It has always been taken for granted that the will is determined. The use of this word clearly implies that the will is acted upon, either by the will itself, or by something else. It has been conceded, on all sides, that it is determined; and the only controversy has been, as to what is the determiner. It is determined by the strongest motive, says one; it is determined by itself, says another; and upon these two positions the combatants have arranged themselves. But behind all this controversy, there is a question which has not been agitated; and that is, whether the will is determined at all? For my part, I am firmly and fully persuaded that it is not, but that it simply determines. It is the “determiner,” but not the “determined.” It is never the object of its own determination. It acts, but there is no causative act, by which it is made to act. This position, I trust, has been made good in the preceding pages.
If we say that the will is determined by itself, this implies that it is determined in the passive voice, at the same time that it determines in the active voice; whereas, in reality, it is simply active, and not passive to the action of any thing, in its determinations. We should not say, then, that the mind is self-determined, but simply that it is self-active. On this ground we may securely rest in our opposition to the scheme of necessity. It can never be shown that it is involved in the absurdity of an endless series of causes; it will remain for the necessitarian alone to extricate himself from that absurdity. That the mind is self-active, I have already shown, by showing that it is absurd to suppose that an act of the mind is produced by the action of any thing upon it. It is right here, then, upon the self-activity of the human mind, that we take our stand, in order to plant the lever which shall heave the scheme of moral necessity from its foundations. It is right here that we find our stronghold; that we erect the bulwark and the fortifications of man’s free-agency, against which, as against a wall of adamant, all the shafts of the necessitarian will fall blunted to the earth, or else recoil with destructive force upon himself.
But why fight against the doctrine of those who have laboured in the same great cause with myself? Truly, most truly, not because it is a grateful task, but because it is a deep and earnest conviction, wrought into my mind by the meditation of years, that the great and glorious cause of free-agency has been retarded by some of the errors of its friends, more than by all the truths of its enemies. This has appeared to be the case especially in regard to the self-determining power of the will. It seems to have retained its hold upon the mind of its friends, not so much by its intrinsic merits, as by its denial of moral necessity, and the idea that it is the only mode of such denial. As the scheme of moral necessity has triumphed in the weakness of the self-determining power, so has the self-determining power resisted the siege of centuries, in the unconquerable energy of its opposition to the determining and controlling power of motives. And if both have stood together, each deriving strength from the weakness of the other, is it not possible that both may fall together, and that a more complete and satisfactory scheme of moral agency may arise out of the common ruins?
[SECTION XVII.]
OF THE DEFINITION OF A FREE AGENT.
Having shown, as I trust, that there is no influence whatever operating upon the mind to produce volition, I am now prepared to declare the true idea of a free-agent.
A free-agent, then, is one who acts without being caused to act. Here the question arises, Is such a thing possible? Can any being act, without being caused to act? The answer to this question, depends upon the meaning which is attached to the very ambiguous term cause. If it means an efficient cause, or that which produces a thing by prior action or influence, it is possible for a spirit to act without being caused to do so; and, as we have already seen, if there can be no action without such a cause of its existence, then there must be an infinite series of actions or causes. But if the question be, Can an act arise and come into being, without a sufficient “ground and reason” of its existence? I answer, No. It is very necessary to separate the different questions included in the general one, Is not a volition caused? or has it not a cause? and to pass upon them separately.
There is, I admit, a “sufficient ground and reason” for our actions; but not an efficient cause of them. This is the all-important distinction which has been overlooked in the present controversy. Edwards frequently asks, if a volition is without a cause? Now we call for a division of this question. Has volition an efficient cause? I answer, No. Has it a “sufficient ground and reason” of its existence? I answer, Yes. No one ever imagined that there are no indispensable antecedents to choice, without which it could not take place; but Edwards has framed this question in such a manner, that we cannot give a categorical answer to it, without either denying our own doctrine, or else subscribing to his. Unless there were a mind, there could be no act of the mind; and unless the mind possessed a power of acting, it could not put forth volitions. The mind, then, and the power of the mind called will, constitute the ground of action or volition.
But a power to act, it will be said, is not a sufficient reason to account for the existence of action. This is true. The reason is to come. The sufficient reason, however, is not an efficient cause; for there is some difference between a blind impulse or force, and rationality. The mind is endowed with various appetites, passions, and desires,—with noble affections, and, above all, with a feeling of moral approbation and disapprobation. These are not the “active principles,” or the “motive powers,” as they have been called; they are the ends of our acting: we simply act in order to gratify them. They exert no influence over the will, much less is the will controlled by them; and hence, we are perfectly free, to gratify the one or the other of them;—to act in obedience to the dictates of conscience, or in order to gratify the lowest appetites of our nature. We see that certain means must be used, in order to gratify the passion, desire, affection, or feeling, which we intend to gratify; and we act accordingly. In all this, we form our designs or intentions free from all influence whatever: nothing acts upon the will: we fix upon the end, and we choose the means to accomplish it. We adapt the means to our end; because there is a fitness in them to accomplish that end or design; and because, as rational creatures, we perceive that fitness. Thus, we act according to reason, but not from the influence of reason. We act with a view to our desires, but not from the influence of our desires; and our volition is virtuous or vicious according to the intention with which it is put forth,—according to the design with which it is directed. Passion is not “the gale,” it is “the card.” Reason is not the force, it is the law. All the power resides in the free, untrammelled will. He who overlooks this, and blindly seeks for something to “move the mind to volition,” loses sight of the grand and distinctive peculiarity of man’s nature, and brings it down to the dust, subjecting it to the laws of matter and to bondage.
We do not allow Mr. Hobbes to declare our idea of a free-agent, as “one that, when all the circumstances necessary to produce action are present, can nevertheless not act;” nor do we accept of the amendment, of another, “that a free-agent is one who, when all the circumstances necessary to produce action are present, can act.” For if all the circumstances necessary to produce action are present, then they would produce it; and nothing would be left for the will to do, except to receive the producing influence. In other words, if volition is produced by circumstances, then it is a passive impression made upon the will, and not an act at all.