Mental Philosophy: Including the Intellect, Sensibilities, and Will

by Joseph Haven

This is essentially the view of freedom adopted by the later advocates of necessity, and almost in the same terms it is the view of Collins, Priestley, and Edwards.

Doctrine of Locke.—It is, also, Locke's idea of freedom. Liberty, he says, is the power of any agent "to do or forbear any particular action, according to the determination or thought of the mind, whereby either of them is preferred to the other." This extends only to the carrying out our volitions when formed, and not to the matter of willing or preferring; power over the determinations of the will, itself, is not included in this definition.

Locke Inconsistent.—In this, Locke was inconsistent with himself, since, in his chapter on power, he seems to be maintaining the doctrine of human freedom. The liberty here intended, it has been justly remarked by Bledsoe, is not freedom of the will, or of the mind in willing, but only of the body; it refers to the motion of the body, not to the action of the mind.

Locke expressly says, "there may be volition where there is no liberty;" and gives, in illustration, the case of a man falling through a breaking bridge, who has volition or preference not to fall, but no liberty, since he cannot help falling. In this, again, Locke is inconsistent, since, elsewhere, he distinguishes between volition and desire or preference, while here he does not distinguish them.

There can be no doubt that Locke supposed himself an advocate of human freedom, for such is the spirit of his whole treatise, especially of his twenty-first chapter; at the same time, it must be confessed, his definitions are incomplete, and his language inconsistent and vacillating, so that there is some reason to class him, as Priestley does, with those who really adopt the scheme of necessity without knowing or intending it.

View of Leibnitz.—Leibnitz was led to adopt the doctrine of necessity from his general theory of the sufficient reason, that is, that nothing occurs without a reason why it should be so, and not otherwise. This principle he carries so far as to deny the power of Deity to create two things perfectly alike, and the power of either God or man to choose one of two things that are perfectly alike. This principle presents the mind as always determined by the greatest apparent good, and establishes, as its author supposed, by the certainty of demonstration, the absolute impossibility of free agency.

View of Collins.—Collins maintains the necessity of all human actions, from experience, from the impossibility of liberty, from the divine foreknowledge, from the nature of rewards and punishments, and the nature of morality. He takes pains to reconcile this doctrine with man's accountability and moral agency, and is careful to define his terms with great exactness. Thus the terms liberty and necessity are defined as follows: "First, though I deny liberty in a certain meaning of the word, yet I contend for liberty as it signifies a power in man to do as he wills or pleases. Secondly, when I affirm necessity, I contend only for moral necessity, meaning thereby that man, who is an intelligent and sensible being, is determined by his reason and his senses; and I deny man to be subject to such necessity as is in clocks and watches, and such other beings, which, for want of sensation and intelligence, are subject to an absolute, physical, or mechanical necessity".

Coincidence of Collins and Edwards.—The coincidence of these views and definitions, and, indeed, of the plan of argument, with the definitions and the arguments of Edwards, is remarkable. No two writers, probably, were ever further removed from each other in their general spirit and character, and in their system of religious belief; yet as regards this doctrine, the definitions and views of one were those of the other, and as Mr. Stewart has justly remarked, the coincidence is so perfect, that the outline given by the former, of the plan of his work, might have served with equal propriety as a preface to the latter.

Views of Edwards.—No writer has more ably discussed this question than the elder Edwards. He is universally conceded to be one of the ablest metaphysicians, as well as theologians, of modern times. His work on the Freedom of the Will is a masterpiece of reasoning. At the same time, as to the character and tendency of the system therein maintained, the greatest difference of opinion exists. By some he is regarded as a fatalist, by others he is claimed as an advocate of human freedom. There is some ground for this difference of opinion. No writer, from Plato downward, was ever perfectly self-consistent; it would be strange if Edwards were so. That the general scheme of necessity, maintained by Edwards, tends, in some respects, to fatalism,—that the ablest champions of fatalism, and even writers of atheistic, and immoral views, have held essentially the same doctrine, and maintained it by the same arguments—must be conceded; that such was not the design and spirit of his work, that such was not his own intention, is perfectly evident.

Main Positions of Edwards.—The definitions of Edwards, as we have already seen, are the same with those of Collins and Hobbes. He understands by liberty merely a power to do as one wills. The mind is always determined by the greatest apparent good. The motive determines the act, causes it. The mind acts, wills, chooses, etc., but the motive is the cause of its action. That the mind should be the cause of its own volitions, implies, he maintains, an act of will preceding the volition, that is a volition prior to volition, and so on forever in an infinite series. This argument, the famous dictum necessitatis, has been considered in a previous chapter. Now, to say that motive is the producing cause, and volition the effect, especially if the connection of the two is of the same nature as that between physical causes and effects, as Edwards affirms, is certainly to say that which looks very strongly toward fatalism.