Edwards has taken great pains with the superstructure of his system, while he has left its foundations without support. He has not shown, nor can any man show, that the sensibility and the will are one and the same faculty of the soul. He assumes that an emotion is an act of the will, and then proceeds to build upon it, and to argue from it, as if it were a clear and unquestionable truth. Thus, he repeatedly says, that whatever pleases us most, or excites the most agreeable sensation, is that which “operates to induce a volition;” and to say otherwise, is to assert that that which pleases us most, does not please us most. Such assertions, (and I have already had occasion to adduce many such,) clearly identify a sense of the most agreeable, or the most pleasing emotion, with an act of the will. His definition, as we have already seen, laid the foundation for this, and his arguments are based upon it. The passive impression, or the sensation produced, is, according to Edwards, a volition! No wonder, then, that he could conceive of an action of the mind as being produced. The wonder is, how he could conceive of it as being an action at all.
Let us suppose, now, that a feeling or an emotion is produced by an object in view of the mind. It will follow, that the mind is passive in feeling, or in experiencing emotion. We are conscious of such feeling or emotion; and hence we infer, that we are susceptible of feeling or emotion. This susceptibility we call the sensibility, the heart, the affections, &c. But there is another phenomenon of our nature, which is perfectly distinct in nature and in kind from an emotion or a feeling. We are conscious of a volition or choice; and hence we infer that we have a power of acting, or putting forth volitions. This power we call the will.
Now, the phenomena exhibited by these two faculties of the soul, the sensibility and the will, are entirely different from each other; and there is not the least shadow of evidence going to show that the faculties themselves are one and the same. On the contrary, we are compelled by a fundamental law of belief, to regard the susceptibility of our nature, by which we feel, as different from that power of the soul, by which we act or put forth volitions. The only reason we have for saying that matter is different from mind, is that its manifestations or phenomena are different; and we have a similar reason for asserting, that the emotive part of our nature, or the sensibility, is distinct from the will. And yet, in the face of all this, President Edwards has expressly denied that there is any difference between these two faculties of the soul. It is in this confusion of things, in this false psychology, that he has laid the foundation of his system.
If President Edwards be right, it is no wonder that the younger Edwards should so often assert, that it is no more absurd to say, that volition may be caused, than it is to say, that feeling or emotion may be caused. For, if the doctrine in question be true, a volition is an emotion or feeling; and to produce the one is to produce the other. How short and easy has the path of the necessitarian been made, by a convenient definition!
If we only bear the distinction between the sensibility and the will in mind, it will be exceedingly easy to see through the cloudy sophistications of the necessitarian. “How does it appear to be a fact,” asks President Day, “that the will cannot act when it is acted upon?” I reply that the will is not acted upon at all; that passive impressions are made upon the sensibility, and not upon the will. This is a fact which the necessitarian always overlooks.
Again; the same object may be both passive and active; passive with respect to one thing, and active with respect to another. Thus, says President Day, “The axe is passive, with respect to the hand which moves it; but active, with respect to the object which it strikes. The cricket club is passive in receiving motion from the hand of the player; it is active in communicating motion to the ball.” The fallacy of all such illustrations, in confounding motion and action, I have already noticed, and I intend to say nothing more in relation to this point. But there is another less palpable fallacy in them.
How are such illustrations intended to be applied to the phenomena of volition? Is it meant, that volition itself is passive in relation to one thing, and active in relation to another? If so, I reply it is absurd to affirm, that volition, or an act, is passive in relation to any thing? Is it meant, that not volition itself, but the will, is passive to that which acts upon it, while it is active in relation to its effect? If so, I contend that the will is not acted upon at all; that the passive impression is made upon the sensibility, and not upon the will. Is it supposed, that it is neither the volition nor the will, which is both active and passive at the same time; but that it is the mind? This may be very true. The mind may be passive, if you please, in relation to that which acts upon its sensibility, while it is active in volition; but how does this prove the doctrine, that an act may be produced by something else acting upon the will? How does this show, that action and passion are not confounded, in supposing that an act is caused? The passive impression, the state of the sensibility is produced but this is not a volition. The passive impression exists in the sensibility; the volition exists in the will. The first is a produced effect; the last is an act of the mind. And the only way in which this act of the mind itself has been linked with that which acts upon the mind, as an effect is linked with its cause, has been by confounding the sensibility with the will; and the light of this distinction is no sooner held up, than we see that a very important link is wanting in the chain of the necessitarian’s logic. Let this light be carried around through all the dark corners of his system, and through all its dark labyrinths of words; and many a lurking sophism will be detected and brought out from its unsuspected hiding place.
When it is said, that the same thing may be active and passive, this remark should be understood with reference to the mind itself. The language of the necessitarian, I am aware, sometimes points to the volition itself, and sometimes to the will; but we should always understand him as referring to the mind. He may not have so understood himself; but he must be so understood. For it is not the will that acts; it is the mind. This is conceded by the necessitarian. Hence, when he says, that the same thing may be both active and passive, he must be understood as applying this proposition to the mind itself; and not to the will or to volition. It is the mind that acts; and hence the mind must be also passive; or we cannot say that the same thing may be both active and passive.
The mind then, it may be said, is both active and passive at the same time. But it is passive in regard to its emotions and feelings; and hence, if you please, these may be produced. It is active in regard to its volitions, or rather in its volitions; and hence these cannot be produced by the action of any thing upon the mind. To show that they can, the necessitarian, as we have seen, has confounded a passive impression with an active volition. If these be distinct, as they most clearly are, the necessitarian can make his point good, only by showing that the passive impression made upon the mind, is connected with the volition of the mind, as a producing cause is connected with its effect. But this he has not shown; and hence his whole system rests upon gratuitous and unfounded assumptions. I say his whole system; for if the mind cannot be caused to act, if it is absurd to speak of a produced action, it is not true, that an action or volition does or can result from the necessitating action, or influence of motives.