or effort of ours 
 can render it otherwise, he goes on to make the 
 following excellent observations/ **It follows 
 from what has been observed, that when these 
 terms necessary, impossible, ir resistible, kc, are 
 used in cases wherein no opposition, or insuffi- 
 cient will or endeavour, is supposed, or can be 
 supposed, but the very nature of the supposed 
 case itself excludes and denies any such opposi- 
 tion, will, or endeavour, these terms are then not 
 used in their proper signification, but quite be- 
 side their use in common speech. The reason 
 is manifest, namely, that in such cases we can- 
 not use the words with reference to a supposable 
 
REVIEW OF EDWARDS. 2^7 
 
 opposition, will or endeavour. And, therefore, 
 if any man use these terms in such cases, he 
 either uses them nonsensically, or in some new 
 sense, diverse from their original and proper 
 meaning. As for instance, if a man should af- 
 firm after this manner, that it is necessary for a 
 man and what must be, that a man should choose 
 virtue rather than vice, during the time that he 
 prefers virtue to vice ; and that it is a thing im~ 
 possible and irresistible^ that it should be other- 
 wise than that he should have this choice, so 
 long as this choice continues ; such a man would 
 use the terms musty irresistible^ &c. with perfect 
 insignificance and nonsense, or in some new 
 sense diverse from their common use ; which is 
 with reference, as has been obsei^ed, to suppo- 
 sable opposition, unwillingness and resistance j 
 whereas here, the very supposition excludes and 
 denies any such thing ; for the case supposed is 
 that of being willing and choosing,"* 
 
 * Part I. Sect. III. Luther, too, was quite aware of the misappli- 
 cation of the terra necessity, and felt the injurious tendency of the 
 word in this controversy. *' Optarim sane aliud," says he, " melius 
 vocabulum dari in hac disputatione quam hoc usitatura, NecessUas, 
 quod non recte dicitur, nee de divina neque de huraana voluntate ; 
 Est enim nimis ingratae et incongruee significationis, pro hoc loco, 
 quandam velut coactionem et omnino id quod contrarium est vo- 
 luntati ingerens intellectui. De Servo Arbitrio." " I truly 
 wish that in this controversy some more appropriate term were 
 employed than the usual one necessity, which is applicable neither 
 to the will of God nor man. It is of so harsh and incongruous a 
 signification, when used here, suggesting a sort of coaction, and 
 
228 REVIEW OF EDWARDS. 
 
 This is admirable, and the true account of the 
 nature of necessity, and is precisely what we at- 
 tempted to illustrate, in the remarks which were 
 offered on the principle of Mr. Hume. Where 
 there is no irresistible opposition, there is no ne- 
 cessity. I "When a voluntary agent carries his will 
 into execution, he is physically free ; and when 
 his will is opposed and resisted by a superior 
 force, he is under necessity. I When, in like man- 
 ner, a moral agent judges aii action right and re- 
 solves to perform it, he enjoys moral liberty ; 
 but when, on the other hand, by external excite- 
 ment, appetite or disallowed passion, the dictate 
 of his conscience is resisted, and he is impelled to 
 act the part which he condemns, he is placed in 
 a condition directly the opposite of moral free- 
 dom. In both cases, freedom, as was formerly 
 shown, is the enjoyment of power ; necessity the 
 result of weakness and opposition. Where there 
 is no opposition to the peculiar agency of a be- 
 ing, there is no necessity ; and it is utterly non- 
 sensical and absurd, as is justly observed, to 
 take the mere fact of existence and call it by 
 that term, and then to assure us that because a 
 
 -what is altogether contrary to the nature of volition." It is ear- 
 nestly to be hoped that writers on this subject will take the hint 
 of Luther, and instead of this incongruous term necessity, employ 
 the word causation^ or agency ; and instead, therefore, of saying 
 that man is under necessity, or philosophical necessity, rather say 
 more correctly and elegantly, he is an agent. 
 
REVIEW OF EDWARDS. * 229 
 
 being is, he is under hopeless necessity. Such 
 contemptible insignificance and nonsense how- 
 ever has been dignified with the name of philo- 
 sophy. 
 
 Had President Edwards therefore observed 
 this just distinction, in the subsequent part of the 
 discussion, he would have fully explained the 
 whole subject of liberty ; and it is much to be 
 regretted, that a writer so able to illustrate this 
 important subject was diverted from his proper 
 object, by his desire to expose the absurdities of 
 writers little worthy of his attention. Let us 
 Eow see how far he has been induced, and ap- 
 parently with his eyes open, to overlook his own 
 principle in the establishment of universal neces- 
 sity. 
 
 After stating the various significations which 
 the phrase moral necessity assumes, he adds, 
 " and sometimes by moral necessity is meant that 
 necessity of connection and consequence, which 
 arises from such moral causes, as the strength of 
 inclination or motives, and the connection which 
 there is ^in many cases between these, and such 
 certain volitions and actions. And it is in this \ ^,; 
 sense that I use the phrase, moral necessity, in the ' 
 following discourse.'' As a counterpart to this 
 he explains what is called natural or physical ne- 
 cessity as follows : " By natural necessity, as ap- ^^^ 
 pjied to man, I mean such necessity as men are x *u. 
 under through the force of natural causes, as dis- 
 
230 REVIEW OF EDWARDS. 
 
 tinguished from what are called moral causes, 
 such as habits and dispositions of the heart, and 
 moral motives and inducements. Thus men 
 placed in certain circumstances, are the subjects 
 of particular sensation by necessity — they feel 
 pain when their bodies are wounded ; they see 
 objects presented before them in clear light when 
 their eyes are opened," &c.* 
 
 Respecting these two sorts of necessity, he very 
 judiciously remarks, first, that moral necessity 
 may be as absolute as natural necessity ; that is, 
 the effect may be as perfectly connected with its 
 moral cause as a natural effect with its natural 
 cause ; and hence, secondly, that this distinction 
 is founded not on any difference in the nature of 
 the causation, or from the one being less natural 
 than the other, but simply from the subjects in 
 which they take place — the one necessity regard- 
 ing mind, the other matter. 
 
 It is plain, then, by the definition above, that 
 the necessity, both moral and physical, of Presi- 
 dent Edwards, is exactly the philosophical neces- 
 sity or causation of Mr. Hume, which, we saw, 
 involves both liberty and necessity, and is equal- 
 ly essential to the existence of either. Whether 
 a voluntary agent be able to carry his volition 
 into effect or not, the result is determined by the 
 immutable laws of mechanical philosophy ; and 
 
 • Part I. Sect. IV. 
 
REVIEW OF EDWARDS. 231 
 
 whether or not the moral agent do what he 
 knows to be right and remain innocent, or act 
 against his conscience and render himself guilty, 
 the effect is equally that of the dispositions, in- 
 clinations, and desires of the mind, acting on the 
 sure principles of its partially corrupted nature. 
 Moral causes, that is. not, as the language of 
 the President might seem to suggest, inclina- 
 tions and motives as distinct entities, but, as 
 Leibnitz clearly understood, the mind itself per- 
 ceiving and desiring different objects, are as ne- 
 cessarily and invariably connected with their ef- 
 fects as the causes of the physical world. It is 
 in this that the power of the agent consists, and on 
 which consequently his liberty depends. It is 
 simply the fact, that he is an agent; which alone, 
 therefore, the universal establishment of moral 
 causation proves. The true question of liberty and 
 necessity is entirely set aside. In all cases, both 
 of liberty and necessity, moral causation takes 
 place ; but we must know something more, be- 
 fore any thing can be determined regarding that 
 real necessity, which is the consequence of irresis- 
 tible opposition, and of the weakness of the agent 
 who labours under it. We have not to inquire, 
 whether any moral effect has a cause, but whe- 
 ther this cause acts for or against the intelligent 
 man — whether the effect is his own approved 
 «qf, or the effect of another cause acting in op- 
 position to his understanding. If his own intel- 
 
232 REVIEW CF EDWARDS. 
 
 lectual power produces the effect, he is free ; if 
 the effect be the result of irresistible opposition 
 and of inability on his part to oppose it, he is 
 under necessity. 
 
 The President was perfectly aware that he had 
 left the subject of real necessity, and takes no 
 undue advantage of his reader. " It must be 
 observed," says he, " that in what has been ex- 
 plained as signified by the name of moral neces- 
 sity^ the word necessity is not used according to 
 the original design and meaning of the word ; 
 for, as was observed before, such terms, neces- 
 sary, impossible, &c. in common speech, and in 
 their most proper sense, are always relative, hav- 
 ing reference to some supposable opposition or 
 endeavour that is insufficient." * He seems to 
 have been led to misapply the term, and to lay 
 himself open to the charge of using it with " in- 
 significance and nonsense," in the way that most 
 other writers have been — by regarding too ex- 
 clusively the external and physical condition of 
 man, without sufficiently considering his nature, 
 as a moral and intelligent being. Hence he 
 imagines that no opposition can take place in 
 any instance of moral necessity. " No opposi- 
 tion, or contrary will and endeavour, is suppos* 
 able in the case of moral necessity, which is a 
 certainty and inclination of the will itself, which 
 
 * Part I. Sect. IV. 
 
REVIEW OF EDWARDS. 233 
 
 does not admit of the supposition of a will to 
 oppose and resist it. For it is absurd to suppose 
 the same individual will to oppose itself, in its 
 present act ; or the present choice to be oppo- 
 site to, and resisting present choice — as absurd 
 as it is to talk of two contrary motions, in the 
 same moving body, at the same time. And 
 therefore the very case supposed never admits of 
 any trial, whether an opposing or resisting will 
 can overcome this necessity." * 
 
 There can, indeed, be no opposition of will to 
 will and of choice to choice, in the mind of an 
 individual, in the same direct manner as the will 
 of one agent is opposed to that of another ; for the 
 very supposition, as our author states, is incon- 
 sistent with the idea of voluntary agency, and 
 this is not the opposition which is peculiar to man 
 as a moral being. The opposition which man, 
 in this character, experiences, is that which his 
 judgment and his approved feelings offer to his 
 disapproved and guilty volitions ; and in every 
 instance of moral necessity, according to the de- 
 finition of Edwards, that is, in every instance of 
 moral causation, this opposition may or may not 
 take place, and as it does or does not, is the man 
 under real moral necessity or in a state of moral 
 freedom. When the understanding and the con- 
 science sanction a volition, and which, conse- 
 
 * Part. I. Sect IV. 
 
S34 REVIEW OF EDWARDS. 
 
 quently, acts in concurrence with the approved 
 feeUng, no possible opposition, at least no irre- 
 sistible opposition can be offered, and the man is 
 therefore morally free. But when the conscience 
 condemns a desire, and the approved feelings re- 
 sist it, a violent mental struggle takes place be- 
 tween the opposite wishes ; and if the dictates 
 of the conscience and the better feelings are re- 
 sisted by the forbidden desire, and the volition 
 fixed in opposition to them, the man labours un- 
 der a real moral necessity. In such a case, there 
 is as truly a moral conflict and a real moral op- 
 position, in the breast of the individual, as there 
 is a physical struggle and external opposition 
 when one man endeavours by force to resist the 
 will of another. Feeling is opposed to feel- 
 ing, and desire struggles with desire ; and if the 
 feelings and desires which the understanding ap- 
 proves are resisted and overcome by those which 
 it condemns, the moral agent is placed under a 
 In oral necessity as truly as the voluntary agent is 
 under a physical necessity, when the superior 
 strength of an antagonist violently resists and 
 hinders the execution of his will. All this the 
 President fully and clearly states in numerous 
 passages of his valuable works, though he did not 
 distinctly perceive its bearing on the subject of 
 free will. Not to adduce other quotations, a 
 passage already mentioned exhibits very explicit- 
 ly the whole truth. ** When the understanding 
 
REVIEW OF EDWARDS. ^35 
 
 concurs with other things, then its weight is add- 
 ed to them as put into the same scale ; but when 
 it is against them, it is as a weight to the oppo- 
 site scale where it resists the influence of other 
 things, ^et its resistance is often overcome hy their 
 greater iveight, and so the act of the will is deter- 
 mined in opposition to it.'' 
 
 It is, however, somewhat unaccountable, that 
 so acute an observer and so clear a reasoner as 
 President Edwards should have overlooked this 
 moral opposition, especially after he had distinct- 
 ly recognised it. It gives rise to a distinction 
 vastly more important, as was hinted before, than 
 the physical opposition which is the cause of ani- 
 mal or voluntary necessity. It is this moral op- 
 position and resistance which is the source of the 
 distinction of guilty and innocent, vicious and 
 virtuous, sinful and holy ; and long after all the 
 temporary inconvenience of physical weakness 
 and animal necessity are forgotten, the conse- 
 quences of this distinction will be experienced, 
 in the state of inconceivable felicity or of hope- 
 less misery in which the righteous Judge will ^x 
 his moral creatures for eternity. To overlook 
 such a distinction, therefore, in treating of moral 
 necessity, is, in truth, to overlook the most im- 
 portant and momentous state which the agency 
 of a moral being exhibits, and entirely to set 
 aside the real subject of inquiry; for without mo- 
 
^36 REVIEW OF EDWARDS. 
 
 ral resistance and opposition there is indeed no 
 moral necessity. 
 
 It is unnecessary to offer any further remarks 
 on a subject already so evident. It is perfectly 
 obvious, that President Edwards has left the sub- 
 ject of liberty and necessity exactly where it was 
 left by Mr. Hume, having established the uni- 
 versality of causation as certainly in the moral 
 world as it is admitted to be in the physical, 
 but having determined literally nothing respect- 
 ing real necessity. Nay, according to his own 
 correct definition of necessity, he has established 
 rather the universality of moral freedom ; for 
 were there no irresistible moral opposition, there 
 could be no moral necessity. In making these 
 remarks, however, it is not the intention to throw 
 any blame upon the author. He has given us 
 clear and correct definitions of what he meant to 
 establish, and has honestly proceeded upon them, 
 without taking any un^ndid advantage of the 
 ambiguity of words ; and if, in some respects, he 
 misleads his reader, it is only because he himself 
 was misled. The professed object of his work 
 was not to treat of liberty and necessity, proper- 
 ly so called, but to refute the prevailing notions 
 of a certain imaginary freedom of will, which 
 was falsely deemed essential to moral agency and 
 responsibihty ; and he has completely and most 
 triumphantly succeeded. In establishing the 
 universality of moral causation, he has for ever 
 
P^ or THE 
 REVIEW OF EDWARDS. |( TT ]iPST ^ *^ *^^ 
 
 swept away all the fantastic mass of absS^j^|es 
 maintained by his opponents, and has clearly 
 exhibited the only solid and even possible foun- 
 dation of moral freedom, in demonstrating the 
 fact, that man is a moral agent, which they vir- 
 tually deny, by the supposition that contingency 
 and indifference are essential to moral agency 
 and responsibility. These and all such monstrous 
 conceptions he completely explodes ; and exhi- 
 bits man just as he is — a voluntary and moral 
 agent, who so long as he retains his present 
 constitution and the powers which render him 
 what he is, will necessarily act upon the princi- 
 ples of his being, from which he cannot possibly 
 escape, without divesting himself of his nature. 
 
 Let us now see the practical consequences 
 of President Edwards' doctrine of the univ^ersa- 
 lity of moral necessity. The only liberty which 
 he holds man to possess is the power of acting as 
 he willsy chooses^ 'pleases or feels most agreeable. 
 These terms, it must be admitted, are somewhat 
 ambiguous, and are used with various latitudes of 
 signification ; but, as he employs them, they must 
 be considered to express the fact, that man is a 
 voluntary agent, or regulates his actions by his 
 volitions. When he does so, he is allowed by 
 Edwards to be free ; but when he is resisted and 
 restrained by irresistible physical force, he is un- 
 der necessity in the proper sense of the term. 
 
 This, it will be recollected, was the opinion 
 
238 REVIEW OF EDWARDS. 
 
 of Mr. Hume, who granted that thus far there 
 is a real distinction in the condition of the human 
 agent, and that if the one state is necessity, the 
 other may be termed Hberty. But this wily 
 sceptic, with a head as clear as that of Satan 
 and a heart as bad, instantly discovered that if 
 this is the whole of human liberty, there can be 
 no moral obligation ; and hence in his attempt 
 to subvert the morals and religion of the country, 
 he was zealous to maintain that this is the whole 
 freedom enjoyed by man. Accordingly, the 
 work of Edwards, as is well known, was a great 
 subject of triumph to Hume and his disciples ; for 
 though that author clearly demonstrated the con- 
 sistency of moral obligation with the moral neces- 
 sity which he held, his arguments, derived from 
 Scripture and the common sense of mankind, were 
 pointless to the mind of a discerning sceptic, who 
 was ignorant of the limits of human knowledge — 
 the first qualification of a true philosopher, and who 
 besides facts, sought the reasons of them. The 
 will itself is that which, by the law of God, we 
 are enjoined to regulate, or in the words of Ed- 
 wards, " The being of a good will is the most 
 proper, direct, and immediate subject of com- 
 mand ; and if this cannot be prescribed or requir- 
 ed by command or precept, nothing can ; for 
 other things- can be required no otherwise than 
 as they depend upon, and are the fruits of a good 
 
REVIEW OF EDWARDS. 239 
 
 will/** It directly follows, therefore, that if the 
 only liberty possessed by man is the power of 
 doing as he pleases, he cannot be the subject of 
 moral obhgation, but is in the same condition 
 as the brutes, which not less than he do as they 
 please or as they find most agreeable. The truth 
 of this conclusion is put in a strong light by 
 the President's own statements. He holds " that 
 natural necessity is wholly inconsistent with 
 just praise or blame ;" f and goes further with 
 this principle than perhaps many Calvinists may 
 feel disposed to accompany him, saying, that ** it 
 is a plain dictate of the sense of all mankind, 
 that natural necessity and impossibility take away 
 all blame and praise ; and, therefore, that the 
 nearer approach is to these through previous ^;ro- 
 pensity or difficulty, so praise and blame are pro- 
 portionably diminished ^X On this principle then 
 it directly and irresistibly follows, that if Mr. 
 Hume be successful in proving the ability to do 
 as we will the whole of human liberty, he at 
 once overthrows all moral responsibility and na- 
 tural religion, and proves the gospel of our salva- 
 tion to be a most ridiculous delusion of the weak 
 and enthusiastic, or a subtle device of the church- 
 man to procure for himself a good living, while 
 the villain cloaks his base and mercenary mo- 
 tives under loud pretensions of zeal for the wel- 
 fare of souls. 
 
