As speaking, kindle greater fire.”[1]
In all the above extracts the tri-unity of the mental powers, as consisting of the Intellect, Sensibility, and Will, is distinctly recognized. Yet the writers had, at the time, no particular theory of mental philosophy in contemplation. They speak of a distinction of the mental faculties which all understand and recognize as real, as soon as suggested to their minds.
The above considerations are abundantly sufficient to verify the three-fold distinction above made, of mental phenomena and powers. Two suggestions arise here which demand special attention.
1. To confound either of these distinct powers of the mind with either of the others, as has been done by several philosophers of eminence, in respect to the Will and Sensibility, is a capital error in mental science. If one faculty is confounded with another, the fundamental characteristics of the former will of course be confounded with the same characteristics of the latter. Thus the worst forms of error will be introduced not only into philosophy, but theology, too, as far as the latter science is influenced by the former. What would be thought of a treatise on mental science, in which the Will should be confounded with the Intelligence, and in which thinking and willing would be consequently represented as phenomena identical in kind? This would be an error no more capital, no more glaring, no more distinctly contradicted by fundamental phenomena, than the confounding of the Will with the Sensibility.
2. We are now prepared to contemplate one of the great errors of Edwards in his immortal work on the Will—an error which we meet with in the commencement of that work, and which lays a broad foundation for the false conclusions subsequently found in it. He has confounded the Will with the Sensibility. Of course, we should expect to find that he has subsequently confounded the fundamental characteristics of the phenomena of the former faculty, with the same characteristics of the latter.
“God has endowed the soul,” he says, “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; which is called the understanding. The other faculty is that by which the soul does not merely perceive and view things, but is some way inclined to them, or is disinclined and averse from them; or is the faculty by which the soul does not behold things as an indifferent, unaffected spectator; but either as liking or disliking, pleased or displeased, approving or rejecting. This faculty, as it has respect to the actions that are determined by it, is called the Will.”
From his work on the Affections, I cite the following to the same import:
“The Affections of the soul,” he observes, “are not properly distinguished from the Will, as though they were two faculties of the soul. All acts of the Affections of the soul are, in some sense, acts of the Will, and all acts of the Will are acts of the affections. All exercises of the Will are, in some degree or other, exercises of the soul’s appetition or aversion; or which is the same thing, of its love or hatred. The soul wills one thing rather than another, or chooses one thing rather than another, no otherwise than as it loves one thing more than another.” “The Affections are only certain modes of the exercise of the Will.” “The Affections are no other than the more vigorous and sensible exercises of the inclination and will of the soul.”
Whether he has or has not subsequently confounded the fundamental characteristics of the phenomena of the Will with those of the phenomena of the Sensibility will be seen in the progress of the present treatise.