A Review of Edwards's "Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will"

by Henry Philip Tappan

Volitions must have a cause; but, says Edwards, will cannot be the cause, since this would lead to the absurdity of causing volitions by volitions. But we cannot perceive that it leads to any such absurdity.

It is not necessary for us to explain how a cause acts. If the will produce effects in external nature by its acts, it is impossible to connect with this as a sequence, established either by experience or logic, that in being received as the cause of its own acts, it becomes such only by willing its own acts. It is clearly an assumption unsupported, and incapable of being supported. Besides, in denying will to be the cause of its own acts, and in supplying another cause, namely, the motive, Edwards does not escape the very difficulty which he creates; for I have already shown, that the same difficulty appertains to motive, and to every possible cause. Every cause produces effects by exertion or acting; but what is the cause of its acting? To suppose it the cause of its own acts, involves all the absurdities which Edwards attributes to self-determination. But, In the second place,—let us look at the connexion of cause and phenomena a little more particularly. What is cause? It is that which is the ground of the possible, and actual existence of phenomena. How is cause known? By the phenomena. Is cause visible? No: whatever is seen is phenomenal. We observe phenomena, and by the law of our intelligence we assign them to cause. But how do we conceive of cause as producing phenomena? By a nisus, an effort, or energy. Is this nisus itself a phenomenon? It is when it is observed. Is it always observed? It is not. The nisus of gravitation we do not observe; we observe merely the facts of gravitation. The nisus of heat to consume we do not observe; we observe merely the facts of combustion. Where then do we observe this nisus? Only in will. Really, volition is the nisus or effort of that cause which we call will. I do not wish to anticipate subsequent investigations, but I am constrained here to ask every one to examine his consciousness in relation to this point. When I wish to do anything I make an effort—a nisus to do it; I make an effort to raise my arm, and I raise it. This effort is simply the volition. I make an effort to lift a weight with my hand,—this effort is simply the volition to lift it,—and immediately antecedent to this effort, I recognise only my will, or really only myself. This effort—this nisus—this volition—whatever we call it,—is in the will itself, and it becomes a phenomenon to us, because we are causes that know ourselves. Every nisus, or effort, or volition, which we may make, is in our consciousness: causes, which are not self-conscious, of course do not reveal this nisus to themselves, and they cannot reveal it to us because it is in the very bosom of the cause itself. What we observe in relation to all causes—not ourselves, whether they be self-conscious or not, is not the nisus, but the sequents of the nisus. Thus in men we do not observe the volition or nisus in their wills, but the phenomena which form the sequents of the nisus. And in physical causes, we do not observe the nisus of these causes, but only the phenomena which form the sequents of this nisus. But when each one comes to himself, it is all different. He penetrates himself—knows himself. He is himself the cause—he, himself, makes the nisus, and is conscious of it; and this nisus to him becomes an effect—a phenomenon, the first phenomenon by which he reveals himself, but a phenomenon by which he reveals himself only to himself. It is by the sequents of this nisus,—the effects produced in the external visible world, that he reveals himself to others.

Sometimes the nisus or volition expends itself in the will, and gives no external phenomena. I may make an effort to raise my arm, but my arm may be bound or paralyzed, and consequently the effort is in vain, and is not known without. How energetic are the efforts made by the will during a fit of the night-mare! we struggle to resist some dreadful force; we strive to run away from danger but all in vain.

It is possible for me to make an effort to remove a mountain: I may place my hand against its side, and tug, and strive: the nisus or volition is the most energetic that I can make, but, save the straining of my muscles, no external expression of the energy of my will is given; I am resisted by a greater power than myself.

The most original movement of every cause is, then, this nisus in the bosom of the cause itself, and in man, as a cause, the most original movement is this nisus likewise, which in him we call volition. To deny such a nisus would be to deny the activity, efficiency, and energy of cause. This nisus, by its very conception and definition, admits of no antecedent, phenomenon, or movement: it is in the substance of the cause; its first going forth to effects. A first movement or nisus of cause is just as necessary a conception as first cause itself. There is no conception to oppose to this, but that of every cause having its first movement determined by some other cause out of itself—a conception which runs back in endless retrogression without arriving at a first cause, and is, indeed, the annihilation of all cause.

The assumption of Edwards, therefore, that if will determine its own volitions, it must determine them by an act of volition, is unsupported alike by the facts of consciousness and a sound logic,—while all the absurdities of an infinite series of causation of acts really fasten upon his own theory, and destroy it by the very weapons with which it assails the opposite system.

In the third place,—Edwards virtually allows the self-determining power of will.

Will he defines as the desire, the affections, or the sensibility. There is no personal activity out of the affections or sensitivity. Volition is as the most agreeable, and is itself the sense of the most agreeable. But what is the cause of volition? He affirms that it cannot be will, assuming that to make will the cause of its own volitions, involves the absurdity of willing volitions or choosing choices; but at the same time he affirms the cause to be the state of the affections or will, in correlation with the nature and circumstances of objects. But all natural causes are in correlation with certain objects,—as, for example, heat is in correlation with combustibles; that is, these natural causes act only under the condition of meeting with objects so constituted as to be susceptible of being acted upon by them. So, likewise, according to Edwards’s representation, we may say that the cause of volition is the nature and state of the affections or the will, acting under the condition of objects correlated to it. The sense of the most agreeable or choice cannot indeed be awakened, unless there be an object presented which shall appear the most agreeable; but then its appearing most agreeable, and its awakening the sense of the most agreeable, depends not only upon “what appears in the object viewed, but also in the manner of the view, and the state and circumstances of the mind that views.” (p. 22.) Now “the state and circumstances of the mind that views, and the manner of its view,” is simply the mind acting from its inherent nature and under its proper conditions, and is a representation which answers to every natural cause with which we are acquainted: the state of the mind, therefore, implying of course its inherent nature, may with as much propriety be taken as the cause of volition, on Edwards’s own principles, as the nature and state of heat may be taken as the cause of combustion: but by “the state, of mind,” Edwards means, evidently, the state of the will or the affections. It follows, therefore, that he makes the state of the will or the affections the cause of volition; but as the state of the will or the affections means nothing more in reference to will than the state of any other cause means in reference to that cause,—and as the state of a cause, implying of course its inherent nature or constitution, means nothing more than its character and qualities considered as a cause,—therefore he virtually and really makes will the cause of its own volitions, as much as any natural cause is the cause of its invariable sequents.

Edwards, in contemplating and urging the absurdity of determining a volition by a volition, overlooked that, according to our most common and necessary conceptions of cause, the first movement or action of cause must be determined by the cause itself, and that to deny this, is in fact to deny cause. If cause have not within itself a nisus to produce phenomena, then wherein is it a cause? He overlooked, too, that in assigning as the cause or motive of volition, the state of the will, he really gave the will a self-determining power, and granted the very point he laboured to overthrow.

The point in dispute, therefore, between us and Edwards, is not, after all, the self-determining power of the will. If will be a cause, it will be self-determining; for all cause is self-determining, or, in other words, is in its inherent nature active, and the ground of phenomena.