 ♦ Part III. Sect. IV. f Part IV. Sect. III. \ Part IV. Sect. IV. 
 
S40 REVIEW OF EDWARDS. 
 
 President Edwards, it is true, most satisfactor- 
 ily demonstrated the consistency of moral obli- 
 gation with, or more truly the impossibility of it 
 without, the necessity which he so successfully 
 establishes ; but it is by tacitly admitting the 
 principle which he professes to refute. He just- 
 ly rejects the self-determining power of the will, 
 as a contradiction, or perhaps, in truth, rather a 
 contradictory expression ; but he is compelled to 
 allow the human agent a self-determining power 
 of some sort, and accordingly proceeds implicitly 
 uponit in all his arguments in support of responsi- 
 bihty. It is needless to mention the instances, 
 which he adduces, of perfect beings, as our Sa- 
 viour, all of whom are moral beings solely by the 
 circumstance, that they have the power of regu- 
 lating their own wills, and whose case proves on- 
 ly the fact without explaining the reason of it. 
 " The idea," says he, "which the common people, 
 through all ages and nations, have of faultiness, I 
 suppose to be plainly this : A person* s being or 
 doing wrong with Ids own will or pleasure, con- 
 taining these two things : First, his doing wrong 
 when he does as he pleases ; second, his pleasures 
 being wrong ; or, in other words, perhaps more 
 intelligibly expressing their notion, A person 
 having his heart wrong, and doing wrong from his 
 heart : And this is the sum total of the matter."'* 
 
 * Part IV. Sect, IV. 
 
IlEVIEW OF ILDVVAllDS. 211 
 
 This most undoubtedly involves the whole mat- 
 ter ; for the truth which is the basis of obligation, 
 if not prominently brought forward, is directly 
 imphed. The notion of one's pleasure and will be- 
 ing wrong implies, as every one perceives, the pos- 
 session of an understanding capable of perceiving 
 the right and the wrongs and hence of determin- 
 ing the volition according to the former or against 
 the latter. This is no less a principle of the 
 common sense of mankind, and is that on which 
 they proceed in all their moral judgments. 
 
 All this the President readily admits, and by 
 no means denies that the volitions are determin- 
 ed by the last dictate of the understanding ; yet 
 strange as it may seem, so much was he haunted 
 by th.e dread of a self-determining power, that 
 when his opponents bring forward the same truth, 
 attended, it is true, with a number of absurdities 
 and contradictory expressions and explanations, 
 — and view it in its bearing on the question of 
 liberty, he instantly attempts to deny and evade 
 it. " They say,^ says he, ** unless the soul has 
 a self-determining power, it has no power of ac- 
 tion, — if its volitions be not caused by itself, but 
 are excited and determined by some extrinsic 
 cause, they cannot be the soul's own acts ; and 
 that the soul cannot be active, but must be wholly 
 passive, in those effects which it is the subject of 
 necessarily, and not from its own determin^- 
 
 B 
 
243 REVIEW OF EDWARDS. 
 
 tion."* Is not this the true account of the mat- 
 ter ? Is the mind's perception of right and wrong 
 its own act ? Is not the understanding an essen- 
 tial part of the man ? If not, are his ideas 
 separate entities ; or what other agent determines 
 for him his vohtion ? Yet this very just and ac- 
 curate account of human agency the President 
 treats as monstrous absurdity and nonsense : but 
 it must be remembered that the work from which 
 it is taken contains very much which is entitled 
 to this character ; and though the author speaks 
 good sense, when he begins to explain his mean- 
 ing, he makes it intolerable nonsense. 
 
 Though therefore the fancy of the self-deter- 
 mining power of the will must be abandoned, as a 
 misconception, the man^s self-determining 'power 
 over his will must be substituted in its stead, 
 as the ground of moral obligation. Had Edwards, 
 after so ably exposing the inconsistency of his 
 antagonists, pointed out the true self-determining 
 principle possessed by man, and explained the re- 
 lation of the understanding to m(5ral freedom, he 
 would have presented a correct view of the subject, 
 and saved himself from being made the instrument 
 of abetting infidels, in their assaults on Christia- 
 nity. Mr. Hume was too acute not to perceive 
 that he had caught the religionist in his own snare j 
 and there is no wonder that Edwards' work was 
 
 * Part IV. Sect. II. 
 
REVIEW OF EDWARDS. 245 
 
 SO well received by the sceptics of those times. 
 He did indeed, as has been stated, establish mo- 
 ral obligation ; but he was obliged to have re- 
 course to the Scriptures and the common sense 
 of mankind, and could not defend it by his phi^ 
 losophy. When he leaves the testimony of Scrip- 
 ture and vulgar experience, both of which are 
 incredible in the judgment of such characters as 
 Mr. Hume ; instead of the clear, right-forward» 
 overbearing expounder of truth, he unwittingly 
 becomes the confused, evasive, imbecile sophist. 
 It would exhaust the patience of the reader to 
 point out the misconception of the arguments 
 which he employs to support moral obligation, but 
 we may be allowed just to glance at one of them 
 as a specimen. He endeavours to show that the 
 vitiousness and virtuousness of actions consists 
 not in their cause but in their nature. This is 
 in one sense true, but not in a way that supports 
 his argument. We will not insist upon the con- 
 sideration, that in the strict and philosophical 
 sense, \itiousness or virtuousness does not belong 
 to actions at all, but are the qualities of the agent 
 whose actions they are ; and therefore, to say 
 that these qualities belong to actions but not to 
 their causes, that is, — if it has any meaning, 
 which appears somewhat doubtful, — to the agents 
 which perform them, is a manifest contradiction, 
 inconsistent with the universal belief of mankind, 
 who always conceive that it is the agent who is 
 
2*i REVIEW OF EDWARDS. 
 
 virtuous or vicious. But to employ a more po- 
 pular argument, the vicious feelings, as anger, 
 revenge, covetous, &c. are in themselves the 
 same, there is no reason to doubt, in brutes, and 
 certainly precisely the same in idiots; yet nobody 
 supposes, and President Edwards himself, on his 
 own principle, that natural necessity frees from 
 blame, does not suppose, that an utter idiot in 
 indulging these feelings is morally guilty. The 
 cause of this universal belief is obvious. It is 
 not the nature of the feeling merely which ren- 
 ders a man guilty or praiseworthy, but the nature 
 of the feeling combined with the fact, that he 
 has the power of perceiving the nature of his feel- 
 ings, and consequently of suppressing those which 
 he judges wrong, and of indulging those which he 
 considers right. When this power is pre-sup- 
 posed, as it universally is, the nature of the feel- 
 ings then constitutes the guilt or merit of the 
 man, but not otherwise. The reductio ad ah- 
 surdum by which he struggles to prop his ar- 
 gument is irrelevant, in as much as it does not 
 establish his own opinion, though it completely 
 refutes that of his opponent. 
 
 It is rather awkward, one can scarcely but re- 
 mark, to see so sound a reasoner as President 
 Edwards guilty of a sophism. In light subjects 
 indeed, it is not unpleasing to behold a grave 
 philosopher engage with all earnestness to roll 
 the fabled stone up the mountain \ for it pro- 
 
REVIEW OF EDWARDS. 2i'5 
 
 duces an agreeable feeling of the equality men, 
 and a conviction that the greatest have no 
 cause to be vain, nor the weakest any reason to 
 crouch under the consciousness of insignificance. 
 But in subjects whose consequences are so mo- 
 mentous as that of free will, it is distressing to 
 contemplate an honest lover of knowledge, and 
 particularly a minister of truth, supporting prin- 
 ciples which men such as Hume should feel any 
 interest to espouse. But although, as simple phi- 
 losophers, their doctrine exactly coincides and 
 tends to the same dangerous practical conclusion, 
 we regard the men with very different emo- 
 tions. We love Edwards and regret his mis- 
 takes ; for we see him honest in defence of 
 what he considered truth, and important to the 
 welfare of mankind. We detest Hume, whose 
 excessive vanity led him to support ridicu- 
 lous paradoxes, and deny truths which, even 
 were they false, the truly benevolent sceptic 
 would not seek to disprove, and thereby de- 
 stroy the most efficient means of rendering men 
 more noble and happy beings, at least in the 
 present life, although, as he suspects, they might 
 not preserve them from annihilation in the fu- 
 ture. A generous man would not wantonly op- 
 press and check the growth of a fine animal, with 
 which the sentient nature gives him a communi- 
 ty of sympathy : how detestable the wretch, and 
 how worthy to be held up, by every man who 
 
246 REVIEW OF EDWARDS* 
 
 fears his God and loves his country, as the ob- 
 ject of most implacable public execration, who 
 with a cold-hearted and villanous scepticism, and 
 under the mask of a friend of science, would 
 blast the present happiness of nations by cor- 
 rupting the public morals, and extinguish their 
 hopes for eternity ? The candid reader will not, 
 at least, harshly condemn me if I add a prayer j 
 and I do it with the most assured faith, for its 
 object is what the divine veracity has been long 
 pledged to perform — May the mercy of God, ere 
 Jong, sweep such characters utterly from the earth. 
 To guard us then against the foolish conclu- 
 sions and abominable conduct of sceptics, let us 
 describe man as he really is, an agent who, in the 
 exercise of conscience, possesses a self-determin- 
 ing power over his own will ; and that as those 
 whom Edwards opposes maintain, the motives, 
 considered as external things, are purely passive, 
 and cannot influence the will of the man till he 
 has exerted his mental activity in perceiving the 
 relations in which they stand to himself. Thus 
 Ave can urge home moral obligation upon the 
 heart even of a defender of the universe of im- 
 pressions and ideas ; for he cannot deny it, as a 
 matter of consciousness, that he judges some 
 things right and proper and other things wrong, 
 and that his volitions are determined according 
 to these perceptions. The divine law commands 
 no impossibilities. The Scriptures clearly lay it 
 
REVIEW OF EDWARDS. 247 
 
 down, as was seen, that if a man is invincibly ig- 
 norant of any duty, he is under no moral obliga- 
 tion, and contracts no guilt by the omission of 
 it. But if he hiow one thing to be right and ano- 
 ther wrong, let him refuse to act upon this per- 
 ception at his peril. His conscience will, one 
 time or other, rise up in might, and drag him, a 
 convicted and degraded culprit, before the judg- 
 ment seat of God. 
 
24.8 REVIEW OF WHITBY. 
 
 SECTION VIll. 
 
 REVIEW OF DR. WHITBy's DISCOURSE OF THE 
 FREEDOM OF THE WILL OF MAN. 
 
 We next proceed to examine the opinions held 
 on the opposite side of this controversy ; and it 
 will be found that there is greater difference in 
 the character of the writers than in the opinions 
 which they hold. Edwards, clear and accurate, 
 like a hardy and skilful veteran, calmly secures 
 his ground wherever he advances : Whitby, not 
 less able, but incorrect and impetuous, forces 
 his way through the thickest of the enemy, 
 but is enveloped in smoke and confusion. — 
 Edwards is right, so far as he goes, but his 
 view is partial, and is therefore as dangerous 
 as error, in deriving practical conclusions: 
 Whitby is right in his general principle, but 
 overlooks the exceptions which, in some instan- 
 ces, are more numerous than the effects which 
 follow the general law. The practical conclu- 
 sion drawn from the doctrine of the one, denies 
 moral obligation, and hence implicitly the truth 
 of all religion : the conclusion from that of the 
 
REVIEW OF WHITBY. 249 
 
 Other subverts the peculiar doctrines of Christi- 
 anity, in which consists all its excellency. Thus 
 the result has been, what has not been unusual 
 among theological controversialists, in their har- 
 dy zeal to defend truth, they have cruelly stran- 
 gled her between them. The correctness of 
 these remarks we shall presently ascertain. 
 
 Dr. Whitby, in his Discourse of the Freedom 
 of the Will, attempts to establisli his principle of 
 liberty, by general arguments, without enter- 
 ing deeply into the metaphysics of his subject. 
 He derives his evidence from three sources : 
 the testimony of the sacred Scriptures, ge- 
 neral reasonings from admitted truths, and 
 the writings of the fathers of the Christian 
 church. It is not the intention to pursue his 
 reasonings through the mass of evidence of this 
 sort which he brings forv/ard, but to take up 
 his principal conclusions, r.nd examine them on 
 the principles of mental pliilosophy, and ascer- 
 tain how far they are consistent with the pheno- 
 mena of the human mind, which, as the work of 
 God, is not, when candidly interrogated, less 
 correct in the statement of facts than his word. 
 
 If the object of this discourse be considered, as 
 it certainly seems intended, to prove the reality 
 of that moral freedom which is peculiar to man, 
 the Doctor has completely succeeded in his de- 
 sign, and has done just what we have attempted 
 to do in the Second Section of the present Es- 
 
250 REVIEW OF WHITBY. 
 
 say. He is chargeable, indeed, with a number 
 of inaccuracies in point of philosophy, as Ed- 
 wards has shown, and does not always observe 
 the distinction between animal and moral free- 
 dom, but occasionally says of the one what can 
 be truly affirmed only of the other ; and, hence, 
 while he defines a liberty which is nowhere to 
 be found but in the imagination of the writer, he 
 brings forward a text to prove another, and rea- 
 sons from it as if it were a third. In no writer 
 do we more sensibly feel the absence of correct 
 definition, and perceive the justness of the sar- 
 castic remark of Luther, respecting writers of 
 this sort. " It is not enough," says he, ** to 
 say there is a power, there is a power, (as they 
 are perpetually repeating), there is a power of 
 free will ; for what is more easily uttered ; nor 
 is this the practice of the most learned and dis- 
 tinguished philosopher of all ages ; but, to use 
 the words of a German proverb, let them name 
 the child, — let them define what this power is, 
 — its effects, its susceptibilities, it properties.* 
 By the want of correct definition, and by not al- 
 ways attending to the definitions which he has 
 given us, the Doctor has been led into all the 
 
 * Non enim satis est dicere, est vis, est vis, est vis, quaedam li- 
 beri arbitrii ; quid enim dicitur facilius ? Nee hoc virorum eru- 
 ditissiraorum et sanctissimorum tot saeculis approbatoruin. Sed 
 nominandus est infans, ut aiunt Germanico proverbio, — definien- 
 dum est quae sit ilia vis, quid faciat, quid patiatur, quid accidat. — 
 De Servo Arbitrio. 
 
IIEVIEW OF WHITBY. 9S1 
 
 inconsistencies which his work exhibits. Such 
 mistakes, however, as he has committed, are not 
 pecuhar to one side of the question, and might 
 have been expected from an author who, though 
 he clearly saw the consequences of one view of 
 his subject, was unacquainted with the subject 
 itself. Notwithstanding all his inconsisten- 
 cies, his general reasonings remain unaffected, 
 and are perfectly conclusive in confutation of 
 that necessity, which, as he justly conceived, 
 leads directly to fatalism ; and he is well entitled, 
 therefore, to the gratitude of every friend of 
 Christianity, for having so ably and successfully 
 maintained at once the true dignity of a moral 
 being, and the ground of his moral obligation. 
 
 The foundation of his arguments, as well as the 
 principal mistake into which he falls, is stated as 
 follows : " Again what makes the will choose, 
 is something approved by the understanding, 
 and consequently appearing to the soul as good ; 
 and whatsoever it refuseth is something represent- 
 ed to the understanding, and so appearing to the 
 will, as evil. * * • Wherefore, to say that evi- 
 dence proposed, apprehended, and considered, 
 is not sufficient to make the understanding to 
 approve, or that the greatest good proposed, the 
 greatest evil threatened, when equally believed 
 and reflected on, is not sufficient to engage the 
 will to choose the good and refuse the evil, is in 
 effect to say, that which alone doth move the 
 
2,52 REVIEW OF WHITBY. 
 
 will to choose or to refuse is not sufficient to 
 engage it so to do — that which alone is requisite 
 to make one understand and approve is not suffi- 
 cient to do so, which being contradictory to it- 
 self, must of necessity be false."* 
 
 There are in this passage, evidently two distinct 
 questions blended together, on the separation of 
 which the whole question of moral liberty or 
 necessity depends. They are the mode in which 
 the assent or approbation of the understanding 
 is obtained, and that in which the will is deter- 
 mined. With respect to the former, there is no 
 difference of opinion. Evidence considered and 
 apprehended is universally sufficient to make the 
 understanding to approve ; and it were a con- 
 tradiction in terms to affirm, that a man appre- 
 hends the evidence of a truth which yet he does 
 not beHeve to be true. 
 
