Even President Day is not satisfied with this account of liberty. “On the subject of liberty or freedom,” says he, “which occupies a portion of the fifth section of Edwards’ first book, he has been less particular than was to be expected, considering that this is the great object of inquiry in his work.” How could Edwards have been more particular? He has repeatedly and most explicitly informed us, that liberty consists in a power, or opportunity, to do as we choose; without considering how we come by our choice. If we can only do as we choose, though our choice should be produced by the most absolute and irresistible power in the universe, yet are we perfectly free in the highest conceivable sense of the word. “If any imagine they desire, and that they conceive of a higher liberty than this,” says he, “they are deceived, and delude themselves with confused ambiguous words instead of ideas.” President Day complains that all this is not sufficiently particular; but although he may not have been aware of it, I apprehend that he has been dissatisfied with the dreadful particularity and precision with which the doctrine of the Inquiry has been exhibited. It is precisely the doctrine of liberty which has been held by the most absolute and unqualified fatalists the world has ever seen; and it is set forth, too, with a bold precision and clearness, which would have done honour to the stern consistency of Hobbes himself. It is no wonder, that President Day should have felt a desire to see such a doctrine softened down by the author of the Inquiry.
“The professed object of his book,” says President Day, “according to the title-page, is an inquiry concerning the freedom of the will;—not the freedom of external conduct. We naturally look for his meaning of this internal liberty. What he has said, in this section, respecting freedom of the will, has rather the appearance of evading such a definition of it as might be considered his own.” Yes, it is in this section that we naturally look for his idea of the liberty of the will; but we do not find it. We must turn to the title-page, if we wish to see any thing about the liberty of the will. “What he has said, in this section, respecting freedom of the will,” does not, (President Day himself being judge,) relate to the freedom of the will at all; it only relates to the freedom of the body, which has no freedom at all; but which is wholly passive to the action of the will. President Day is not satisfied with all this; and hence, he proceeds to tell us, what Edwards would have said in this section, if he had not thus evaded his own definition of internal liberty. Let us see, then, what he would have said.
From a letter to a minister of the Church of Scotland, President Day finds that in the phrase conducting as a man pleases, the author of the Inquiry means to include the idea of choosing as he pleases. Now, this is all true; and this is the internal liberty, which President Day has extracted from the aforesaid letter. Then, according to Edwards, we have two kinds of liberty: the one is a liberty to move the body as we please, or as we choose; and the other is, to choose as we please, or as we choose. In the vocabulary, and according to the psychology of President Edwards, as we have frequently seen, and as we here see, our pleasing and our choosing are one and the same thing. Hence, to move our bodies according to our pleasure, is to move it according to our choice; and to choose as we please, is to choose as we choose. President Day need not have gone to the letter in question, in order to find this doctrine; for it is repeatedly set forth in the inquiry. President Edwards, as we have seen, frequently contends in the Inquiry, that we always choose as we choose; and as frequently makes his adversaries assert, that we can “choose without choosing;” which is just as absurd, he truly declares, as to say that a body can move while it is in a state of rest.
Now, to place liberty in this “choosing as we choose,” without regard to the cause or origin of our choice, is just about as rational as it would be to place it in the axioms of geometry. Suppose a man is made to choose, by an absolute and uncontrollable power; it is nevertheless true, that he chooses as he does choose. This cannot be otherwise than true; it is a self-evident and necessary truth; for nothing can be different from itself, can be what it is, and yet not what it is, at one and the same time. To speak of a power of choosing as we choose, as Edwards and Day both do, is just about as reasonable as it were to speak of a power to make two and two equal to four. Supposing the Almighty should cause us to choose, it is not in his power to prevent us from choosing as we do choose; for he cannot work contradictions.
Whether President Edwards speaks of our moving as we please, or of our choosing as we please; whether he speaks of an external liberty, or of this internal liberty; he is always careful to remind us, that it has no reference to the question, how we come by our pleasure or choice. In the letter referred to, wherein he admits that a man’s liberty of conducting as he pleases or chooses, includes “a liberty of choosing as he pleases,” he instantly adds, but “without determining how he came by that pleasure.” Yes, no matter how we come by our choice, though it be wrought into us by the most uncontrollable power in the universe, yet are we free in the highest conceivable sense of the word, if we can only “conduct according to our choice.” This, instead of being the greatest liberty, is indeed the greatest mockery, of which it is possible for the imagination of man to conceive. The liberty of fate itself, is, in all respects, to the full as desirable as such a liberty as this. Is it not wonderful, to behold the great and good author of the Inquiry, thus planting himself upon the very ground of atheistical fatalism; and from thence, in sober, serious earnestness, holding out to us, as a great and glorious reality, the mere name and shadow and fiction of liberty? the very phantom which atheists, in mockery and derision, have been pleased to confer upon mankind, as upon poor blind fools, who merely dream of liberty, and fondly dote upon the empty name thereof, whilst they are ignorant of the chains which bind them fast in fate.
[SECTION XV.]
OF EDWARDS’ IDEA OF VIRTUE.
In order to reconcile his scheme of necessity with the existence and reality of virtue, it appears that Edwards has adopted a false notion of virtue. This is the course he has taken, as I have already shown, in regard to the doctrine of liberty or free-agency, in order to reconcile it with necessity; and if I mistake not, it may be shown, that he has been able to reconcile necessity and virtue only by transforming the nature of virtue to make it suit his system.
I do not intend, at present, to enter into a full discussion of the author’s views in relation to the nature of virtue. I shall content myself with a brief consideration of his notion of virtue, as it stands more immediately and directly connected with the subject of the Inquiry.
It is a fundamental principle with him, that “the essence of the virtue and viciousness of dispositions of the heart, and acts of the will, lies not in their cause, but their nature.” In what precise sense the author would have us to understand this proposition, I shall not now stop to inquire. It is sufficient for my present purpose, that he attaches such a sense to it, as to make the idea of virtue it is intended to define, to agree not only with his doctrine of necessity, but also with any other kind of necessity or fatality whatever. For he maintains, that as the essence of virtue does not consist in its cause, but in its nature, so a man by the mere act of creation may, in the proper sense of the word, be endowed with virtuous and holy dispositions. It is true, the man himself has had no share in the production of his dispositions, they are exclusively the work of his Creator; but yet they are virtuous, they are the objects of moral approbation, because the virtuousness of dispositions has nothing at all to do with their cause or origin. It depends wholly on their nature, and having this nature, (as he supposes they may have by creation alone,) he concludes that they are properly and truly virtuous, although the person in whom they exist has in no manner whatever contributed to their production; neither in whole nor in part, neither exclusively nor concurrently with his Maker. Now, it is evident, I think, that if virtue may be made to exist in this way, by a power wholly extraneous to the being in whom it exists, and wholly independent of all his own thoughts and reflections and doings, then it may be easily reconciled with the most absolute scheme of fatality that has ever been advocated. For it may exist without any agency or concurrence or consent on the part of the person in whom it exists; and hence, there would be no difficulty in reconciling it with any scheme of necessity that any fatalist may be pleased to advance.