It may be said in reply to the above, that volition is an effect altogether peculiar. It implies selection or determination in one direction rather than in another, and therefore that in inquiring after its cause, we inquire not merely after the energy which makes it existent, but also after the cause of its particular determination in one direction rather than in another. “The question is not so much, how a spirit endowed with activity comes to act, as why it exerts such an act, and not another; or why it acts with a particular determination? If activity of nature be the cause why a spirit (the soul of man, for instance) acts and does not lie still; yet that alone is not the cause why its action is thus and thus limited, directed and determined.” (p. 58.)
Every phenomenon or effect is particular and limited. It must necessarily be one thing and not another, be in one place and not in another, have certain characteristics and not others; and the cause which determines the phenomenon, may be supposed to determine likewise all its properties. The cause of a particular motion, for example, must, in producing the motion, give it likewise a particular direction.
Volition must have an object; something is willed or chosen; particular determination and direction are therefore inseparable from every volition, and the cause which really gives it a being, must necessarily give it character, and particular direction and determination.
Selection is the attribute of the cause, and answers to particular determination and direction in the effect. As a phenomenon or effect cannot come to exist without a particular determination, so a cause cannot give existence to a phenomenon, or effect, without selection. There must necessarily be one object selected rather than another. Thus, if fire be thrown among various substances, it selects the combustibles, and produces phenomena accordingly. It selects and gives particular determination. We cannot conceive of cause without selection, nor of effect without a particular determination. But in what lies the selection? In the nature of the cause in correlation with certain objects. Fire is in correlation with certain objects, and consequently exhibits phenomena only with respect to them. In chemistry, under the title of affinities, we have wonderful exhibitions of selection and particular determination. Now motive, according to Edwards, lies in the correlation of the nature of the will, or desire, with certain objects; and volition is the effect of this correlation. The selection made by will, arising from its nature, is, on the principle of Edwards, like the selection made by any other cause; and the particular determination or direction of the volition, in consequence of this, is like that which appears in every other effect. In the case of will, whatever effect is produced, is produced of necessity, by a pre-constitution and disposition of will and objects, just as in the case of any other cause.
From this it appears sufficiently evident, that on Edwards’s principles there is no such difference between volition and any other effect, as to shield his reasonings respecting a self-determining will, against the consequences above deduced from them. The distinction of final and efficient causes does not lie in his system. The motive is that which produces the sense of the most agreeable, and produces it necessarily, and often in opposition to reason and conscience; and this sense of the most agreeable is choice or volition. It belongs to the opposite system to make this distinction in all its clearness and force—where the efficient will is distinguished, both from the persuasions and allurements of passion and desire, and from the laws of reason and conscience.
Thus far my argument against Edwards’s assumption,—that, to make the will the cause of its own volitions, is to make it cause its volitions by an act of volition,—has been indirect. If this indirect argument has been fairly and legitimately conducted, few probably will be disposed to deny that the assumption is overthrown by its consequences. In addition to the above, however, on a subject so important, a direct argument will not be deemed superfluous.
Self-determining will means simply a will causing its own volitions; and consequently, particularly determining and directing them. Will, in relation to volition, is just what any cause is in relation to its effect. Will causing volitions, causes them just as any cause causes its effects. There is no intervention of anything between the cause and effect; between will and volition. A cause producing its phenomena by phenomena, is a manifest absurdity. In making the will a self-determiner, we do not imply this absurdity. Edwards assumes that we do, and he assumes it as if it were unquestionable.
The will, he first remarks, determines all our external actions by volitions, as the motions of the hands and feet. He next affirms, generally, that all which the will determines, it determines in this way; and then concludes, that if it determines its own volitions, they must come under the general law, and be determined by volitions.
The first position is admitted. The second, involving the last, he does not prove, and I deny that it is unquestionable.
In the first place, it cannot legitimately be taken as following from the first. The relation of will to the sequents of its volitions, is not necessarily the same as its relation to its volitions. The sequents of volitions are changes or modifications, in external nature, or in parts of the being external to the will; but the volitions are modifications of the will itself. Now if the modification of external nature by the will can be effected only by that modification of itself called volition, how does it appear that this modification of itself, if effected by itself, must be effected by a previous modification of itself? We learn from experience, that volitions have sequents in external nature, or in parts of our being, external to will; but this experience teaches us nothing respecting the production of volitions. The acts of the will are volitions, and all the acts of wills are volitions; but this means nothing more than that all the acts of the will are acts of the will, for volition means only this—an act of the will. But has not the act of the will a cause? Yes, you have assigned the cause, in the very language just employed. It is the act of the will—the will is the cause. But how does the will cause its own acts? I do not know, nor do I know how any cause exerts itself, in the production of its appropriate phenomena; I know merely the facts. The connexion between volition and its sequents, is just as wonderful and inexplicable, as the connexion between will and its volitions. How does volition raise the arm or move the foot? How does fire burn, or the sun raise the tides? And how does will cause volitions? I know not; but if I know that such are the facts, it is enough.