 With respect to the second question, as a ge- 
 neral principle, the Doctor is also right. In the 
 present condition of man, it is the general law 
 of mind, that the perception of the greatest good 
 or evil determines the will ; and were men per- 
 fect beings, it would no doubt be the universal 
 law of their intellectual nature. That it is not 
 so however in point of fact, we trust we made 
 sufficiently evident in the Fourth Section. It 
 was there shown in what respect the understand- 
 
 ♦ Discourse of Sufficient and Effectual [Grace, chap. I. § 3. 
 
REVIEW or WHITBY. 253 
 
 ing universally approves of all the volitions, 
 namely, in their being the most agreeable at the 
 time, and hence their object is felt to be the 
 greatest good to the sentient and voluntary 
 being ; but it was at the same time demonstrat- 
 ed, that the intelligent being often disapproves 
 of his own volitions and actions, as not the most 
 advantageous upon the whole, and frequently 
 condemns them as morally wrong. This indeed 
 the Doctor himself admits, as he must have done, 
 had he regarded his own consciousness. His 
 reasonings, in several parts of his discourses, pro- 
 ceed upon the supposition ; and it is one of his 
 best arguments against the irresistibility of grace, 
 that ** even the regenerate too often act against 
 the highest motives and the most potverjul per- 
 suasions f* and hence justly concludes, that 
 otherwise they could not be guilty of sin. His 
 definition of freedom too, is, in reality, nothing 
 but a statement of this fact. 
 
 ** The freedom of the will," says he, " in 
 this state of trial and temptation, cannot consist 
 with a determination to one, viz. on the one 
 hand, in a determination to good only, by the 
 efficacy of divine grace, infallibly or unfrustra- 
 bly inducing to that operation, or engaging man, 
 in respect of the divine appointment, infallibly 
 and certainly to act so that he cannot fail of 
 acting, &c. Nor can this liberty consist with 
 the contrary determination to one, viz. with an 
 
 6 
 
254 REVIEW OF WHITBY. 
 
 incapacity in man, through the fall, to do good 
 but evil only.''* We do not mean, let it be re- 
 collected, to connect the question in any way 
 with that of predestination ; but that man, in 
 the present state, is not infalHbly and uni- 
 formly determined either to good or evil is a 
 matter of fiict 5 and the Doctor must be here 
 considered to give the true account of the pre- 
 sent condition of human nature. Whether this 
 be a correct definition of freedom is a very dif- 
 ferent question. He candidly admits, that this 
 liberty is no perfection of human nature ; and it 
 is plain, from what has been said in the foregoing 
 sections, that it is the state of a fallen being, like 
 man, containing a mixture of good and evil — 
 sometimes enjoying liberty, sometimes labour- 
 ing under necessity. For a moral being to be 
 free, he must be uniformly and invariably de- 
 termined to do good, and to do good alone ; so 
 far as he is determined to evil, he is to be consi- 
 dered in a state of moral enthralment. 
 
 But, omitting the consideration of the in- 
 correctness of this definition, and the mistake of 
 conceiving such a liberty necessary to a state of 
 trial, with the futility of all the reasonings ground- 
 ed on such a supposition, let us see how it agrees 
 with the principle laid down, in the Discourse 
 of SuflScient Grace, respecting the determination 
 of the will. 
 
 * Diacourse of the Freedom of the "Will of Man, chap. 1.^3. 
 
REVIEW OF WHITBY. 255 
 
 The indifference which is supposed in this 
 definition is of two sorts, which maybe termed sen- 
 tient and 2w/^//^c/m«/ indifference, as it regards the 
 will or the understanding, answering to the two 
 species of liberty which man enjoys, as a voluntary 
 or moral agent. When two objects are presented 
 to a man's choice, he is in a state of sentient 
 indifference, when he has no desire for either 
 the one or the other. This state of mind is 
 very frequent ; but as it gives rise to no volition, 
 and leads to no action, it is not to be taken no- 
 tice of in any inquiry respecting animal or vo- 
 luntary freedom, in which action is always im- 
 plied. Before the man can enjoy his freedom 
 he must get rid of this indifference, and be de- 
 sirous of exerting his physical power. ' 
 The other sort of indifference respects the 
 understanding and not the volition. When, for 
 instance, a man desires an apple, and a number 
 equally good are presented to him, he judges 
 them, perhaps, all alike, and is perfectly indif- 
 ferent which he takes. He does not, however, 
 remain inactive, as the schoolmen fooUshly im- 
 agined, and refuse to take his apple, until he 
 obtain a sufficient reason for preferring one to 
 another. Though he sees no ground of prefer- 
 ence, he is determined to have an apple ; and 
 as a voluntary being, he takes one accordingly, 
 without needing to be freed from the intellect 
 
Q56 REVIEW OF WHITBT. 
 
 /2^a/ indifference which he feels respecting the 
 superiority of the one to the other. There is 
 no indifference in his will, though there is in his 
 understanding ; and he does not hesitate a mo- 
 ment to gratify his desire. This state of mind 
 also is frequently experienced. It often gives 
 rise to that state of doubt and perplexity, in 
 which a man, when the objects of his choice are 
 complex and important, experiences so much 
 difficulty in coming to a final determination. 
 In moral objects, however, to which alone the 
 Doctor's discourse can be reasonably supposed 
 to have any reference, for he h treating of man 
 as a religious and moral being, such a state of 
 mind has no place. In things which are neither 
 right nor wrong, indifference may be felt, and 
 man, as a prudential being, may reason and 
 doubt about the result of the measures which he 
 has the choice of adopting ; but if) as a moral 
 being, he perceives one action to be right and 
 another to be wrong, all intellectual indifference 
 is at once precluded. Along with the very per- 
 ception of the right or the wrong, he is convinc- 
 ed that he should do the one a:id forbear the 
 other. He may indeed feel, on some occasions, 
 uncertain whether the action is really wrong, 
 but even then his conscience convinces him, 
 that he is bound to forbear till he obtain tho- 
 rough information. If he hesitate to do wh^t 
 he perceives to be right, or doubt whether he 
 
REVIEW OF WHITBY. 257 
 
 may not do what he knows to be wrong, he is 
 then indeed in a state of voluntary indifference ; 
 but his understanding, so far from being indif- 
 ferent, condemns him already as guilty of sin- 
 Whatever he may desire and whatever he may 
 do, he is aware that what is right ought to be 
 done, and what is wrong ought to be foreborne. 
 There is no intellectual indifference in a case 
 of this nature, and if there is any voluntary in- 
 difference, the man is self-condemned, and is 
 under the influence of a real moral necessity. 
 
 Were the approbation of the understanding 
 then, according to Dr. Whitby, the only cause of 
 the volition, man would be infallibly and uniform- 
 ly determined to good and to good only, and be 
 deprived of that liberty for which the Doctor 
 contends, or rather, he should have said, be re- 
 stored to his original and perfect moral freedom. 
 He would always do what he knew to be right, 
 and forbear to do what he knew to be wrong. 
 He might indeed violate a law with which he was 
 utterly unacquainted ; but this would be no ex- 
 ception, and as we have seen implies no guilt. 
 Man would obey according to the full extent of 
 his knowledge, and do nothing which he suspect- 
 ed to be wrong. The terms unfrustrable and 
 infallible, may appear somewhat formidable, but 
 no feebler epithets could be employed to charac- 
 terize the obedience of a moral being, were he to 
 act only upon the dictates of his understanding. 
 
^58 ^'- REVIEW OF WHITBY. 
 
 The law of gravitation may be suspended, and the 
 planets may be arrested in their course, as we 
 know they have been by the power of the Crea- 
 tor, but so long as these laws are allowed to ope- 
 rate, all bodies infallibly and unfrustrably tend 
 towards the centre of the earth. In like manner, 
 the constitution of man may be altered, but so 
 long as it remains as it is, if Dr. Whitby's prin- 
 ciple be true, he will be uniformly/ and mfalUbly 
 determined to good, and be utterly incapable of 
 committing any known sin. We do not say 
 merely that this would be the case had he re- 
 mained a perfect being, but that he could not 
 possibly have fallen from his first estate ; for we 
 know he did so, and could do so, only by doing 
 what he knew to be wrong. Had his will been 
 determined only by the approbation of his under- 
 standing, he had remained perfect and sinless to 
 the present time, and through the endless dura- 
 tion of eternity. 
 
 Dr. Whitby, therefore, must either change his 
 definition of liberty, or renounce his principle 
 respecting the determination of the will. The 
 former cannot be rejected, for although utterly 
 false as an account of liberty, it is perfectly true 
 as a description of the present moral condition of 
 man — a depraved being, partly free and partly en- 
 slaved. The latter must be rejected, and with 
 it the proudest and most triumphant of his argu- 
 ments in his Discourse of Free Will^ as well as 
 
REVIEW OF WHITBY. '^ ^<J 
 
 in that of SuflScient and Effectual Grace, fall at 
 once to the ground. The principles of these two 
 discourses are utterly incompatible. If you ad- 
 mit the principle of the discourse of Grace, his 
 Free Will, on his own principle, is proved no- 
 thing but the most invincible and unfrustra- 
 ble necessity. His principle respecting the de- 
 termination of the will, can be held not as 
 universal but as general, admitting of numer- 
 ous exceptions. Were his discourse, therefore, 
 intended, as was formerly hinted, to establish 
 the doctrine of freedom generally against the 
 fatalist, it would have been completely success* 
 ful ; but as intended for the controversial ob» 
 ject which its author had in view, it is a total 
 failure, and a most unmeaning misconception. 
 His opponents, at least those of them who under, 
 stand the subject, freely admit his general prin* 
 ciple, and rest their own conclusions on the 
 acknowledged exceptions. In vain then are 
 all arguments, texts of Scripture, and quota- 
 tions from the ancient fathers. A thousand per- 
 verted texts, and the authority of ten thou- 
 sand fathers, who, indeed, were generally igno- 
 rant of the subject and speak at random, will 
 never disprove a matter of fact. Admitting 
 them all to be right respecting the general pria- 
 ciple, the opponent brings forward his excep- 
 tions as matters of fact, and their testimony 
 goes for nothing, and the Doctor's reasonings 
 founded upon them appear ridiculous. He ar- 
 
260 REVIEW OF WHITBY. 
 
 gues not more correctly than were a native of 
 Siberia to attempt to persuade us that all man- 
 kind possess a complexion as fair as his own. 
 He might bring forward all the miUions of the 
 prolific north in proof of his assertion, declare 
 it impossible and absurd in the extreme to reject 
 such an amount of evidence, and congratulating 
 himself upon his superior strength of intellect^ 
 he might imagine that the knowledge of his more 
 civilized neighbours serves only to deprive them 
 of common sense, and renders them unfit to be 
 reasoned with ,- and to appease his rising indigna- 
 tion at our incorrigible stupidity, we might admit 
 that mankind originally were white, and that a 
 vast proportion of them are not black, but we 
 could not cease to remember the wretched na- 
 tive of Africa scorched by a vertical sun. While 
 the Doctor assures us that what fixes the volition 
 is something approved by the understanding, and 
 consequently appearing to the soul as good, and 
 that it is an utter contradiction to suppose it 
 otherwise, we recollect that we are those very 
 contradictory beings, and have often known our 
 duty and have failed to perform it. 
 
 The remarks which have now been offered 
 may be sufficient to enable the student with ease 
 to distinguish the true from the false, in the mass 
 of important truth and pernicious error which 
 Dr. Whitby's Discourse on Free Will exhibits. It 
 would be altogether out of place to examine all 
 the religious bearings of the subject^ and to enter 
 
REVIEW OF WHITBY. 26l 
 
 into the controversy between the Calvinists and 
 the Arminians. The Doctor is very liberal in 
 charging his opponents with absurdity and con- 
 tradiction, and perhaps the writers to whom he 
 alludes have given some occasion for his animad- 
 versions. But it were as unfair to judge of a 
 system by the mistakes of its defenders, as it were 
 foohsh to attempt to justify them. Some of the 
 Calvinistic writers have fallen into an error just 
 the opposite of Dr. Whitby's, as absurd, perhaps, 
 but not so dangerous, and have maintained the 
 exception to a general law to be the law itself) 
 while he has considered the general law univer- 
 sal. They would make man a demon, as he just- 
 ly says, and he would make him a perfect being. 
 It is to be urged, however, in their defence, that 
 if the controversy between the parties regard the 
 state of man simply in relation to God, which it 
 certainly does, the exception on which their ar- 
 gument rests is then the universal principle. The 
 natural man acts not from love to God, and in 
 so far is totally depraved. But without entering 
 formally into the dispute, it may be permitted us 
 simply to state the practical conclusions which 
 are directly deducible from the principles which 
 have just come under review, especially since, at 
 the present time, the same partial views of human 
 nature, and consequently the same false philoso- 
 phy is in danger of corrupting our theology, and 
 
^62 REVIEW OF WHITBY. 
 
 of perplexing and enfeebling the practical Chris- 
 tian in the same proportion as it furnishes end- 
 less matter of dispute to the mere theologian. 
 When religious controversy grows warm in the 
 schools, the gospel grows cold in the heart and 
 fruitless in the pulpit. 
 
 From Dr. Whitby's principle respecting the 
 determination of the will, the following inferen- 
 ces are directly deducible. First, man is an 
 ignorant, but not a morally depraved being ; for 
 moral depravity consists solely in the undue 
 tendency of disapproved appetites and passions 
 to fix the will in opposition to the dictates of the 
 understanding or conscience. Hence, second, 
 man can never commit sin ; for, as the Doctor 
 himself allows, sin is just the acting against the 
 strongest motive, or the doing of what we hnow 
 to be wrong and the forbearing to do what we 
 hnow to be right. And, third, in order to rege- 
 nerate men, the influence of the Spirit of God is 
 necessary only to furnish a clear and intelligible 
 revelation, but not to exert any influence on the 
 mind itself. 
 
 All these conclusions Dr. Whitby very pro- 
 perly disowns, though he thereby virtually over- 
 throws his own favourite principle. He admits 
 that even the regenerate frequently act against 
 the strongest motives, and that all in many things 
 offend. He decidedly and very satisfactorily es- 
 tablishes the reality of divine agency on the 
 
REVIEW OF WHITBY. 263 
 
 mind, and teaches, that the Holy Spirit " can- 
 not enable us to mortify the deeds of the flesh 
 without some vital energy, some renewing opera- 
 tions, or powerful assistances to subdue those 
 motions of the flesh which lust against the Spi- 
 rit/'* All this is true and scriptural, but it is . 
 plain, that if ** something approved by the un- //^'•^ J ^ 
 derstanding" invariably fixes the will, the first \^'>^i-6^ 
 truth is impossible, and the second is unneces- y''^t<^ 
 sary. It must be held a first principle in Chris- ^ / /». 
 tian philosophy, that " light has come into the ^ 
 world," however we may choose to explain the M^c yt 
 fact, ** that men love darkness rather than 1- 
 light." A revelation which cannot be apprehend- 
 ed and understood is a contradiction, and besides 
 destroys all ground of moral obligation as direct- 
 ly as were men lying under the most hopeless 
 physical necessity. Unless the gospel come and 
 speak to men in plain and intelHgible words, they 
 have no sin in rejecting it. The things of the 
 Spirit, indeed, that is, the operations of the Spirit 
 on the heart of man, and all the moral effects 
 consequent upon his regenerating agency, can- 
 not be understood, unless they are actually pro- 
 duced by the Spirit in the mind of the indivi- 
 dual. But these are not strictly the gospel ; 
 and the facts of Christ and the plain offers made 
 to men in consequence of his death and resur- 
 
 * Discourse of Sufficient Grace, Chap. I. 
 
264 REVIEW OF WHITBY. 
 
 rection, are things so intelligible that he who 
 runs may read. This being the case, if man can 
 act always upon the dictates of his understand- 
 ing, it is useless to talk of the agency and influ- 
 ence of the Holy Spirit in his regeneration,; for 
 all the effects which He is said to produce can 
 be accounted for on natural and otherwise con- 
 fessedly Scriptural principles. 
 
 The mistake of Dr. Whitby and of those Cal- 
 vinistic clergymen who are now so zealously pro- 
 pagating, in somewhat a different shape, the most 
 pernicious of his errors, is in their most unphilo- 
 sophical attempt to explain, not merely the ef- 
 fects, but the mode of the Spirit's operations. 
 Our blessed Redeemer long ago laid down the 
 true and philosophical method of inquiry and the 
 true limits of human knowledge in this sort of 
 causation, which Dr. Brown, in his Essay on 
 Cause and Effect, has since so strikingly illus- 
 trated. As we know the motion of the air by 
 its effects, so we can know the operations of the 
 Holy Spirit, not by what He does to us, but what 
 we are enabled to do in consequence of his agen- 
 cy upon us. All that can be known by us are 
 our own perceptions and feehngs, which are mat- 
 ters of consciousness ; we are not conscious of 
 the immediate acts of the Spirit. These opera- 
 tions are not the legitimate objects of the in- 
 quiries of the philosopher, and assuredly they 
 are no warrantable subject for the minister of the 
 
REVIEW OF WHITBY. ^^^i^l^^^'r- Vt^. b*' 
 
 gospel. If the divine, however, desirous to prac- 
 tise a little the quackery of men of his profession, 
 and to appear profound in the eyes of the ill-in- 
 formed, chooses to talk of them, he must cer- 
 tainly style them physical ; for all the moral acts 
 are our own, and they are the antecedents. The 
 term, physical^ indeed, has a tendency to sug- 
 gest something too gross and material, and, 
 therefore, the term spiritual may, with more pro- 
 priety, be employed ; but it is always to be re- 
 collected, that they are something antecedent 
 both to the intellectual and moral states of mind 
 which are the fruits of the divine influence. 
 
