An Examination of President Edwards' Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will

by Albert Taylor Bledsoe

The only way in which the mind ever comes to be furnished with the ideas of cause and effect at all is this: we are conscious that we will a certain motion in the body, and we discover that the motion follows the volition. It is this act of the mind, this exertion of the will, that gives us the idea of a cause; and the change which it produces in the body, is that from which we derive the idea of an effect. If we had never experienced a volition, we should never have formed the idea of causation. The idea of positive efficiency, or active power, would never have entered into our minds.

The two terms of the sequence, with which we are thus furnished by an actual experience, is an act of the mind, or a volition, on the one hand, which we call an efficient cause; and a modification or change in inert, passive matter, on the other, which we call an effect. It is easy to see how we rise from this single experience to the universal maxim in question. We are so made and constituted, by the Author of our nature, that we cannot help believing in the uniformity of nature’s laws, or sequences. Hence, whenever we see either term of the above sequence, we are necessarily compelled, by a fundamental law of belief, to infer the existence of the other.

This fundamental law of belief, by which we repose the most implicit confidence in the uniformity of nature’s sequences, has been recognized by many distinguished writers in modern times. It is well stated and illustrated by Dr. Chalmers. “The doctrine of innate ideas in the mind,” says he, “is wholly different from the doctrine of innate tendencies in the mind—which tendencies may lie undeveloped till the excitement of some occasion have manifested or brought them forth. In a newly-formed mind, there is no idea of nature, or of a single object in nature; yet, no sooner is an object presented, or is an event observed to happen, than there is elicited the tendency of the mind to presume on the constancy of nature. At least as far back as our observation extends, the law of the mind is in full operation. Let an infant, for the first time in his life, strike on the table with a spoon; and, pleased with the noise, it will repeat that stroke with every appearance of a confident expectation that the noise will be repeated also. It counts on the invariableness wherewith the same consequent will follow the same antecedent. In the language of Dr. Thomas Brown, these two terms make up a sequence, and there seems to exist in the spirit of man not an underived, but an aboriginal faith in the uniformity of nature’s sequences.”—Nat. Theo. p. 121.

Now, the two terms which we find connected in the case before us, is an act of the mind, and a change or modification of the body. The volition is the antecedent, and the motion of body is the consequent. And these two, by virtue of the law of belief above stated, we shall always expect to find conjoined. Wherever we discover a change or modification, for example, in the corporeal system of any other person, similar to that which results from our own volitions, we shall necessarily infer the existence of a prior act by which it was produced.

Hence, when we witness a change in the world of matter, we are authorized to apply the maxim we have derived in the manner above explained. We have really no idea of an efficient cause, except that which we have derived from the phenomena of action. Hence, if we would not suffer ourselves to be imposed upon by words without meaning, when we see any change or effect in the material world, we should conclude that it proceeds from an action of spirit. When we see the same consequent, we should infer the existence of the same antecedent; and not suffer our minds to be confused and misled by the manifold ambiguities of language, as well as by the innumerable illusions of the fancy. Wherever we see a change in matter, we should infer an act by which it is produced; and thus, through all the changes and modifications of the material universe, we shall behold the sublime manifestations of an ever-present and all-pervading agency of spirit.

By a similar process, we are made acquainted with the existence of an intelligent and designing First Cause. We learn the connection between the adaptation of means to an end, and the operations of a designing mind, by reflecting on what passes within ourselves when we plan and execute a work of skill and contrivance. And, as we are so made as to rely with implicit confidence on the uniformity of nature’s sequences; so, without further experience or induction, it is impossible for us to conceive of any contrivance whatever, without conceiving of it as proceeding from the hand of a contriver. Thus, we necessarily rise from the innumerable and wonderful contrivances in nature, to a belief in the existence of an intelligent and designing mind. In like manner may we establish the other attributes of God.

