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

by Henry Philip Tappan

Human character, however, is mixed and variously compounded. We might make a scale of an indefinite number of degrees, from the highest point of moral excellence to the lowest point of moral degradation, and then our predictions of human conduct would vary with every degree.

In any particular case where we are called upon to reason from the connexion of motives with the will, it is evident we must determine the character of the individual as accurately as possible, in order to know the probable resultant of the opposite moral forces which we are likely to find.

We have remarked that moral certainty exists only where the harmony of the moral constitution is preserved. Here we know the right will be obeyed. It may be remarked in addition to this, however, that moral certainty may almost be said to exist in the case of the lowest moral degradation, where the right is altogether forsaken. Here the rule is, “whatever is most agreeable;” and the volition is indeed merged into the sense of the most agreeable. But in the intermediate state lies the wide field of probability. What is commonly called the knowledge of human nature, and esteemed of most importance in the affairs of life, is not the knowledge of human nature as it ought to be, but as it is in its vast variety of good and evil. We gain this knowledge from observation and history. What human nature ought to be, we learn from reason.

On a subject of so much importance, and where it is so desirable to have clear and definite ideas, the rhetorical ungracefulness of repetition is of little moment, when this repetition serves our great end. I shall be pardoned, therefore, in calling the attention of the reader to a point above suggested, namely, that the will is in a triunity with reason and sensitivity, and, in the constitution of our being, is designed to derive its rules and inducements of action from these. Acts which are in the direction of neither reason nor sensitivity, must be very trifling acts; and therefore acts of this description, although possible, we may conclude are very rare. In calculating, then, future acts of will, we may, like the mathematicians, drop infinitesimal differences, and assume that all acts of the will are in the direction of reason or sensitivity, or of both in their harmony. Although the will is conscious of power to do, out of the direction of both reason and sensitivity, still, in the triunity in which it exists, it submits itself to the general interests of the being, and consults the authority of conscience, or the enjoyments of passion. Now every individual has acquired for himself habits and a character more or less fixed. He is known to have submitted himself from day to day, and in a great variety of transactions, to the laws of the conscience; and hence we conclude that he has formed for himself a fixed purpose of doing right. He has exhibited, too, on many occasions, noble, generous, and pure feelings; and hence we conclude that his sensitivity harmonizes with conscience. Or he is known to have violated the laws of the conscience from day to day, and in a great variety of transactions; and hence we conclude that he has formed for himself a fixed purpose of doing wrong. He has exhibited, too, on many occasions, low, selfish, and impure feelings; and hence we conclude that his sensitivity is in collision with conscience.

In both cases supposed, and in like manner in all supposable cases, there is plainly a basis on which, in any given circumstances, we may foresee and predict volitions. There is something “that is evident and now existent with which the future existence of the contingent event is connected.” On the one hand these predictions exert no necessitating influence over the events themselves, for they are entirely disconnected with the causation of the events: and, on the other hand, the events need not be assumed as necessary in order to become the objects of probable calculations. If they were necessary, the calculations would no longer be merely probable:—they would, on the contrary, take the precision and certainty of the calculation of eclipses and other phenomena based upon necessary laws. But these calculations can aim only at moral certainty, because they are made according to the generally known and received determinations of will in a unity with reason and sensitivity; but still a will which is known also to have the power to depart at any moment from the line of determination which it has established for itself. Thus the calculations which we make respecting the conduct of one man in given circumstances, based on his known integrity, and the calculations which we make respecting another, based on his known dishonesty, may alike disappoint us, through the unexpected, though possible dereliction of the first, and the unexpected, though possible reformation of the latter. When we reason from moral effects to moral causes, or from moral causes to moral effects, we cannot regard the operation of causes as positive and uniform under the same law of necessity which appertains to physical causes, because in moral causality the free will is the efficient and last determiner. It is indeed true that we reason here with a high degree of probability, with a probability sufficient to regulate wisely and harmoniously the affairs of society; but we cannot reason respecting human conduct, as we reason respecting the phenomena of the physical world, because it is possible for the human will to disappoint calculations based upon the ordinary influence of motives: e. g. the motive does not hold the same relation to will which fire holds to combustible substance; the fire must burn; the will may or may not determine in view of motive. Hence the reason why, in common parlance, probable evidence has received the name of moral evidence: moral evidence being generally probable, all probable evidence is called moral.

The will differs from physical causes in being a cause per se, but although a cause per se, it has laws to direct its volitions. It may indeed violate these laws and become a most arbitrary and inconstant law unto itself; but this violation of law and this arbitrary determination do not arise from it necessarily as a cause per se, but from an abuse of its liberty. As a cause in unity with the laws of the reason, we expect it to be uniform, and in its harmonious and perfect movements it is uniform. Physical causes are uniform because God has determined and fixed them according to laws derived from infinite wisdom.

The human will may likewise be uniform by obeying the laws of conscience, but the departures may also be indefinitely numerous and various.

To sum up these observations in general statements, we remark;—

First: The connexion on which we base predictions of human volitions, is the connexion of will with reason and sensitivity in the unity of the mind or spirit.

Secondly: By this connexion, the will is seen to be designed to be regulated by truth and righteousness, and by feeling subordinated to these.