 To know then the nature and extent of the 
 divine agency, our sole inquiry is, what is it 
 which the gospel requires us to be able to per- 
 form, and what is it which the Christian actual- 
 ly performs, in consequence of the agency of 
 the Spirit of God. We are required to do two 
 things : as intellectual beings, to know and be- 
 lieve the gospel ; as moral agents, to regulate our 
 will and affections according to its principles, and 
 consequently to act upon them. In the former 
 character, we must have faith ; in the latter, 
 we must have faith that worketh on the prin- 
 ciples commanded in the gospel; and that is 
 the faith of the Christian. 
 
 Now, in order to enable us to perform the first 
 of these requirements, let it be admitted, that 
 the Holy Spirit, after having revealed to us the 
 
 4f 
 
^66 REVIEW OF WHITBY. 
 
 word, enables us, by his direct agency, to form 
 larger, more accurate, and vigorous concep- 
 tions of it. This is certainly true ; but then, 
 let it be recollected, that there is nothing pecu- 
 liar here, and that it is just what one man is 
 confessedly daily in the habit of doing to ano- 
 ther, in a greater or less degree ; and I am dis- 
 posed to believe, that it is not in mere intellect 
 that man is deficient. Frequently has the cold, 
 the formal, the unsanctified theologian, clear and 
 large conceptions of the whole system of Christ- 
 ianity, fully appreciates the amount of evidence 
 by which its truth is demonstrated, contemplates 
 with pleasure the beautiful consistency of all its 
 parts, and elevated on the soaring wing of a 
 vigorous imagination, grasps the loftiest and most 
 sublime conceptions of the majesty, the justice, 
 the mercy of the godhead, displayed in the eco- 
 nomy of salvation ; while the humble, depend- 
 ing, and loving behever labours under much 
 misconception and great obscurity, respecting 
 even the elements of his faith. And every 
 Christian must have experienced that the humi- 
 lity and tenderness of his heart, and submission 
 of his will do not always bear proportion to the 
 activity of his intellect and the vigour of his 
 conceptions. 
 
 But to proceed, what is it which we need to 
 enable us to regulate our will and affections on 
 the principles of the gospel j or, in other words. 
 
REVIEW OP WHITBY. 267 
 
 to enable our faith to work on those principles ? 
 To answer this question, we have just to recol- 
 lect what it is on which the existence and 
 strength of affections, desires, and volitions de- 
 pend. If it be upon perceptions alone, nothing 
 more is necessary than right knowledge. Let / / 
 
 a man know his duty, and he will not fail to per- y'^ [ 
 form it, but will change his own heart, love God ^^^ ^ 
 supremely, and discharge all commanded duty (X^^ 
 as a matter of course ; for he cannot indeed, on ^smjC 
 Dr. Whitby's principle, do otherwise. But if 
 the existence and strength of feeling depend 
 upon the strength of the susceptibilities, or 
 upon the bias, disposition, or tendency of the 
 heart, as well as upon the perception of the ob- 
 ject \ then it is obvious what is required to re- 
 generate a moral being. His depraved heart 
 must be directly renewed as well as his judg- 
 ment enlightened. There are two causes of the 
 evil ; and it were useless to remove one, if the 
 other, and confessedly by far the more power- 
 ful, be allowed still to operate. Dr. Whitby 
 strenuously and justly argues, that it is reason- 
 able to believe that the operations of the Spirit 
 will be suitable to the reason and faculties of 
 man, the understanding and the will. Grant it 
 fully^'; and how is it likely that divine wisdom 
 should proceed to renovate a moral agent? 
 Would it be merely by raising ideas in his brain 
 as the Doctor affirms^? No, assuredly. This 
 
268 REVIEW OF WHITBY. 
 
 would meet but a small part of the evil. The 
 disease of man is not so much the want of know- 
 ledge as the unwillingness to act upon it ; and 
 how can this so well be removed, as by remov- 
 ing the moral tendency itself. To maintain the 
 sufficiency of mere knowledge is to talk like a 
 man unacquainted with human nature. If the 
 Spirit of God really act with the wisdom of God, 
 and accommodate his operations to the nature 
 of the subject, and the end to be accom- 
 plished, it cannot be doubted, how He will pro- 
 ceed in the renovation of fallen man. To en- 
 lighten the judgment will be one thing, but to re- 
 novate, by a direct act of power, the corrupted 
 heart, will be a greater. This the Christian must 
 daily experience. He is not for ever learning 
 and never coming to the knowledge of the truth; 
 but he finds he daily requires strength from on 
 high. He is not constantly seeking for truth 
 and its evidence ; but he has to pray without 
 ceasing for strength to enable him to act upon 
 truths which he already knows. Well did the 
 Apostles know the inefficiency of mere know- 
 ledge. Happy, says one, is he who ofFendeth not 
 in that which he approveth. That which I do I 
 allow not, says another ; and the reason is, I see 
 a law in my members warring against the law of 
 my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the 
 law of sin which is in my members. To such a 
 being, mere knowledge could never effect his 
 
REVIEW OF WHITBY. ^69 
 
 moral renovation ; and did not the Holy Spirit 
 act according to the principles of our nature, and 
 to renovate the heart, remove both the causes of 
 its depravity, never had the Apostle, with the 
 gratitude of a faith which worketh by love, 
 thanked God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 The doctrine then that knowledge is all that is 
 required in order to renovate the human heart is 
 utterly untenable, both upon the principles of 
 the human constitution, the testimony of the sa- 
 red Scriptures, and the evidence of Christian ex- 
 perience. To confute the idea that intellectual 
 belief is all that is necessary to constitute the 
 Christian, we have just to point to the fact, that 
 man is a moral being, whose will therefore de- 
 termines his character, and that his volitions de- 
 pend as much upon the susceptibilities and bias of 
 his heart as upon the nature of his perceptions. 
 If we look to the sacred Scriptures, they every 
 where describe man as doing what they well 
 know to be wrong, and as hating the light, not 
 because they see it not, but because their deeds, 
 and hence their wills from which their actions 
 proceed, are evil. And if Christian experience 
 is appealed to, how decidedly does it prove the 
 uselessness of all knowledge to convert the heart 
 and govern the will of a corrupted moral being ? 
 Even the man who may know all mysteries and 
 knowledge, whose heart has been regenerated by 
 the Spirit of God, and who has advanced far to- 
 
^0 REVIEW OF WHITBY. 
 
 wards perfection, is still groaning under a body 
 of sin, and by the remaining corruption of his 
 heart, is compelled to confess, that the good 
 which we would he does not, but that the evil 
 which he would not that he does. Let us not 
 then seek to accommodate facts to hypotheses, 
 and talk of the efficacy of truth and evidence 
 to effect the moral renovation of man, till we 
 practically deny the agency of the Holy Spirit. 
 Let us rather imitate the sacred writers, who fear- 
 lessly display the extent of the disease and the 
 hopeless degeneracy of the human heart; for 
 they know that they proclaim a remedy more 
 than sufficient for all its wants. No perception 
 of evidence, they maintain, and no knowledge of 
 truth, however well adapted to its end and how 
 much soever it may effect, can renew the dege- 
 nerate heart and rescue the man from bondage ; 
 but they proclaim the Spirit of God — who at first 
 created the thinking mind and the feeling soul, 
 as the only source of all sanctiiication and free- 
 dom to his fallen creature. Why then conceal 
 the evil, when so mighty a deliverer is prepared ? 
 The Creator has become the Redeemer : is He 
 not able to renovate the corrupted heart, as well 
 as to enlighten the darkened mind ?* 
 
 * Note a 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Note A. 
 Volition. — Dr. Brown's account of volition is so just and so 
 satisfactory, that it may gratify the reader to see it more at 
 large. *' The term will, in its application to a process which 
 is partly mental and partly organic, is not denied to be a 
 convenient term for expressing those desires which have in- 
 stant termination in a muscular motion, which is their object, 
 to distinguish them from desires which relate to objects not 
 directly and immediately attainable, and therefore not ac- 
 companied with the belief of direct and immediate attain- 
 ment ; but still it must not be forgotten, that the mental part 
 of the sequence, the momentary feeling which exists in our 
 consciousness alone, and ceases almost as soon as it rises, is a 
 desire that differs not from other desires more than those others 
 mutually differ.*** We are hence often said inaccurately 
 to will, as if, in the process, there were two feelings of the 
 mind, a desire and a volition, so essentially different in their 
 nature, that the will was the choice of what was not desira- 
 ble. Thus if any one be compelled to support a weight on 
 his outstretched arm, under a fear of a more painful punish- 
 ment if he should draw it back, and experience, as in that 
 situation he must soon experience, a degree of fatigue which 
 is almost insupportable ; if he still continue to keep his arm 
 extended, he will be said, in the common language of philo- 
 sophers, to will the very pain which he cannot be suppos-- 
 
272 APPENDIX. 
 
 ed to desire. But the direct object of his desire is not the 
 motion of his arm ; it is simply relief from pain : and the 
 direct object of his continued will is not the continuance of 
 pain ; it is simply the extension of his arm. He knows in- 
 deed that relief from pain will be immediately procured by 
 drawing back his arm ; but he knows also that a severer pun- 
 ishment will follow that motion ; and, therefore, preferring 
 the less pain to the greater, he directly desires or wills the 
 continued extension of his arm, as what alone can preserve 
 him from greater suffering. If the direct object of his desire 
 were not relief from pain, but the actual muscular motion 
 which would bring down his weary arm, there can be no 
 doubt that the motion of his arm would immediately ensue. 
 
 " * With regard to our actions,' says Dr. Reid, * we may 
 desire what we do not will, and will what we do not desire, 
 nay, what we have a great aversion to. A man athirst has a 
 strong desire to drink, but for some particular reason, he de- 
 termines not to gratify his desire. A judge, from a regard 
 to justice and the duty of his office, dooms a criminal to die, 
 while from his humanity or particular affection, he desires 
 the criminal to live. A man for health may take a nauseous 
 draught, for which he has no desire but a great aversion. 
 Desire, therefore, even when its object is some action of our 
 own, is only an. incitement to will, but it is not volition. The 
 determination of the mind may be not to do what we desire 
 to do.' 
 
 " In all these instances adduced by Dr. Reid, his mistake 
 consists in neglecting or forgetting that part of the process, 
 in which there is a real opposition of desires, and supposing 
 an opposition in another part of the process in which there 
 is really none ; for in no one of the instances, is there the 
 smallest opposition, in that particular desire on which the 
 action immediately depends, and which must, therefore, 
 according to his own system, be denominated by him the 
 will. The determination of the mind never is, and never 
 can be to do what, in the particular circumstances of the 
 moment, we do not desire to do. When we take a nauseous 
 
APPENDIX. ^73 
 
 draught, there is a dislike indeed of the sensation which 
 follows the motion, but there is no dislike of the motion it- 
 self, which alone depends upon our will, and which is de- 
 sired by us, not from any love of the disagreeable sensation 
 which follows it — for a love of what is disagreeable would be 
 an absurd contradiction of terms — but from our greater dis- 
 like of that continuance of bad health, which we suppose to 
 be the probable consequence of omitting the motion. The 
 desire of moving the hand and the muscles of deglutition ; 
 or to use a word which Dr. Reid would have preferred, the 
 will to move them, is a state of mind as different and as 
 distinguishable from the dislike of bad health as from the 
 dislike of the draught. It is a new feeling to which the 
 wide view of many feelings has given birth — a desire, not 
 of pleasure in the draught, but of a less evil in one of two 
 unavoidable evils. 
 
 ** In like manner a judge who condemns a criminal to death, 
 when, if he yielded to his humanity alone, he would spare 
 him, does not will a single action which he is not desirous of 
 performing, whatever opposition there may have been in 
 those primary desires, of which his secondary desires or will 
 is not a part but only the consequence. He has a desire of 
 saving from death an unfortunate individual, but he has a 
 desire of the public good, aud of acting in a manner worthy 
 of his high station. Both these desires exist previously to 
 those that are termed his volitions, by which alone in the 
 muscular motion that follows them, he dooms the criminal 
 to death ; the tinal will to utter the awful words of punish- 
 ment, arising only from the belief of greater good upon the 
 whole, in the same manner as the desire of fame, arising from 
 the contemplation of fame, or any other desire from the con- 
 templation of its object." — Cause and Effect, p. 56 — 58. 
 
 President Edwards was long ago of the same opinion re- 
 specting the identity of desire with volition. " God," says 
 he, " has endued the soul with two faculties : one is that 
 by which it is capable of perception and speculation, or by 
 which it discerns, and views, and judges of things ; M'hich is 
 
 T 
 
274" APPENDIX. 
 
 called the understanding. The other faculty is that by which 
 the soul does not merely perceive and view things, but is 
 some way inclined with respect to the things it views or con- 
 siders ; either is inclined to them, or is disinclined and averse 
 from ihem : or is the faculty •by which the soul does not be- 
 hold things, as an indifferent unaffected spectator, but either 
 as liking or disliking, pleased or displeased, approving or re- 
 jecting. This faculty is called by various names ; it is some- 
 times called the incl'niation : and, as it has respect to the ac- 
 tions that are determined and governed by it, is called the 
 will: and the mind, with regard to the exercises of this fa- 
 culty, is often called the heart. 
 
 " The will, and the affectioiis of the soul, are not two facul- 
 ties ; the affections are not essentially distinct from the will, 
 nor do they differ from the mere actings of the will and incli- 
 nation of the soul, but only in the liveliness and sensibleness 
 of exercise. 
 
 " It must be confessed, that language is here somewhat im- 
 perfect, and the meaning of words in a considerable measure 
 loose and unfixed, and not precisely limited by custom, which 
 governs the use of language. In some sense, the affection of 
 the soul differs nothing at all from the will and inclination, 
 and the will never is in any exercise any further than it is 
 affected ; it is not moved out of a state of perfect indifference, 
 any otherwise than as it is affected one way or other, and acts 
 nothing any farther. But yet there are many actings of the 
 will and inclination, that are not so commonly called affeC' 
 tions: in every thing we do, wherein we act voluntarily, there 
 is an exercise of the will and inclination, it is our inclination 
 that governs us in our actions : but all the actings of the in- 
 clination and will, in all our common actions of life, are not or- 
 dinarily called affections. Yet, . hat are commonly called af- 
 fections are not essentially different from them, but only in 
 the degree and manner of exercise. In every act of the will 
 whatsoever, the soul either likes or dislikes, is either inclined 
 or disinclined to what is in view : these are not essentially 
 different from those affections of love and hatred ; that liking 
 
APPENDIX. 275 
 
 or inclination of the soul to a thing, if it be in a high degree, 
 and be vigorous and lively, is the very same thing with the 
 atfection of love : and that disliking and disinclining, if in a 
 great degree, is the very same with hatred. In every act of 
 the w'lW for, or towards something not present, the soul is in 
 some degree inclined to that thing ; and that inclination, if 
 in a considerable degree, is the very same with the affection 
 of desire. And in every degree of the act of the will where- 
 in the soul approves of something present, there is a degree 
 of pleasedness ; and tliat pleasedness, if it be in a consider- 
 able degree, is the very same with the affection of joy or c?e- 
 light. And if the will disapproves of what is present, the 
 soul is in some degree displeased, and if that displeasedness 
 be great, it is the very same with the affection of grief or 
 sorrow." — Treatise on the Affections, p. 4, 5. 
 
 Note B. 
 
 Association. — Dr. Brown was the first philosophical wri- 
 ter who gave any thing like a true account of the principle 
 of association. He divides his laws of suggestion inio primary 
 and secondary, under the former comprehending the relations 
 among the objects perceived ; under the latter, the acciden- 
 tal circumstances in the feelings and states of the mind itself 
 which modify the associations. The primary laws of associ- 
 ation he attempts to reduce to one general principle, that of 
 prior co-existence or immediate proximity. A late writer, 
 the Rev. Mr. Ballantyne, in a work entitled an Examim 
 nation of the Human Mind, has further improved on the 
 principle of Dr. Brown, and most satisfactorily proved that 
 the great principle of association is the mere fact oi precedence, 
 that is, as he states it, " an idea acquires power to suggest an- 
 other by immediately preceding it,"or in other words, the mind 
 thinks on things in the same order in which it first perceived 
 them. This is a very simple principle, and is well known to all 
 mankind ; and has certainly been obscured, like many other 
 very simple subjects, by the attempts of philosophers to ex- 
 
276 APPENDIX. 
 
 plain it. The man perceives nature as she really is, magnificent 
 in her simplicity : when the philosopher sits down to explain 
 what all men distinctly know, he obscures his subject in order 
 
 to be profound. If we have a mind capable of perceiving 
 things and of retaining the knowledge of them ; why should it 
 not remember them in the same order in which it perceived 
 them ? If we see the objects, A, B, C, in a certain order, in 
 thinking of the same objects, how should we think of them 
 otherwise than as placed one before the other in the given 
 order. As the object of perception is to obtain a knowledge 
 bf things as they really are, in like manner the object of con- 
 ception and memory is just to retain the knowledge of what 
 has been actually perceived. Were our mental power greater, 
 we should be capable of forming conceptions of more complex 
 objects, and might possibly contemplate all our knowledge at 
 at once, as a complex object of thought, and then association 
 would be unnecessary ; but since our limited faculties render 
 this impossible, it is plain that the natural method is to think 
 of things in the order in whicli, to our perceptions, they real- 
 ly exist. There is then no mystery in the general principle 
 of association, as consisting in mere precedence. The word 
 memory, as vulgarly understood, accurately and fully states 
 the whole doctrine of intellectual association. We cannot 
 remember or think of all things at once ; we therefore think 
 of objects in the order in which they were at first perceived, 
 till we have had before our mind the whole of any class of 
 objects which it is necessary to contemplate. 
 