But to return to our maxim. We can only infer, from a change or modification in matter, the existence of an act by which it is produced. The former is the only idea we have of an effect; the latter is the only idea we have of an efficient cause. Hence, in reasoning from effect to cause, we can only reason from a change or modification in matter, or in that what is passive, to the act of some active power. This lays a sufficient foundation on which to rest the proof of the existence of God, as well as the existence of other minds.

But the case is very different when we turn from the contemplation of a passive result to consider an efficient cause—when we turn from the motion of body to consider the activity of mind. In such a case, the consequent ceases to be the same; and hence we have no right to infer that the antecedent is the same. We are conscious of an act; we perceive that it is followed by a change in the outward world; and henceforth, whenever we observe another change in the outward world, we are compelled to ascribe it, also, to a similar cause. This conviction results from the constitution of our minds—from a fundamental law of belief. But when we contemplate, not a change in the outward world, in that which is passive, but an act of the mind itself, the case is entirely different. We have some experience that certain changes in matter are the results of certain acts; and hence, whenever we observe similar phenomena, we are under a necessity of our nature to refer them to similar causes. We merely rely upon our veritable belief in the uniformity of nature’s sequences, without a reliance upon which there can be no such thing as reasoning, when we ascend from the changes in the outward world to a belief in the agency of an efficient Cause. But we have no experience that an act of the mind is produced by a preceding act of the mind, or by the prior action of any thing else. President Edwards himself admits that our experience is silent on this subject. And hence, when we witness an act of the mind, or when we are conscious of a volition, our instinctive belief in the uniformity of nature’s sequences does not require us to believe that it has an efficient cause; or, in other words, that it is produced by the prior action of something else, as the motion of body is produced by a prior act of mind. A change in body necessarily implies the prior action of something else by which it is produced; an act of mind only implies the existence of an agent that is capable of acting. Wherever an act exists, we must believe that there is a soul, or mind, or agent, that is capable of acting. We need not suppose that, like a change in body, it is brought to pass by a prior act. In other words, a change in that which is by nature passive, necessarily implies an act by which it is produced. But an act of the mind itself, which is not passive, does not likewise imply a preceding act by which it is produced. It only implies the existence of an agent that is capable of acting, and the circumstances necessary to action as conditions, not as causes.

Herein, then, lies the error of the necessitarian. He discovers from experience the connection between an act and a corresponding motion; and his instinctive belief in the uniformity of nature’s sequences authorizes him to extend this connection to all sequences where the two terms are the same. That is to say, wherever he discovers a change in body, he is authorized to infer the existence of a prior act by which it was produced. But he does not confine himself to this sequence alone. He does not rest satisfied with the universal principle, that every change in body, or in that which is passive, must proceed from the prior action of something else. He makes a most unwarrantable extension of this principle. He supposes not only that every change in body, but also that every act of mind, must proceed from the prior action of something else. Thus he confounds passion and action. He takes it for granted that a volition is an effect—an effect in such a sense that it cannot proceed from the mind, unless it be produced by the prior act thereof. He asserts that “the mind cannot be the cause of such an effect,” of a volition, “except by the preceding action of the mind.” Thus, in rising from a single experience to a universal maxim, by virtue of our belief in the uniformity of nature’s laws, he does not confine himself to the observed sequences; he does not keep his attention steadily fixed on a change in body as the consequent, and on an act as the invariable antecedent. On the contrary, from the exceedingly abstruse and subtle nature of the subject, as well as from the ambiguity of language, he treats a volition as a consequent, which implies the same kind of antecedent as does a change in body. Thus, by this unwarrantable extension or application of his principle, he confounds the motion of body with the action of spirit; than which there could hardly be a more unphilosophical confusion of ideas.

From the foregoing remarks, it will be perceived, as I have already said, that the question is not, whether every effect must have a cause. This is conceded. We do not give up “this great principle of common sense.” We insist upon it as firmly as do our adversaries; and hence, we have as strong a foundation whereon to rest our belief in the being of a God. But the question is, whether every cause is an effect? Or, in other words, whether an act of mind can exist without being produced by the prior action of something else; just as the motion of body is produced by the prior action of mind? We say that it can exist without any such producing cause.