Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the People

by Catharine Esther Beecher

Now we have no mode of proving that we have a soul or that we have a body, or that there are any real things existing around us. But God has so formed our minds that we can not help believing that our minds are distinct from matter, and that they are causes of changes in our body and in the things around us. Nor can we help believing that we have bodies, and that the things around us are realities. And no man could talk or act, in practical matters, with a contrary belief, without being regarded as having "lost his reason."

The third intuitive truth is, that THE MIND OF MAN IS A FREE AGENT.

By this is signified that mind is an independent cause of its own volitions, and capable, in appropriate circumstances, of choosing in either of two or more ways, not being, like matter, forced to a fixed and necessary mode of action.

Some changes in mind are necessary effects produced by causes out of the mind. And some mental action is the necessary result of its constitution, and can not be otherwise. But choice or volition is an act of the mind itself, when it has power to choose in either of two or more ways without any change of circumstances.

The fatalist denies this, and maintains that choice is a necessary act, the same as the changes in matter, and that at each act of choice the mind had no power to choose otherwise than as it does choose.

In reply to this, nothing is needed but to show that all men believe, and show it by their words and actions, that they always have power to choose more ways than one. And after they have chosen a particular way, they still believe that they had the power to have chosen another way. And though metaphysicians may deny this in words, if any one of them, in practical every-day life, should talk and act as if he believed that he had no power to choose otherwise than as he does, he would be regarded as having "lost his reason."

This subject has often been so treated as to embarrass some of the most acute minds. Yet the ordinary mind is as perfectly qualified to settle this question as the most astute philosopher. Do men believe that they have no power to choose any other way than as they do choose? Do they talk and act in common life as if they believed it? Would not a man who talked and acted on the assumption that he had no power to choose otherwise than as he does choose be regarded as having "lost his reason?"

All men of common sense must answer these questions alike, and thus decide that this is one of the intuitive truths.

The fourth intuitive truth is, that DESIGN IS EVIDENCE OF AN INTELLIGENT CAUSE, AND THE NATURE OF A DESIGN PROVES THE INTENTION AND CHARACTER OF THE AUTHOR.

It is by the aid of this principle of reason that we gain a knowledge of the character and designs of our Creator. All minds are so constituted that when they find a contrivance fitted to accomplish some end, they can not help believing that the author of it is an intelligent cause, and that he intended to secure that end.