 But though precedence is the only law of association which re- 
 gards objects as perceived by us, it by no means accounts for the 
 order in whieh numbers of thoughts are found to occur. In 
 committing to memory the alphabet, lists of words. Sec. which 
 excite no sensible emotion, it is true that it is the only cir- 
 cumstance which guides our train of ideas, or, in other words, 
 the mind passes along the list in the order in which the ob- 
 jects there occur ; but when emotion is excited, this law of 
 precedence is found to exert comparatively little influence. 
 Dr. Brown has accordingly given us a number of circumstan- 
 ces, which he styles secondary laws of suggestion ; by which 
 
APPENDIX. S77 
 
 he accounts for many of the trains of ideas which do not follow 
 the primary laws which he had formerly given. Mr. Ballan- 
 tyne attempts to reduce these to his law of precedence ; but, 
 it must be confessed, that he has not been successful. Some 
 of Dr. Brown's secondary laws, indeed, may be reduced to 
 Mr. Ballantyne's principle, and some of them are to be reduc- 
 ed to other principles ; but there are at least three or four of 
 them which completely support the distinction which Dr. 
 Brown intended to establish. Mr. Ballantyne, in his sum- 
 mary attempt to reduce them to his own law, virtually admits 
 this by saying, that the law of precedence, " like all others, 
 necessarily leads to different results, according to the differ- 
 ence of circumstances in which it operates, whether these be 
 constitutional differences or accidental ones." This is true ; 
 but then it is just those circumstances which Dr. Brown 
 wishes to ascertain, which, he justly observes, exert so exten- 
 sive an influence in modifying and directing the general prin- 
 ciple of association. Besides, the whole of Mr. Ballantyne's 
 voluntary principle, which he describes as the poiver of 
 detaining ideas, &c. is just an illustration of Dr. Brown's 
 secondary laws. The secondary laws of Dr. Brown are 
 plainly designed, though that acute philosopher passed 
 rather lightly over the subject, to illustrate the influence 
 which the volitions, the desires, and emotions exer- 
 cise in directing the thinking principle. His first, sixth, 
 seventh, and eighth, are decidedly of this character, and 
 plainly evince that the great fact he intended to illustrate, 
 is the influence which our sentient nature exercises over the 
 operations of tlie intellectual. 
 
 But not to pursue this controversy, every one who regards 
 his own consciousness is aware, that he does not always 
 think on objects in the same order of precedence in which he 
 perceived them ; but that those which are connected with 
 desire and feeling frequently arrest the attention, and hence 
 guide the train of thought. All this, indeed, Mr. Ballantyne 
 has well illustrated, in reducing attention and abstraction to 
 his voluntary principle. Taking up, therefore, Dr. Brown's 
 
278 APPENDIX. 
 
 secondary laws of suggestion as intended to express tlie in- 
 fluence which the volitions, desires, and feelings .generally 
 exercise over our intellectual activity, we have only to in- 
 quire what are the laws of this sentient association. It is 
 plain, every sensation, emotion and feeling of our nature which 
 is known by us to be related to any idea, is a law of associa- 
 tion, — that is, a circumstance which guides the thinking 
 mind in passing from one thought to another. Any enume- 
 ration therefore of the secondary laws of suggestion must be 
 simply a list of the feelings of our sentient nature ; and in 
 different individuals they will vary, of course, according to 
 the number of feelings which their circumstances and men- 
 tal cultivation may have excited and called into vigorous 
 action. 
 
 Hence the simplicity and efficiency of the associating prin- 
 ciple. The pure intellect thinks of things as they really are, 
 and in the order in which they have been perceived ; the 
 sentient principle leads us to think of them according as 
 they are more important and interesting to us. By the for- 
 mer, we retain the knowledge of facts ; by the latter, these 
 facts, in proportion as they are more or less important, are 
 made the objects of contemplation. This association is so 
 well adapted to our present state, that, a priori, one could 
 have almost inferred that in some such way the mind would 
 conduct its operations. The intelligent being requires to 
 know truth, and therefore he remembers things as they are; 
 the voluntary being requires to act for his own interest, and 
 therefore the tendency of sentient association is to induce 
 him to think on those objects in which he has most inte- 
 rest. 
 
 Besides these two principles of association, there is another 
 part of our nature which regards both the mental operations 
 and the feelings, as well the mechanical powers. This fact 
 is styled habit. Dr. Brown, in his too great love of simpli- 
 city, endeavoured to reduce this principle to suggestion ; and 
 it is no doubt true, that it belongs to suggestion as well as to 
 all the other faculties. He was led perhaps to attempt 
 
APPENDIX, 279 
 
 this reduction from the mistake of Dr. Reid and other phi- 
 losophers, who seemed disposed to consider it a separate fa- 
 culty, which it assuredly is not. It is nothing but a fact 
 which regards all our powers, the corporal as well as mental. 
 The muscles of the workman become strong by toil, as well 
 as the thinking powers of the philosopher by frequent 
 thought. Had Dr. Brown more carefully considered his own 
 just description of habit, he could not have considered it ca- 
 pable of the reduction which he attempted. " The nature of 
 habit may be considered in two lights ; as it produces a great- 
 er tendency to certain actions, and as it occasions greater fa- 
 cility and excellence in those particular actions." * It is 
 plain, that such a principle cannot be reduced to suggestion, 
 nor any other faculty whatever, but must be considered a 
 law of our nature which regards all our powers and suscepti- 
 bilities. Suggestion is just the fact that we think on one 
 thing after another ; but that we more easily run over a train 
 of ideas which we have frequently thought upon, or have those 
 feelings more keenly which we have often indulged, or feel 
 those members of the body stronger which we often employ, 
 cannot, it is plain, be reduced to this principle. Habit is 
 nothing but a general law of our constitution, which less 
 or more influences all our fiiculties. Let us form one con- 
 ception after another repeatedly, and we will find greater 
 ease in running from thought to thought. Let us indulge 
 any feeling, and its action will gradually become more in- 
 tense. 
 
 This fact then, considered as modifying the operations of 
 intellect and the influence of feeling, will render the subject 
 of association easy, and perfectly adequate to account for 
 all the phenomena. Let any man attend to his own con- 
 sciousness, and he will discover, that, when feeling is not ex- 
 cited, and volition not active in directing his train of thought, 
 but the thinking principle is allowed to act at pleasure, he 
 will think on objects just as he perceived them, or has been 
 
 • Lecture XLIIL 
 
^80 APPENDIX. 
 
 accustomed to conceive them. Very few instances however 
 occur in which the mind is left perfectly free to follow the 
 law of its own essential activity. In the most sluggish 
 moment of castle-building, the desires and tendencies of 
 the heart, almost unconsciously insinuate themselves ; and 
 the man is always found to think on what he loves, or on 
 objects which are most interesting to his feelings. But in 
 every case it will be found, either that the man is following the 
 law of intellect, and thinking of objects in the order in which 
 they have been perceived, or that his affections and will are 
 selecting their favourite objects and guiding the thinking 
 mind to the ideas by which they obtain most gratification. 
 
 The practical conclusions to be derived from the true prin- 
 ciple of association are numerous and important. Dr. Brown 
 and Mr. Ballantyne are justly entitled to the praise of having 
 done more to explain the manner of its action than any writ- 
 ers with whom I am acquainted. Now that we have been 
 put upon the true principle, much is to be done in the legi- 
 timate application, and it is to be fondly hoped that some 
 truly inductive philosopher may take it up, and apply it to 
 the arts of education, study, &c. There is a rich and ex- 
 tensive field still unexplored, which would abundantly re- 
 ward his labours. The fact that the pure thinking principle 
 forms its conceptions of thin^js exactly in the order in which 
 it perceives them, and that every feeling acts as an associating 
 principle to direct the train of thought, would enable him to 
 explain a multitude of phenomena in a manner that a certain 
 sect of modern materialists and fatalists might attempt in 
 vain- The feelings of our sentient nature must be allowed 
 to depend upon the body, since they are common to the 
 brutes ; and the truth that the immaterial and immortal spirit 
 has now its operations modified by its connection with the 
 sentient nature, would explain a multitude of somewhat un- 
 accountable facts, without driving us to materialism and fa- 
 talism, with their invariable attendants, scepticism and moral 
 degradation. The abettors of such systems first endeavour 
 
APPENDIX. 281 
 
 to prove an immortal being a brute, and then sedulously try 
 to make him so, in order to bear out their conclusion. 
 
 Note E. (page 132.) 
 
 Detenninaiion of the Will. — Mr. Locke's views of the 
 mode in which the will is determined are so admirably just, 
 and illustrate so clearly both the nature of volition and the 
 source of moral necessity, that I cannot forbear presenting 
 them to the reader. By uneasiness he plainly means what 
 Dr. Brown and President Edwards have called desire, which 
 always arises from uneasiness. 
 
 *• § 31. To return then to the inquiry, What is it that 
 determines the ivill in regard to our actions ? And that upon 
 second thoughts I am apt to imagine is not, as is generally 
 supposed, the greater good in view ; but some (and for the 
 most part the most pressing) uneasiness a man is at present 
 under. This is that which successively determines the will, 
 and sets us upon those actions we perform. This uneasi^ 
 ness we may call, as it is, desire, which is an uneasiness of the 
 mind for want of some absent good. All pain of the body, 
 of what sort soever, and disquiet of the mind, is uneasiness : 
 And with this is always joined desire, equal to the pain or 
 7ineasiness felt ; and is scarce distinguishable from it. For 
 desire being nothing but an uneasiness in the want of an ab- 
 sent good, in reference to any pain felt, ease is that absent 
 good ; and until that ease be attained we may call it desire, 
 nobody feeling pain, that he wishes not to be eased of, with 
 a desire equal to that pain, and inseparable from it. Besides 
 this desire of ease from pain, there is another of absent posi- 
 tive good, and here also the desire and uneasiness is equal. As 
 much as we desire any absent good, so much are we in pain 
 for it. But here all absent good does not, according to the 
 greatness it has, or is acknowledged to have, cause pain equal 
 to that greatness ; as all pain causes desire equal to itself; 
 Because the absence of good is not always a pain, as the pre- 
 
^82 APPENDIX. 
 
 sence of pain is. And therefore absent good may be looked 
 on, and considered without desire. But so much as there is 
 any where of desire, so much there is of uneasiness. 
 
 " § 32. That desire is a state of uneasiness, every one who 
 reflects on himself will quickly find. Who is there, that has 
 not felt in desire, what the wise man says of hope, (which is 
 not much different from it) that it being deferred makes the 
 heart sick ? And that still proportionable to the greatness 
 of the desire, which sometimes raises the uneasiness to that 
 pitch, that it makes people cry out, give me children, give me 
 the thing desired, or I die ? Life itself, and all its enjoy- 
 ments, is a burden which cannot be borne under the lasting 
 and unremoved pressure of such an tineasiness. 
 
 " § S3. Good and evil, present and absent, 'tis true, work 
 upon the mind ; but that which immediately determines the 
 will, from time to time, to every voluntary action, is the un- 
 easiness of desire, fixed on some absent good, either negative, 
 as indolency to one in pain ; or positive, as enjoyment of plea- 
 sure. That it is this iineasiness, that determines the will to 
 the successive voluntary actions, whereof the greatest part of 
 our lives is made up, and by which we are conducted through 
 different courses to different ends, I shall endeavour to show 
 both from experience, and the reason of the thing. 
 
 '* § 34. When a man is perfectly content with the state he 
 is in, which is when he is perfectly without any uneasiness, 
 what industry, what action, what ivill is there left, but to 
 continue in it .'' Of this every man's observation will satisfy 
 him. And thus we see our all-wise Maker, suitable to our 
 constitution and frame, and knowing what it is that deter- 
 mines the will, has put into man the uneasijiess of hunger 
 and thirst, and other natural desires, that return at their sea- 
 sons, to move and determine their ivills, for the preservation 
 of themselves, and the continuation of their species. For I 
 think we may conclude, that, if the bare contemplation of 
 these good ends, to which we are carried by these several 
 uneasinesses, had been sufficient to determine the will, and 
 set us on work, we should have had none of these natu- 
 
APPENDIX, S8S 
 
 ral pains, and perhaps in this world little or no pain at all. 
 It is better to marry than to hum, says St. Paul; where we 
 may see, what it is that chiefly drives men into the enjoy- 
 ments of a conjugal life. A little burning felt pushes us 
 more powerfully, than greater pleasures in prospect draw 
 or allure. 
 
 " § 35. It seems so established and settled a maxim by the 
 general consent of all mankind, that good, the greater good, 
 determines the will, that I do not at all wonder, that when I 
 first published my thoughts on this subject, 1 took it for grant- 
 ed ; and I imagine, that by a great many I shall be thought 
 more excusable, for having then done so, than that now I 
 have ventured to recede from so received an opinion. But 
 yet, upon a stricter inquiry, lam forced to conclude, that good, 
 the greater good, though apprehended and acknowledged to 
 be so, does not determine the irill, until our desire, raised pro- 
 portionably to it, makes us uneasy in the want of it. Con- 
 vince a man never so much, that plenty has its advantages 
 over poverty ; make him see and own, that the handsome 
 conveniences of life are better than nasty penury ; yet as 
 long as he is content with the latter, and finds no uneasiness 
 in it, he moves not ; his will is never determined to any 
 action that shall bring him out of it. Let a man be ever so 
 well persuaded of the advantages of virtue, that it is as ne- 
 cessary to a man, who has any great aims in this world, or 
 hopes in the next, as food to life : Yet till he Jmngers and 
 thirds after righteousness ; 'till he feels an tineasiness in the 
 want of it, his 7vili' will not be determined to any action in 
 pursuit of this confessed greater good ; but any other un- 
 easiness he feels in himself, shall take place, and carry his 
 will to other actions. On the other side, let a drunkard see 
 that his health decays, his estate wastes ; discredit and dis- 
 eases, and the want of all things, even of his beloved drink, 
 attends him in the course he follows : yet the returns of un- 
 easiness to miss his companions, the habitual thirst after his 
 cups, at the usual time, drives him to the tavern, though he 
 has in his view the loss of health and plenty, and perhaps of 
 
284 APPENDIX. 
 
 the joys of another life: the least of which is no inconsidera- 
 ble good, but such as he confesses, is far greater than the 
 tickling of his palate with a glass of wine, or the idle chat of 
 a soaking club, "fis not for want of viewing the greater 
 good ; for he sees, and acknowledges it, and in the intervals 
 of his drinking hours, will take resolutions to pursue the 
 greater good ; but when the uneasiness to miss his accustom- 
 ed delight returns, the greater acknowledged good loses its 
 hold, and the present uneasiness determines the will to the 
 accustomed action ; which thereby gets stronger footing to 
 prevail against the next occasion, though he, at the same 
 time, makes secret promises to himself, that he will do so no 
 more ; this is the last time he will act against the attain- 
 ment of those greater goods. And thus he is, from time to 
 time, in the state of that unhappy complainer, video ineliora 
 jiroboque, deteriora sequor ; which sentence, allowed for 
 true, and made good by constant experience, may this, and 
 possibly no other way, be easily made intelligible. 
 
 § 36*. If we inquire into the reason of what experience 
 makes so evident in fact, and examine why 'tis uneasiness 
 alone operates on the will, and determines it in its choice, 
 we shall find, that we being capable but of one determination 
 of the will to one action at once, the present uneasiness that 
 we are under, does naturally determine the will, in order to 
 that happiness which we all aim at in all our actions ; for as 
 much as whilst we were under any uneasiness, we cannot 
 apprehend ourselves happy, or in the way to it. Pain and 
 uneasiness being, by every one, concluded, and felt, to be 
 inconsistent with happiness ; spoiling the relish, even of 
 those good things which we have : a little pain serving to 
 marr all the pleasure we rejoiced in. And therefore, that 
 which of course determines the choice of our will to the next 
 action, will always be the removing of pain, as long as we 
 have any left, as the first and necessary step towards happi- 
 ness. 
 
