An Appeal to the People in Behalf of Their Rights as Authorized Interpreters of the Bible

by Catharine Esther Beecher

The power to choose exists in other animals as well as in man, so that it is not this faculty which distinguishes our race from the brutes. It is another part of our nature which elevates us above the lower animals, which will now be described.

Irrational Free Agency.

We have seen that desires for good are measured as to their strength or feebleness by our own consciousness, and that in multitudes of cases we choose those things which excite the strongest desire. A mind so constituted as never to be able to choose any thing but that which excites the strongest desire, would be entirely dependent on circumstances, and thus the helpless sport of chance. This is the kind of free agency which belongs to the brutes, and may properly be called irrational free agency.

Rational Free Agency.

In contrast with the above, we have already described the mind of man as possessing the power to choose either that which excites the strongest desire or [pg 074] that which the intellect decides to be best for all concerned.

When there is nothing to excite desires, there is no power at all to choose; so that motives are as indispensable to the action of the will as physical causes are to the movement of matter. The more strongly desire is excited the more the power of choice is increased. This gives rise to the universal use of language which characterizes motives as stronger or weaker according as desire is more or less powerful.

The greater part of our choices are for things which are best, so that there is no conflict between what excites the strongest desire and what is best for all. Thus to eat, drink, walk, sleep and perform most of the daily duties of life, are cases where the strongest desire and what is best coincide. In all such cases we choose that which excites the strongest desire. And when we assign the cause or reason for our choice, we say it was the strongest desire which was the cause; that is to say, it was the occasional cause of our choice. But our own mind is the only producing cause of its own volitions.

This exhibits the grand principle of free agency in distinction from its opposite, which is called fatalism, viz.:

Motives are producing causes of desire, and are occasional causes of choice. Mind itself is the only producing cause of choice, having power to choose either that which excites the strongest desire or that which reason and conscience decide to be best for all concerned.

In opposition to this, the fatalist maintains that every act of choice follows the strongest desire, so that there is the same invariable antecedence and sequence [pg 075] between the two as there is in material changes between the necessary cause and effect. This being so, the mind has no power to choose any thing but that which excites the strongest desire.