Doctrine of the Will

by Asa Mahan

[CHAPTER IV.]

EXTENT AND LIMITS OF THE LIBERTY OF THE WILL.

While it is maintained, that, in the sense defined in the preceding chapter, the Will is free, it is also affirmed that, in other respects, it is not free at all. It should be borne distinctly in mind, that, in the respects in which the Will is subject to the law of Liberty, its liberty is absolute. It is in no sense subject to the law of Necessity. So far, also, as it is subject to the law of Necessity, it is in no sense free. What then are the extent and limits of the Liberty of the Will?

1. In the absence of Motives, the Will cannot act at all. To suppose the opposite would involve a contradiction. It would suppose the action of the Will in the direction of some object, in the absence of all objects towards which such action can be directed.

2. The Will is not free in regard to what the Motives presented shall be, in view of which its determinations shall be formed. Motives exist wholly independent of the Will. Nor does it depend at all upon the Will, what Motives shall be presented for its election. It is free only in respect to the particular determinations it shall put forth, in reference to the Motives actually presented.

3. Whenever a Motive, or object of choice, is presented to the mind, the Will is necessitated, by the presentation of the object, to act in some direction. It must yield or refuse to yield to the Motive. But such refusal is itself a positive act. So far, therefore, the Will is wholly subject to the law of Necessity. It is free, not in respect to whether it shall, or shall not, choose at all when a Motive is presented; but in respect to what it shall choose. I, for example, offer a merchant a certain sum, for a piece of goods. Now while it is equally possible for him to receive or reject the offer, one or the other determination he must form. In the first respect, he is wholly free. In the latter, he is not free in any sense whatever. The same holds true in respect to all objects of choice presented to the mind. Motive necessitates the Will to act in some direction; while, in all deliberate Moral Acts at least, it leaves either of two or more different and opposite determinations equally possible to the mind.

4. Certain particular volitions may be rendered necessary by other, and what may be termed general, determinations. For example, a determination to pursue a particular course of conduct, may render necessary all particular volitions requisite to carry this general purpose into accomplishment. It renders them necessary in this sense, that if the former does exist, the latter must exist. A man, for example, determines to pass from Boston to New York with all possible expedition. This determination remaining unchanged, all the particular volitions requisite to its accomplishment cannot but exist. The general and controlling determination, however, may, at any moment, be suspended. To perpetuate or suspend it, is always in the power of the Will.

5. I will here state a conjecture, viz.: that there are in the primitive developments of mind, as well as in all primary acts of attention, certain necessary spontaneities of the Will, as well as of other powers of the mind. Is it not in consequence of such actions, that the mind becomes first conscious of the power of volition, and is it not now necessary for us under certain circumstances to give a certain degree of attention to phenomena which appear within and around us? My own convictions are, that such circumstances often do occur. Nor is such a supposition inconsistent with the great principle maintained in this Treatise. This principle is, that Liberty and Accountability, in other words, Free, and Moral Agency, are co-extensive.

6. Nor does Liberty, as here defined, imply, that the mind, antecedently to all acts of Will, shall be in a state of indifference, unimpelled by feeling, or the affirmations of the Intelligence, more strongly in one direction than another. The Will exists in a tri-unity with the Intelligence and Sensibility. Its determinations may be in harmony with the Sensibility, in opposition to Intelligence, or with the Intelligence in opposition to the Sensibility. But while it follows either in distinction from the other, under the same identical influences, different and opposite determinations are equally possible. However the Will may be influenced, whether its determinations are in the direction of the strongest impulse, or opposed to it, it never, in deliberate moral determination, puts forth particular acts, because, that in these circumstances, no others are possible. In instances comparatively few, can we suppose that the mind, antecedently to acts of Will, is in a state of indifference, unimpelled in one direction in distinction from others, or equally impelled in the direction of different and opposite determinations. Indifference is in no such sense an essential or material condition of Liberty. How ever strongly the Will may be impelled in the direction of particular determinations, it is still in the possession of the highest conceivable freedom, if it is not thereby necessitated to act in one direction in distinction from all others.

7. I now refer to one other fixed law under the influence of which the Will is always necessitated to act. It is the law of habit. Action in any one direction always generates a tendency to subsequent action in the same direction under similar influences. This tendency may be increased, till it becomes so strong as to render action in the same direction in all future time really, although contingently, certain. The certainty thus granted will always be of such a nature as consists fully with the relation of Liberty. It can never, while moral agency continues, come under the relation of Necessity. Still the certainty is real. Thus the mind, by a continued course of well or ill doing, may generate such fixed habits, as to render subsequent action in the same direction perfectly certain, during the entire progress of its future being. Every man, while conscious of freedom, should be fully aware of the existence of this law, and it should surely lead him to walk thoughtfully along the borders of “the undiscovered country,” his location in which he is determining by the habits of thought, feeling, and action, he is now generating.