 § 37. Another reason why 'tis uneasiness alone determines 
 the will, may be this. Because that alone is present, and 
 
APPENDIX. ^85 
 
 'tis against the nature of things, that what is absent should 
 operate where it is not. It may be said, that absent good 
 may by contemphition be brought home to the mind, and 
 made present. The idea of it, indeed, may be in the mind 
 and viewed as present there ; but nothing will be in the 
 mind as a present good, able to counterbalance the removal 
 of any uneasiness which we are under, till it raises our de- 
 sire, and the uneasiness of that has the prevalency in deter- 
 mining the will. Till then the idea in the mind of whatever 
 good, is there only like other ideas, the object of bare un- 
 active speculation ; but operates not on the will, nor sets us 
 on work : the reason whereof I shall shew by and bye. How 
 many are to be found, that have had lively representations 
 set before their minds of the unspeakable joys of heaven, 
 which they acknowledge both possible and probable too, who 
 yet would be content to take up with their happiness here ? 
 And so the prevailing uneasiness of their desires, let loose 
 after the enjoyments of this life, take their turns in the de- 
 termining their willv, and all that while they take not one 
 step, are not one jot moved, towards the good things of an- 
 other life, considered as ever so great. 
 
 " § 38. Were the fvill determined by the views of good, 
 as it appears in contemplation greater or less to the under- 
 standing, which is the state of all absent good, and that 
 which in the received opinion, the will is supposed to move 
 to, and to be moved by, I do not see how it could ever get 
 loose from the infinite eternal joys of heaven, once proposed 
 and considered as possible. For all absent good, by which 
 alone, barely proposed, and coming in view, the w/// is thought 
 to be determined, and so to set us on action, being only pos- 
 sible, but not infallibly certain, it is unavoidable, that the in- 
 finitely greater possible good should regularly and constantly 
 determine the 7vill in all the successive actions it directs ; 
 and then we should keep constantly and steadily in our course 
 towards heaven, without ever standing still, or directing our 
 actions to any other end : The eternal condition of a fu- 
 ture state infinitely out-weighing the expectation of riches. 
 
^86 APPliNDIX. 
 
 or honour, or any other worldly pleasure, which we can pro- 
 pose to ourselves, though we should grant these the more 
 probable to be attained : For nothing future is yet in posses- 
 sion, and so the expectation even of these may deceive us. 
 If it were so, that the greater good in view determines 
 the will, so great a good once proposed could not but seize 
 the willy and hold it fast to the pursuit of this infinitely 
 greatest good, without ever letting it go again: For the 
 will having a power over, and directing the thoughts, as well 
 as other actions, would, if it were so, hold the contemplation 
 of the mind fixed to that good. 
 
 "This would be the state of the mind, and regular tendency 
 of the will in all its determinations, were it determined 
 by that which is considered, and in view the greater good ; 
 but that it is not so, is visible in experience. The infinitely 
 greatest confessed good being often neglected, to satisfy the 
 successive uneasiness of our desires pursuing trifles. But 
 though the greatest allowed, even everlasting unspeakable 
 good, which has sometimes moved, and affected the mind, 
 does not steadfastly hold the will, yet we see any very great 
 and prevailing uneasiness, having once laid hold on the rvill, 
 lets it not go ; by which we may be convinced, what it is that 
 determines the wilL Thus any vehement pain of the body; 
 the ungovernable passion of a man violently in love ; or the 
 impatient desire of revenge, keeps the will steady and in- 
 tent ; and the will thus determined, never lets the under- 
 standing lay by the object, but all the thoughts of the mind, 
 and powers of the body are uninterruptedly employed that 
 way, by the determinations of the will, influenced by that 
 topping u?ieasi?iess, as long as it lasts ; whereby it seems to 
 me evident, that the jvill, or power of setting us upon one 
 action in preference to all other, is determined in us by wra- 
 easiness ; And whether this be not so, I desire every one to 
 observe in himself. 
 
 " § 40. But we being in this world beset with sundry un- 
 easinesses, distracted with difi^erent desires^ the next inquiry 
 naturally will be, which of them has the precedency in deter- 
 
APPENDIX. 287 
 
 mining the fvill to the next action ? And to that the answer 
 is, that ordinarily, which is the most pressing of those that 
 are judged capable of being then removed. For the will 
 being the power of directing our operative faculties to some 
 action, for some end, cannot at any time be moved towards 
 what is judged at that time unattainable; That would be to 
 suppose an intelligent being designedly to act for an end, 
 only to lose its labour ; for so it is to act for what is judged 
 not attainable ; and therefore very great uneasinesses move 
 not the will, when they are judged not capable of a cure : 
 They, in that case, put us not upon endeavours. But these 
 set apart, the most important and urgent uneasiness we at 
 that time feel, is that which ordinarily determines the will 
 successively, in that train of voluntary actions, which make 
 up our lives. The greatest present uneasiness is the spur to 
 action that is constantly felt ; and for the most part deter- 
 mines the will in its choice of the next action. For this we 
 must carry along with us, that the proper and only object of 
 the will is some action of ours, and nothing else. For we 
 producing nothing, by our willing it, but some action in our 
 power, it is there the will terminates, and reaches no far- 
 ther. — Human Understanding, Book II. Chap. 21. 
 
 NoteE. (Page 173.) 
 
 Faith.— Against the view of faith which has been given in 
 the note, it may be still urged that to conceive man to co-oper- 
 ate, to such an extent, in the application of redemption, tends 
 to abridge our estimation of the grace of God, displayed in the 
 Christian economy. This objection may arise from partial 
 views of the subject, but as it is naturally that of a soul hum- 
 bled by a sense of its own unworthiness and weakness, and 
 jealous for the glory of God, to whom it owes in a twofold 
 sense its all, it deserves the most candid and explicit an- 
 swer. Let us just glance at the extent of the grace of God 
 in the economy of redemption. When man by his own guilty 
 
288 APPENDIX. 
 
 act had cast himself from his primitive state of dignity and 
 glory, and exposed himself and all his posterity to hopeless 
 ruin, God interposed and provided a Redeemer in the person 
 of his only begotten Son. This surely was an act purely of 
 sovereign grace. Now that Christ has died for our sins and 
 risen .again for our justification, we deserve no more than 
 thousands of others who are sitting in the region of the sha- 
 dow of death, to be favoured with the knowledge of the gos- 
 pel ; and it did not depend on us whether or not we should 
 have been favoured with it, as we now so liberally are. 
 That we hear the gospel therefore is another instance 
 of the sovereign grace of God. Here, as rational and moral 
 agents, we are required to begin to co-operate ; but though 
 we should by study and depth of thought understand all the 
 mysteries of the gospel as well as an Apostle, be thoroughly 
 convinced of their truth, by the examination of evidence, me- 
 ditate night and day upon them, and moved by the faith 
 which worketh by fear, pray without ceasing ; never could we 
 trust on Christ for pardon of sins and sanctification of heart, 
 and never could we truly love Him and be in a state of salva- 
 tion, — until by another act of unmerited grace we obtain the 
 gift of the Holy Ghost to create us a new and restore a right 
 spirit within us. And it is not here that the grace of God 
 terminates. After, by the power of the Holy Ghost, a man 
 has been rendered a true believer, he cannot continue so, un- 
 less supported by the same Spirit, who renewed his heart and 
 enabled him at first to believe. He must be kept by the 
 potver of God through faith unto salvation ; and this is no less 
 of grace, for the idea of sinful beings having any merit such 
 as to give them a right to the gifts of God, is an utter con- 
 tradiction. Thus sovereign grace provided a Saviour, — sove- 
 reign grace sends us the knowledge of Him, — unmerited and 
 sovereign grace enables us to believe upon Him with the only 
 saving faith, the faith which worketh by love, — and still un- 
 merited, sovereign, and long-suflTering grace supports us 
 through all the difficulties, and aggravated backslidings 
 of life, till it introduce us to the kingdom prepared 
 
APPENDIX. 281) 
 
 for us before the foundation of the world. In this amazing 
 work of sovereign mercy, the co-operation of man, so far from 
 obscuring the lustre of the grace of God, renders the whole 
 in the highest degree beautiful, and consistent at once with 
 the wisdom, the veracity, the justice, and the faithfulness of 
 God, and the moral nature and responsibility of man. Not 
 to speak at present of its consistency wiih the attributes of 
 God, if man could not understand the great truths of the gos- 
 pel, when presented to him, or not appreciate their evidence, 
 there could be no ground, as we formerly showed, for moral 
 obligation. And if man, on hearing and believing the truth 
 of the gospel, cannot, as he is, pray for the gift of the Holy 
 Ghost, but must, in some mysterious and unaccountable way, 
 be renovated and made holy before he come to Christ to ask the 
 spirit of regeneration and sanctification, the offer of the gospel 
 is no longer free and of sovereign grace, but loaded with the 
 most impossible of all conditions. The freeness and sovereign 
 grace of the gospel consists in this, that the halt and the 
 maimed, the blind, the diseased, and the unclean are invited 
 just as they are, convinced as rational beings that there is but 
 one way of salvation and as sentient beings desiring deliverance 
 from misery, to come to Christ to obtain freely from his hand 
 pardon of sins, sanctification of soul, and deliverance from all 
 their miseries. This is truly sovereign grace. The Almighty, 
 in perfect consistence with all his attributes, accommodating 
 himself to the fallen state of his moral creatures, sunk by 
 their sin to a degree of degradation but one step superior to 
 that of the brutes, stoops to the condition of man to raise the 
 sinful, the undeserving, and the wretched to holiness, honour 
 and glory. Deny man's ability to understand the great facts 
 of the gospel, when fairly presented to him, and to seek 
 those blessings which are held forth, and let the most able 
 disputant, if he can, rebut the unhallowed charges of the in- 
 fidel, not against confessedly mysterious truths, but against 
 the plainest doctrines of Christianity. 
 
 And, indeed, to say that a man cannot do very much, 
 without any regenerating influence of the Holy Spirit, is in 
 
 u 
 
290 APPENDIX. 
 
 direct Disposition to the plainest testimony of Scripture. Did 
 not Saul the Pharisee do much? did not the young ruler? did 
 not the five foolish virgins, who, with the full assurance of faith, 
 were waiting for the coming of the bridegroom, and multitudes 
 of others — all do much without the regenerating power of 
 grace ? To say then that men can do nothing in the receiv- 
 ing of the gospel, besides denying the freeness and the so- 
 vereignty of the grace of God, by clogging it with impossi- 
 ble conditions, lays a most dangerous snare for souls. Let 
 a man who has been taught that he can do nothing, feel that 
 he actually has the most orthodox belief of all the doctrines 
 of the gospel, and moreover, is a very decent moral Christian, 
 as it is termed, and has he not reason to believe, not only 
 that he is a regenerated man, but is to a high degree sancti- 
 fied ? There is some awful delusion of this sort, lurking 
 under, what, in the elation of spiritual pride, we style our 
 Calmnistic orthodoxy. So true it is, as a sound Calvinist 
 justly observes, that corrupted man mars and defiles every 
 thing he touches. The very grace of God, when he attempts, 
 in the plenitude of his wisdom not in the humility of his 
 soul, to magnify it, is converted into a snare to deceive and 
 ruin souls. 
 
 There is another objection to the view of faith which I 
 am attempting to illustrate, which deserves a moment's at- 
 tention. If a man, it is said, really believes that Christ is 
 able and willing to save him, and is so desirous of salvation 
 as to be enabled to pray sincerely for saving faith, why may 
 he not believe for salvation at once } It seems contradictory 
 that he should not. This is the objection of a man who 
 may know the theory of the gospel, but who is unacquainted 
 with his own heart. The gospel is a very simple thing, but 
 the heart is deceitful above all things ; and therefore the 
 application even of the most obvious truths of the gospel to 
 such a heart, is the most difficult thing in the universe. 
 The unrenewed heart exhibits a host of contradictions, and 
 practises a multitude of deceptions upon itself; and did not 
 
APPENDIX. 291 
 
 the power of God apply the gospel, the wisest and most 
 honest of men would deceive themselves to their own de- 
 struction. It is true that when a man first hears the gospel, 
 the way is completely cleared, and there is no reason, on the 
 part of God, why he should not as readily exercise saving faith 
 then as at any future period. The obstacle is in himself, 
 and is his sin, in as much as it is the consequence of his 
 depravity. It is also true that if he distinctly apprehend 
 the facts of the gospel, and on sufficient evidence believe 
 their truth, so far as knowledge is concerned, there is no 
 reason why he should not have saving faith ; for he will 
 nev€r obtain any other mere belief, different from this. But 
 faith is not the mere assent to the general truths of the gos- 
 pel: it is an act of the will also, as has been shown, acquies- 
 ing in those truths, and receiving and deriving something to 
 one's self, in consequence of the things which are believed. 
 Now when believing the general truths of the gospel, there 
 is a mighty difference between the desire to escape from sin 
 from dread of its consequences, and the desire to be delivered 
 from sin, as such, and to obtain righteousness. Nobody will 
 doubt but a man may have the former desire, while he has 
 no desire of the righteousness of Christ, and feels no want 
 of it, and has no hatred of sin and no love of holiness. In 
 this consists the vast difference between natural faith and 
 the faith of the operation of the Spirit of God. The direct 
 object of the natural man's faith is deliverance from punish- 
 ment, and he is only constrained to submit to part with sin in 
 order to obtain impunity : the direct and principal object of 
 the faith of the regenerate man is deliverance from sin itself 
 and perfect holiness. This is the leading and general dis- 
 tinction ; but it must be recollected, that even the saint is 
 not yet perfect, and his heart contains a sad mixture of con- 
 tradictory motives. 
 
 Let then a man who is acting upon the natural faith 
 which worketh by fear examine his heart, and he will soon 
 discover how strong a propensity he has to self-righteousness, 
 and how averse he is to the righteousness of Christ, cqn- 
 
S92 APPENDIX. 
 
 wdered apart from its consequences. To obtain salvation, 
 he \yoiild become a pharisee and submit to all the rigours of 
 the law ; he would become a monk, and endure all the hard- 
 ships of the desert and the cave ; he would become a brah- 
 man, and suffer the horror of years of torture, rather than, 
 renouncing his own desire and feeling of merit, trust for 
 righteousness simply because the Redeemer is righteous. 
 Here lies the peculiar work of the Spirit of God ; and every 
 thing but this, I am persuaded, the natural conscience can 
 effect. Without divine aid, he may soon obtain faith, 
 even the full assurance of faith, which is by no means so dif- 
 ficult to obtain as some imagine — the foolish virgins had it 
 in a very high degree ; but it will not be the faith which trusts 
 principally for righteousness, and which consequently work- 
 eth by love. It will be the faith of the antinomian or pharisee ; 
 or rather, for both these spring from the same root, the faith 
 of a carnal heart deceiving itself by the fancy of the safeness 
 of its state. There is one most delusive form which this 
 faith assumes which, in the present times, particularly de- 
 serves notice. The professed legalist, contemplating his con- 
 victions of sin, his legal repentance, his reformation, his good 
 works, his knowledge, his prayers, feels whole and needs not 
 a physician : the false believer, of whom I now speak, trusts 
 that his sins are pardoned, and that he shall obtain everlast- 
 ing life, not for his own works indeed, but he makes his be- 
 lieving of the doctrines of the gospel the ground of his confi- 
 dence. His assenting to gospel truth becomes, in his mind, 
 truly a work of law, and separates him as really from the 
 atonement of Christ as were he a professed legalist, looking 
 for justification by his observance of the Jewish ceremonial. 
 He derives that moral satisfaction which appeases his con- 
 science, not from the simple fact, that Christ died, but from 
 the fact that he believes it. He finds the atonement of 
 Christ an insufficient ground of his confidence, and feels that 
 he requires to add something of his own, and in this case it 
 is his own believing of general doctrine, to complete the 
 foundation of his faith. The true believer looks for pardon 
 
APPENDIX. 293 
 
 solely on account of Christ's death : the false believer trusts 
 also for pardon, but on account of Christ's death and his own 
 believing together. The foith of the former is the hand, as 
 has been well said, by which he lays hold on Christ and re- 
 ceives directly from his hand all the blessings of salvation : 
 the fnith of the latter is both the hand which gives and re- 
 ceives, or rather, his believing general doctrine is the hand 
 which gives, and his trusting to it for salvation is the hand 
 which receives. Christ and his righteousness is the direct 
 and only ground of true faith for salvation : our own assent- 
 ing to the truth of the gospel is the direct and immediate 
 ground of false faith. The source of peace and comfort to 
 the one, is Christ dying for his sins : to the other, the source 
 of comfort is his own assent to the general fact. To the true 
 believer Christ crucified is a whole and only Saviour : the 
 false believer makes use of Christ to render himself his own 
 saviour. Both trust that their sins are pardoned, and both 
 require to have a Saviour ; but to the one Christ is all in all 
 and self is nothing ; to the other Christ holds the second 
 place, self holds the first. 
 
 So far the natural man may proceed towards the kingdom 
 of heaven. He may reach the full assurance of the inlellec- 
 iual faith which is so much extolled ; but it is a faith which 
 worketh not by love. Such Christians may be orthodox, in- 
 telligent, clear-headed, but, like the Laodiceans, they are 
 cold-hearted and luke-warm believers. The intelligent being 
 has clear knowledge ; but the heart of the moral being is not 
 at one with God. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, 
 or the pride of life, divide the heart with the Redeemer. 
 
 Note F. 
 
 Ground of Moral Obligation. — Dr. Brown's view 
 of the ground of moral obligation and the nature of vir- 
 tue are far from being adequate ; but as he refers them 
 to an original principle of our nature, and maintains the 
 distinction of right and wrong, it were uncandid to charge 
 
^94 APPENDIX. 
 
 him with any design to subrert moral obligation. In 
 his anxiety, however, to prove right and wrong mere rela- 
 tions, and to free us from a few unnecessary terms, he has 
 certainly carried his peculiar views to an unwarrantable 
 length. The following passage contains a striking exhibition 
 of his principle. ** That right and wrong signify nothing in 
 objects themselves, is indeed most true. They are words ex- 
 pressive only of relation, and relations are not existing parts 
 of objects, or things to be added to objects or taken from 
 them. There is no right nor wrong, virtue nor vice, merit 
 nor demerit, existing independently of the agents who are 
 virtuous or vicious ; and, in like manner, if there had been 
 no moral emotions to arise on the contemplation of certain 
 actions, there would have been no virtue, vice, merit, or de- 
 merit, which express only relations of those emotions. But 
 though there be no right nor wrong in an agent, the virtuous 
 agent is not the same as the vicious agent — I do not say 
 merely to those whom he benefits or injures, but to the most 
 remote individual who contemplates that intentional produc- 
 tion of benefit or injury. All are affected, on the contem- 
 plation of these, with diflferent emotions ; and it is only 
 by the difference of these moral emotions, that these actions 
 are recognised as morally different. We feel that it will be 
 impossible, while the constitution of nature remains as it is — 
 and we may say even from the traces of the divine benevo- 
 lence which the universe displays, impossible, while God 
 himself, the framer of our constitution, and adapter of it 
 to purposes of happiness, exists, — that the lover and inten- 
 tional producer of misery, as misery, should ever be viewed 
 with tender esteem ; or that he whose only ambition has 
 been to diffuse happiness more widely than it could have 
 flowed without his aid, should be regarded with the detesta- 
 tion, on that account, which we now feel for the murderer 
 of a single helpless individual, or for the oppressor of as 
 many sufferers as a nation can contain in its whole wide orb 
 of calamity ; and a distinction which is to exist while God 
 himself exists, or at least which has been, and as we cannot 
 
APPENDIX. 295 
 
 but believe, will be, coeval with the race of man, cannot 
 surely, be regarded as very precarious. It is not to moral 
 distinctions only that this objection, if it have any force, 
 would be applicable. Equality, proportion, it might be said, 
 in like manner, signify nothing in the objects themselves to 
 which they are applied, more than vice or virtue. They are 
 as truly mere relations as the relations of morality. Though 
 the three sides of a right angled triangle exist in the triangle 
 itself, and constitute it what it is, rvhal we term the pro^ 
 j)crties of such a triangle do not exist in it ; but are results 
 of a peculiar capacity of a comparing mind. It is man, or 
 some thinking being like man, whose comparisons give birth 
 to the very feeling that is termed by us a discovery of the 
 equality of the squares of one of the sides to the squares of 
 the other two ; that is to say — for the discovery of this truth 
 is nothing more — it is man who, contemplating such a triangle, 
 is impressed with this relation, and who feels afterwards 
 that it would be impossible for him to contemplate it with- 
 out such an impression. If this feeling never had arisen, 
 and never were to arise in any mind, though the squares 
 themselves might still exist as separate figures, their equa- 
 lity would be nothing — exactly as justice and injustice would 
 be nothings jvhere fio relation of moral emotion had ever been 
 felt; for equality, like justice, is a relation not a thing ; and 
 if strictly analyzed, exists only, and can exist only, in the 
 mind, which on the contemplation of certain objects, is im- 
 pressed with certain feelings of relation ; in the same man- 
 ner as right and wrong, virtue, vice, relate to emotions ex- 
 cited in some mind that has contemplated certain actions — 
 without whose contemplation of the actions, it will be rea- 
 dily confessed, there could be no right nor wrong, virtue 
 nor vice, as there could be no other relation without a mind 
 that contemplates the objects said to be related. Certain 
 geometrical figures cannot be contemplated by us without 
 exciting certain feelings of the contemplating mind — which 
 are notions of equality or proportion. Is it necessary that 
 the equality should be itself' something existing in the sepa- 
 
296 APPENDIX. 
 
 rale Jigures themselves, wilhoiU reference to any mind thai 
 contemplates them, hejore he put any confidence in geometry ? 
 Or is it not enough that every mind which does contemplate 
 them together, is impressed with that particular feeling, in 
 consequence of which they are ranked as equal ?" * 
 
 There are certainly some very extraordinary statements in 
 this passage, and it may not be easy to give a satisfactory 
 and consistent account of it. The cause of the strange mis- 
 conception and more than scholastic mysticism which per- 
 vades it, seems to arise from having confounded our percep- 
 tion of properties and relations with the relations and proper- 
 ties themselves. With regard to our own perceptions of things, 
 they depend, of course, upon the mind itself; but to con- 
 found the existence of those perceptions with the existence 
 of the things perceived, is a relique of the school of Berkely 
 and Hume, and a mistake unworthy of Dr. Brown. Let 
 there exist a piece of matter of triangular shape, or let 
 a globe, such as the planet on which we live, have rolled for 
 millions of ages in the infinity of space, and Dr. Brown tells 
 us that what we term properties of the triangle or globe, do 
 not exist in it nor belong to it ; but are results of a peculiar 
 capacity of the comparing mind. Men even in supporting 
 absurdity, are not altogether idiots, and have usually some 
 sort of sufficient reason for what they profess to believe ; and 
 it might be a curious subject of speculation to ascertain by 
 what specious sophism Dr. Brown was led to this conclusion. 
 Properties are not distinct entities, but as properties belong- 
 ing to substances, they as really subsist as the substances 
 to which they belong. The same is true of relations which 
 are still more shadowy. While two substances exist between 
 which there subsists a certain relation, the relation as really 
 subsists and is as permanent in its being as the substances 
 themselves. How absurd to tell an astronomer that all the 
 equalities and proportions of distance, magnitude, velocity, 
 &c. which he discovers in the solar system, have derived all 
 their existence from his own perception of them } If this bo 
 
 • Lecture LXXXI I. 
 
APPENDIX. 297 
 
 not what Dr. Brown means to affirm ; but that his perception 
 of these relations depends upon his comparing mind, this is a 
 vulgar truth, and what is the meaning of all his pompous 
 reasonings in obscuring and confounding a plain dictate of 
 the common understanding ? In all the relations and proper- 
 ties which are known to us, every body knows that the exist- 
 ence of these relations and properties depends on things 
 which exist independently of us, and whether there were 
 any mind or being to perceive them or not; but that our 
 perceptions depend, of course, upon the existence of our own 
 mind, and that if there were no intelligent mind, though 
 properties and relations between things might exist, they 
 could not be the subjects of contemplation and knowledge. 
 Why then talk of equality and proportion as nothing in objects 
 to which they are said to belong? It is quite unmeaning. They 
 are not separate entities, they are not essential attributes, 
 and nobody thinks them so ; but they are real relations, which 
 continue to subsist as relations, independently of all compari- 
 son and perception on the part of man. Though the whole 
 race of men were swept from the earth, or indeed all intelli- 
 gent beings from the universe, the diameter of the earth would 
 not cease to bear a certain proportion to its circumference. 
 It is totally absurd then to talk of perceiving the relations 
 and properties of things, if there be not relations and pro- 
 perties actually subsisting to be perceived. 
 
 With regard to virtue and vice, if it is meant by Dr. Brown 
 that there could be neither the one nor the other, were there 
 no moral agents, that is, beings susceptible of certain feelings 
 and capable of certain perceptions ; he is stating one of the 
 most obvious and common truths, which the plainest peasant 
 most fully understands. Virtue and vice are properties of 
 moral agents, without whom they plainly cannot exist. If, 
 however, it is meant to be affirmed that after moral agents 
 really exist, there is no real difference in the desires and 
 volitions, characterized by the opposite terms virtuous and 
 vicious ; his statement is utterly false, and is refuted by the 
 consciousness of every man whose understanding has not been 
 
^98 APPENDIX. 
 
 degraded by vice or blunted by the still more deadly iii- 
 tiuence of infidelity. There is a real difference in the moral 
 quality of the desires and volitions of a moral agent, which 
 is as permanent as his own existence. It depends not upon 
 any perception of it, as Dr. Brown most falsely supposes, 
 but is a distinction as real and permanent, and exists as truly, 
 whether it is perceived or not, as the difference between the 
 bulk of one planet and that of another. It is a distinction 
 which not only has subsisted during the existence of the hu- 
 man race, and will subsist during the coming eternity of their 
 existence, but since man, as an intelligent and moral being, 
 resembles his Creator, has subsisted in the mind of the Deity 
 during the whole eternity of the past. Long before a planet 
 rolled among the solar rays, or a created being rejoiced in the 
 goodness and equity of his glorious Creator, the great dis- 
 tinction of just and holy, as opposed to unjust and sinful, 
 were essential attributes of the eternal Father of spirits. Why 
 then talk so strangely and mystically of right and wrong, 
 virtue and vice, as depending for their existence, on some 
 vague, blind, unmeaning emotion, which might be removed, 
 and with it the bug-bear distinction of right and wrong, with- 
 out rendering man a being materially different from what he is ? 
 If Dr. Brown's principle be true, and if virtue and vice depend 
 upon the presence of an emotion, as he imagines ; let a man, 
 by the habitual indulgence of crime, have this emotion re- 
 moved in consequence of a seared conscience ; and the de- 
 graded wretch is at once transformed into the man of virtue 
 and worth. This is the true tendency of Dr. Brown's prin- 
 ciple. On the perception of certain actions, an unmeaning 
 emotion arises, not in consequence of any real difference of 
 the actions, or any quality in the volitions of the agent ; for 
 the demerit of the volitions depend upon the emotion, and if 
 this emotion did not arise, these same volitions would have 
 been virtuous and praise- worthy. This is in truth to sub- 
 vert the foundation of moral obligation ; for it is a matter of 
 fact that the feelings of conscience, as mere emotions, may 
 be destroyed by a course of vice ; and hence on Dr. Brown's 
 
APPENDIX, 299 
 
 principle, all distinction of right and wrong is removed, and 
 the feelings which were formerly vicious thus assume the op- 
 posite quality. Happily such philosophy is as repugnant to 
 the common understanding of mankind, as it is hateful to 
 their better feelings. It is true, that by habitual flagitious- 
 ness the degraded being ceases to feel, in the strict sense of 
 the word, the merit or demerit of his actions; but mankind 
 do not conceive that he is, on that account, acquitted from 
 blame, nor does he himself cease to know that he is guilty. 
 His seared conscience experiences no emotion at the perpetra- 
 tion of the most horrid crimes ; but he still retains the know- 
 ledge of the moral difference of the volitions and actions of a 
 moral agent. The virtue and vice of the agent remains ; for 
 they are the real qualities of his desires and volitions, and he 
 has lost only the susceptibility of the moral emotions, not the 
 power of perceiving the qualities of volitions as right or as 
 wrong. 
 
 Dr. Brown's attempt to refute the opinion of Drs. Reid, 
 Price, and others on this subject, is feeble and unsatisfactory. 
 *' The reference which Dr. Price would make of our moral sen- 
 timents to reason," says he, " would leave the difficulty and 
 the doubt exactly where they were before ; since reason is 
 but a principle of our mental frame, like the principle which 
 is the source of moral emotion, and has no peculiar claim to 
 remain unaltered in the supposed general alteration of our 
 mental constitution." This is a mistake. When the under- 
 standing is destroyed or wanting, as in the case of idiocy, 
 there is no moral obligation ; and hence the individual is 
 free from guilt, though his moral feelings still retain their 
 own distinctive nature. But besides, taking the understand- 
 ing as capable of moral perception, and hence as the source 
 of moral obligation, we have an agent capable of perceiving 
 the real differences in his desires and affections, and 
 consequently of knowingly and wisely regulating his 
 volitions. This perception of right and wrong remains 
 after the emotion may have been destroyed, and upholds 
 the sacred distinction of vice and virtue. Admitting this 
 
SOO APPENDIX. 
 
 intellectual perception, combined with its appropriate feel- 
 ing, all is plain and intelligible, and consistent with the well 
 known phenomena. The perception of right and wrong is 
 then put upon the same footing as the other perceptions of 
 the understanding ; and notwithstanding all the fluctuation 
 of feeling and emotion, the foundation of moral obligation re- 
 mains untouched, and can be removed only by the destruc- 
 tion of the understanding, which accordingly is allowed, both 
 by the common sense of men and the authority of Scriptures, 
 completely to remove it. 
 
 Note G. 
 
 Predestination.-—*' God from all eternity," says the 
 Westminster Confession, " did, by the most wise and ho- 
 ly counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain 
 whatsoever comes to pass ; yet so, as thereby neither is God 
 the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the area' 
 tures, nor is the liberty or contingeficy of second causes taken 
 away but rather established."* 
 
 This is the true and an admirably correct account of two 
 matters of facts. Man is free is the one ; for it is every where 
 supposed in Scripture, and is proved by experience : God, 
 in a way consistent with this fact, has foreordained all 
 things is the other, which is also established by the testi- 
 mony of the Scriptures of truth. These are the facts; ex- 
 plain them as we may. The truly enlightened compilers 
 of our Confession found no hesitation to state them ; for 
 they well knew that all things were ordained by the most 
 ivise and holy counsel of God, and must needs therefore all be 
 right. Where is the well-informed Christian who can in- 
 dulge the slightest suspicion that his Heavenly Father has 
 done wrong, or feel the most transient wish that his arrange- 
 ments were altered } If things are sometimes obscure and 
 perplexing, it is his ignorance, he knows, which is the cause, 
 
 * Chap. III. Contingency plainly is to be taken as synonymous 
 with liberty. 
 
APPENDIX. ' 301 
 
 not any tiling wrong on the part of God ; and if lie saw the 
 whole, he would be the first to join with the enlightened 
 spirits above ; just and true are all thy ways, thou king of 
 saints! That his anticipation, though it be the conclusion of 
 love, is not too partial, will appear by the slightest consider- 
 ation of the doctrine of predestination. 
 
 From the cursory view which has been taken of free will, 
 it has appeared that so far from the most absolute fore-know- 
 ledge being in the least incon>>istent with the most perfect 
 freedom, there can be no freedom without it. Freedom is not 
 a state of non-entity, but the exercise of power; and power 
 implies the certainty that the agent who enjoys it will infal- 
 libly carry his purposes and views into effect. If the idea of 
 •contingency is once admitted, the immediate conclusion is, 
 that the agent has not power to execute his will. So com- 
 pletely, as has been hinted, is this the judgment of the un- 
 sophisticated understanding of mankind, that every man 
 knows well that, when he contemplates a design or forms a 
 purpose, the more absolutely certain and infallible is the re- 
 sult, the greater, he feels, is the magnitude of his power 
 and the extent of his freedom. And in like manner, when one 
 human being considers the designs and purposes of another, 
 the more certainty he discovers of their execution, and the 
 more remote the period of time to which they are prospec- 
 tive, the higher is his admiration of the wisdom and power of 
 the agent who can so extensively control and so infallibly de- 
 termine the current of future events. To such an extent 
 then can one man foresee the future certainty of the actions of 
 another, without impairing his liberty ; and why should we 
 deny the same power, in an infinitely higher degree, to Him 
 whose understanding is infinite ? Let us next see the consist- 
 ency of freedom with foreordination. 
 
 Were we to enter formally and at large into this subject, 
 it would facilitate the inquiry to consider only the natural 
 actions of men as coming under the decree of predestination ; 
 and leave out those which are the result of extraordinary in- 
 terpositions, on the part of God, as of the gift of the Holy 
 
 2 
 
302 APPENDIX. 
 
 Spirit for the work of regeneration. And since such inter- 
 positions are acts of justice in punishing the guilty, or of 
 mercy and love in saving the undone, there is cause surely, 
 on account of them, only for gratitude, none for complaint. 
 Still farther to simplify the inquiry, it might be desirable al- 
 so to consider first the virtuous actions of men, and then those 
 which are vicious. 
 
 With regard then to virtuous actions, as God has been the 
 author of the human constitution, consisting of the intelli- 
 gent mind and the moral susceptibilities, and has placed man 
 in his present circumstances, it is plain that he has directly 
 ordained all the virtuous actions of mankind. Knowing that 
 a moral being uniformly acts on the principles of his consti- 
 tution, by placing him in circumstances where he has a cer- 
 tain choice of right and wrong, proper and improper conduct, 
 one man is able to render absolutely certain any series of the 
 actions of another. The more he knows the disposition of 
 the individual, to the greater extent is he able, in this way, 
 to fix the certainty of his actions. Now, it is plain, that, had 
 he also bestowed the mind which perceives the relations of 
 the circumstances, and the susceptibilities which enable the 
 man to act upon his perceptions, he would have been the real 
 author of all the consequent actions. So it is then with the 
 Creator. His creatures act because they will ; they will be- 
 cause they judge it right ; and they judge things right, be- 
 cause God has endowed them with a nature similar to his 
 own. Thus, so long as they act upon the principles of the 
 high being which God has given him, to Him they must ren- 
 der all the praise for the intelligent mind and generous soul, 
 which at one time swells with gratitude at the recollection 
 of his bounty ; at another, melts with compassion for the suf- 
 ferings of the oppressed, and burns with indignation at the 
 injustice of his oppressor. 
 
 With regard to vicious actions, the possession of the power 
 of doing right necessarily implies, in the event of corruption, 
 the ability of acting wrong. This follows necessarily from 
 the fact that a being exists. The sun which now enlightens 
 
APPENDIX. 303 
 
 and cheers the earth, if placed in an improper situation, 
 would quickly consume it ; and in like manner, the moral 
 agent \\'ho will not act right, must necessarily do wrong. The 
 power which directed one way does right, when turned in an 
 opposite direction, produces opposite effects. By endowing 
 man with a moral nature.^ therefore, God has indirectly or- 
 dained all the evil which has been perpetrated ; but then this 
 indirect ordination is of a totally different character from the 
 direct ordination just mentioned. In the latter, man as 
 yet did not exist, and the act of giving him existence, and 
 placing him in the circumstances in which he was required 
 to act, were wholly the effects of divine power; but after 
 man had obtained his constitution, he was no longer the sub- 
 ject of physical power, but became a responsible agent acting 
 for himself. The conduct of God must then be judged on 
 the moral principle of justice ; and the actions of man must 
 be considered his own, for which he is reponsible. If helms 
 sinned, he and his seducer are the authors of the evil, and in 
 rendering the works of God the means of evil, they are per- 
 verting their original design, and committing an injury against 
 the Creator. They were able to do their duty, they well knew 
 it, and in sinning they acted in opposition to the will of God. 
 There was no ordination of evil on his part, and it were unne- 
 cessary ; for the constitution which He had created good, when 
 corrupted, necessarily proved the cause of evil. This evil in- 
 deed God foresaw, and determined to take subsequent mea- 
 sures to overrule the wickedness of his creatures, in order to 
 magnify his own glory, in the promotion of the welfare of 
 his unfallen creation ; but all this, it has appeared, so far as 
 our knowledge and means of information extends, is perfectly 
 consistent both with the attributes of God, and the freedom 
 and responsibility of man. 
 
 The whole doctrine of predestination, therefore, as it re- 
 gards the natural actions of man, is reduced to the simple 
 fact, that God created man a moral agent. By creating him 
 a perfect moral agent. He, with the utmost certainty, deter- 
 mined all the good which man has performed ; and in so do- 
 
304 APPENDIX. 
 
 ing, He could not but determine all the evil which, in the 
 event of a fall, might ensue. There is no real difficulty in 
 the subject of predestination, if we adhere to plain and known 
 facts. If we know the nature of agency, we at once discover 
 that the whole truth was involved in the fact, " man became 
 a living soul." While such a being exists in a state of per- 
 fection, in given circumstances, his actions are all determin- 
 ed ; if he become corrupted, their certainty remains the same. 
 The confusion has arisen from ignorance of the nature of 
 agency, and consequently by the introduction of a contin- 
 gency which virtually denies the existence of man ; for if a 
 moral agent has poiver, there is no real contingency. If 
 you once admit that a being possesses a moral constitution, 
 and if by predestination is meant the part which God acts in 
 bringing about the actions of men, the divine act of creation 
 and the divine act of predestination mean precisely the same 
 thing. If we speak with any meaning when we affirm that 
 God foreordained the actions of men, we just state the vulgar 
 truth, " God created man." Let a being be possessed of a 
 moral nature and placed in certain circumstances, and his con- 
 duct is determined ; for, in every case, he has the alternative 
 of doing only right or wrong, and so long as he acts upon the 
 principles of his constitution, he will infallibly choose the 
 right. Admit the fact that man exists, and you cannot deny 
 the doctrine of predestination as stated in our Confession. 
 The idea that predestination implies any interference, — we 
 omit extraordinary interpositions of judgment and mercy, 
 which are all righteous and just — or any exertion of power, on 
 the part of God, to bring about the action of his creatures, 
 is a misconception arising from the ignorance of the nature 
 of the human constitution. It is an awkward expedient to 
 account for facts whose real cause is unknown — an attempt 
 to hold together an incoherent system of theology, like the in- 
 vention of a clumsy mechanic to preserve the unity of the 
 planets of the solar system, which, by the appointment of the 
 Creator, are already indissolubly connected by the principle 
 of gravitation. When God created man with a moral con- 
 
APPENDIX. 305 
 
 stitution, He secured the certainty of his future actions, and 
 the supposition of any further exertion of power is complete- 
 ly unmeaning, inasmuch as it assigns, for the same effect, two 
 causes, either of which is adequate to its production. It 
 imagines God to do a second time that which, by his act of 
 creation. He had already done. 
 
 It is here the dispute between the Calvinist and Arminian 
 seems to hinge. If by predestination is meant the fact, that 
 God, by creating man with certain perceptions and feelings, 
 and by placing him in certain circumstances, foreordained 
 directly or indirectly all his actions, no rational man can deny 
 it j but if it is implied in this doctrine that God now exerts 
 physical power to control the agency and bring to pass the 
 actions of man, such a supposition has no sanction from the 
 doctrines of Scripture, as stated in the Westminster Confes- 
 sion. This were to make God the author of sin, to offer 
 violence to the will of man, and to destroy his liberty ; and 
 besides, it were to set one decree of God against another, and 
 completely to derange the moral government which his wis- 
 dom has established. With regard to the actions of men, the 
 physical act of predestination was the act of creation, and all 
 that has place now is the foreknowledge of what was then de- 
 termined, as the ground of future physical acts in punishing 
 and rewarding men according to their works. The whole of 
 predestination now proceeds upon foreknowledge, and nothing 
 more is necessary. Hence the apostle expressly lays down 
 the latter as the ground of the former, in speaking of God's 
 dealings with men subsequent to creation. " Whom he did 
 foreknow He also did predestinate to be conformed to the 
 image of his Son."* Another apostle states the same princi- 
 ple, styling believers '' elect according to the foreknowledge of 
 God ;"t and the whole Scriptures speak the same language. 
 
 So consistent then are the doctrines of the Westminster 
 Confession with the freedom and the responsibility of man. 
 So far from the foreordination which it teaches being hostile 
 
 * Rom. viii.29. f 1 Pet. 1, 2. 
 
306 APPENDIX. 
 
 to liberty, it truly, as is justly stated, and most directly 
 establishes it. The only possible freedom to a real agent is 
 the enjoyment of power ; and power implies the certainty of 
 the resulting actions. Deny predestination, and you at the 
 same time deny the existence of man, as the defenders of 
 contingency virtually do. But let man really exist and pos- 
 sess intellectual and moral power, and by this power his 
 actions, in given circumstances, are determined. The doc- 
 trine of the Divine decrees, which learned ignorance has sO 
 grievously perverted to cast stumbling-blocks before the 
 people of God, is, with reference to the actions of men, no- 
 thing but the great truth, that God decreed to create man, 
 and ordained that he should be powerful and free. This is 
 the whole truth. God decreed to give man a being, and by 
 the same decree his will is preserved from violence, and his 
 liberty secured. The whole of predestination which now 
 concerns man is simply this ; let man act as he chooses, and 
 choose as he judges right. This is the most absolute free- 
 dom ; and in enjoying it to the full, he is just bringing to 
 pass what the wise and holy counsel of God had from eter- 
 nity ordained. 
 
 Such then is the whole of predestination which respects 
 the natural actions of men. It is just what Scripture sup- 
 poses, and reason would infer it to be, nothing but the fact, 
 that man has been created a moral being, the subject of 
 a moral government, possessed of power to regulate his con- 
 duct, and who is therefore left at perfect liberty to act for 
 himself, and stand or fall on his own responsibility ; or in 
 the words of the Confession, '' Man had freedom and power 
 to will and to do that which is good and well pleasing to 
 God ; but was neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity 
 of nature determined to ^ood or evil."* To such a being a 
 fall was his own act, for which he must justly suffer the con- 
 sequences ; and now that he has fallen, he " hath wholly lost 
 all ability of will to any spiritual good accompajiying salva- 
 
 * Chap. ix. 
 
APPENDIX. 307 
 
 tion; so as a natural man, being altogether averse to 
 that good, and dead in sin, is net able, by his own strength, 
 to convert himself, or to prepare himself thereunto." Hence 
 the doctrine of predestination with respect to the actions of 
 men, in consequence of the communication of divine power, 
 is totally different from that which we have just examined, 
 as it always implies the immediate agency of the Divine Spirit. 
 But on this part of the subject it is here unnecessary to 
 enter. The whole of it is contained in these words of the 
 apostle ; '* It is God who worketh in you both to will and 
 to do of his good pleasure." And if predestination with 
 reference to men's natural actions, is understood as being, 
 what it really is, simply the fact of creation, the second 
 creation will be found to arise out of the ruins of the first, 
 with a regularity, a beauty, and a glory, which the first, very 
 good though it was, could never have exhibited. 
 
 Note H. 
 
 Means op Ghace. — Dr. Whitby quotes from Le Blanc 
 some doctrines which were held both by the Calvinistic and Lu- 
 theran reformers, which he treats with great contempt as ut- 
 terly absurd and repugnant to reason and Scripture : such 
 as, " There be some moral precepts which man in this lapsed 
 state cannot do at all ; some actions which are materially 
 good are yet formally sins ; man, in the state of lapsed na- 
 ture, is not free to choose what is morally good," &c. These 
 doctrines have been sometimes misexplained and abused, but 
 every one acquainted with the Bible or with human nature, 
 clearly perceives that they contain most important truth, and 
 involve none of the contradictions which Dr. Whitby fancies 
 he discovers. They are indeed all truths which, if a man do 
 not clearly apprehend and thoroughly believe, he will never 
 appreciate the nature of the gospel, or to any great extent, if 
 at all, experience its saving effects. Let us briefly see the 
 consistency and beneficial tendency of the most obnoxious of 
 tlem. 
 
308 APPENDIX. 
 
 It is, in the first place, most decidedly held, not only that 
 man is utterly unable to perform many duties, which the 
 law of God commands, but that all the means of grace, how- 
 ever honestly employed, are in themselves altogether ineffi- 
 cient to accomplish the desired end. But surely nobody who is 
 not in jest, or totally ignorant of the subject, can ridicule this 
 idea. Moses smiting the rock was not the cause of the flow- 
 ing of the waters ; the view of the brazen serpent had no 
 physical power to heal the wounded Israelites ; the blast of 
 the rams' horns had no mechanical force sufficient to over- 
 turn the walls of Jericho ; the prayer of an apostle possessed 
 no charm in raising the dead. The very use of such means 
 as prayer necessarily implies, that it and all the other 
 means, are in themselves ineffectual. It has indeed, like all 
 other means, a certain adaptation to the end, and exerts 
 a moral influence upon the minds of those who employ it ; 
 but if the man who seeks, by prayer, the gift of the Spirit of 
 God, believe that the moral influence of prayer will secure 
 the object of his desire, he has yet to learn the nature and 
 end of prayer ; and till he obtain this information, vain will 
 be all his petitions, and his heart will remain unchanged. The 
 cause of the efficiency of prayer, and of all the other means 
 of grace, is the almighty power and unchangeable faithful- 
 ness of God. It is here that he who rationally employs 
 them rests all his hopes ; and the more he is sensible of their 
 inherent inefficiency, the more honestly he will employ them, 
 and the more he is certain that he does not beat the air, but 
 that they shall prove mighty through God, to secure to him 
 the object he has in view. 
 
 It is true also, that those who hold this doctrine believe ; 
 that all works which proceed not from a heart, purified by 
 faith and regenerated by the power of the Holy Ghost, can- 
 not please God, or entitle a man to the grace which he needs, 
 but are rather to be considered as possessing the nature of 
 sin. This doctrine, besides being that of the sacred Scrip- 
 tures, is founded directly upon the constitution of a moral 
 being, and is every day illustrated and approved in the con- 
 duct of men. One virtuous act of a moral being cannot jus- 
 
APPENDIX. 309 
 
 tify^ any criminal part of his conduct, or free him from the 
 guilt of any sin. The subject who rebels against his right- 
 ful sovereign, and resists the righteous laws of his country, 
 is not acquitted of high treason, because he is faithful to his 
 associates, affectionate to his friends, condescending and be- 
 neficent to his dependents. So far he acts rightly, and is 
 obeying the laws of God and of man ; but so long as he re- 
 mains in arms against his country, he is still committing the 
 crime of treason, even while he is discharging many duties 
 and yielding partial obedience to the laws. So it is with 
 fallen man in relation to God. He owes a number of du- 
 ties to himself and to mankind as well as to his Great )r, and 
 possesses a variety of active principles, which enable him to 
 discharge them. Acting on some of those principles, he may 
 often be conscious of motives which the law of God approves, 
 and perform actions which it enjoins ; and this part of his con- 
 duct therefore, abstractly considered, is right, and sanctioned, 
 both in matter and motive, by the divine law, and is no doubt 
 pleasing to God as a holy moral being. But while he is thus 
 to a certain extent acting right, he is neglecting many of the 
 most important duties which God commands, and like the 
 rebel just supposed, he still remains an enemy to God ; and 
 his conduct therefore, as a whole, must be considered sinful, 
 and himself unacceptable to the pure eye of Him who trieth 
 the heart and who cannot look upon iniquity. The princi- 
 ple which the apostle lays down, if not true, as is sometimes 
 erroneously supposed, with respect to the commandments of 
 the law literally, is strictly true with regard to the moral be- 
 ing's relation to that law : He who is guilty in one point is 
 guilty in all. Though he fulfil some parts of the law, if he 
 violate it in others, his whole conduct, as that of a moral 
 agent, is sinful, and his partial obedience can never atone for 
 his crimes, or render him and his conduct pleasing to God. 
 Till rendered acceptable by faith in the Beloved, he remains, 
 notwithstanding all his virtue, real virtue, it may be, his 
 punctual discharge of many duties, and his indulgence of 
 
310 APPENDIX. 
 
 many generous and virtuous feeling, an enemy to his Crea- 
 tor and obnoxious to the punishment denounced by his law. 
 How then. Dr. Whitby would demand, can a man rightly 
 employ the means of grace, if all his conduct is sinful .'* In his 
 very prayers, he must commit sin, according to this view of 
 |;he matter. In the use of all means, he must merit only a 
 curse and not a blessing. So he does we reply. The conduct 
 pf a fallen creature is at all times sinful, and in itself offensive 
 to God. The only cause of the acceptance of fallen man is 
 the merit of the divine atonement. Were not God now in 
 Christ reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their 
 trespasses to them, the prayers and works even of the most 
 eminent saint would bring upon him swift destruction. God 
 ;s not imputing their si?is unto the world, but, for Christ's 
 sake, waiting to be gracious, and hence He is able to hear the 
 prayer of fallen men. For his^ own name's sake, and on the 
 ground of the merit of the Redeemer, altogether independ- 
 ently of human worth. He suits the means of grace to the 
 present condition of mankind, and pledges himself to bestow 
 the blessing on those who euiploy them. Without any holi- 
 ness of heart, and without any meritorious motives, men are 
 ^nvited to act upon such feelings as they naturally possess, 
 and come without money and without price to obtain, from 
 the fulness of Christy pardon of sin and sanctification of soul. 
 The grace which they need is bestowed, not as a reward of 
 their own merit, but as a gift purchased for them by the blood 
 qf the Redeemer. 
 
 Hence then, while we hold decidedly that " man by his 
 fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to 
 any spiritual good accompanying salvation," * either by any 
 inherent efficacy in the means themselves, or any merit he 
 has in using them ; it must be admitted, that the means 
 are adapted to his present moral condition, and that he is 
 perfectly able to employ them. The man who has heard the 
 gospel, and refuses to make himself farther acquainted v/ith 
 
 * Confess. Chap. IX. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 its doctrines, and to seek, by prayer, the power which is 
 truly and faithfully offered him, has no promise of any 
 blessing from God ; but if he do make use of the appointed 
 means, with those motives, and with that sincerity of which 
 the natural and unregenerate man is capable, he shall as- 
 suredly obtain the grace which he seeks, and which the ve- 
 racity of God, who cannot lie, has engaged to bestow. His 
 salvation is thus put into his own hands as truly as the multi- 
 tude of the transactions of ordinary life ; and if he perish, 
 his blood is upon his own head. The great principle on which 
 the application of redemption is conducted, is never forgot- 
 ten : " According to thy faith be it done unto thee." As 
 Christians are rewarded, as it is well said, not for their 
 works, as the ground of merit, but according to their works 
 as the measure : so the unregenerate man is redeemed, not 
 by his works as the cause of his acceptance, but by his works 
 as the means. The predestination and election of the en- 
 lightened Calrinist, is not the creation of a deranged imagi- 
 nation, as has been falsely alleged, but is a matter of fact 
 which does no violence to the will of the creature, nor de- 
 stroys the liberty of secondary causes, but rather, nay, most 
 undoubtedly and inevitably, establishes them. As God is 
 acknowledged to work by secondary causes in the providen- 
 tial government of the world, so He does in the economy of 
 grace. It is by the agency of his creatures, free and unfet- 
 tered by any act of his, that He carries into effect the decree 
 of election. They have indeed been enslaved by their own 
 crimes, and are utterly unable to save or rescue themselves ; 
 but God, infinite in mercy and wisdom, has introduced a new 
 dispensation suited to their present condition, and has ap- 
 pointed means of grace which they are perfectly able to em- 
 ploy ; and as they employ them, or employ them not, shall 
 they be saved or shall they be condemned. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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