Chapter XI: Moral Government (1)

II. ITS NATURE, CONDITIONS, METHOD, AND END.

"The times of this ignorance God overlooked, but now commandeth all
men every where to repent; because He hath appointed a day in the
which He will judge the world in righteousness."--ST. PAUL.

The relations existing between God and man, especially the correlations of paternity and filiation, constitute the ultimate foundations of Moral Government. This is the conclusion of the preceding discussion. If God is intimately near to man--if He is immanent in man, and man is immanent in God--if God is "the Father of the human spirit," and man "the offspring of God," then man must bear some resemblance to God--he must have a spiritual and immortal nature, must be a free personality, must be capable of knowing and loving God, and therefore must be under solemn responsibility to God, and within the sphere of the eternal and immutable laws of moral life; in a word, he must be the subject of _moral_ government.

We proceed now to consider, more especially, the _nature_, the _conditions_, the _methods_, and the _ends_ of moral government.

I. _The nature of moral government._--Government, in general, is control--control with a view to the maintenance of order. This may be effected by direct coaction or forceful compulsion; or by the reaction of natural consequences; or by the pervasive influence of moral motives. The first is constraint, the second is restraint, the third is authoritative direction. We must, therefore, distinguish between physical, natural, and moral government.

The _physical_ government of God is the absolute control which He exercises over the material creation. He is the Fountain-head of all the forces, and the Author of all the laws according to which passive, unconscious matter is resistlessly impelled; and because his power and wisdom are infinite, and his purposes are immutable, therefore material nature is uniform, and there is an all-pervading order in the physical world.

The _natural_ government of God is that constitution of nature, and of man in so far as he is a part of nature, by which the sensations of pleasure and pain result directly and necessarily from the actions of man; and inasmuch as he is able by an induction from experience to foresee these consequences, and to determine his own conduct in view of them, they are not improperly called rewards and punishments. Thus it is found by experience that disease and suffering result from acts of intemperance and licentiousness, and men are restrained from the commission of these acts by the fear of their foreseen results. This is control by the reaction of natural consequences in that intermediate sphere which we may designate the physico-moral order of the world.

The _moral_ government of God is that kind of control which a wise and virtuous parent exercises over his family, or a just and equitable magistrate over his subjects.[508] It is a government by laws or rules addressed to the reason, by moral motives which appeal to the conscience, and by moral sanctions which appeal to the emotions. It is a constitution in which God has declared his will to man, and taught him, prior to the experience of retributive consequences, what is right and what is wrong; a constitution under which man is endowed with the capacity of perceiving the inherent righteousness of the Divine law, of feeling the imperative claims of duty, and of apprehending a future retribution, and also a real causative power of self-determination and choice. Finally, it is an economy in which ample scope is afforded for the development of responsible character. It is a probation in which there are tests and temptations, in which forbearance is exercised and consequences are delayed, in which remedial agencies are plied and opportunities are afforded for repentance and reformation, and in the final consummation of which virtuous character shall receive its meet reward, and sinful character its merited punishment. This is the ideal order of moral life.

This twofold distinction between the _physical_ and the _spiritual_, and between the _natural_ and the _moral_, runs through the entire domain of existence and action, of being and becoming.

The terms _physical_ and _spiritual_ are employed as collective terms to connote the essential, changeless, and permanent attributes of certain entities or realities which are regarded as ultimate, viz., matter and spirit. The attributes of matter are extension, divisibility, absolute incompressibility, and inertia; the attributes of spirit are sensitivity, reason, power, spontaneity, and memory. The term physical is further employed to denote certain "affections of matter"--that is, mechanical effects which are the result of the action of force upon matter. It is true we often speak of "physical forces," as though force were an essential attribute of matter. But this is one of the many ambiguities of language. All that we mean by physical force is a force which acts upon matter, and produces in the motions and collocations of matter its appropriate effects.[509] Spirit-force is the only force in the universe; all that our physical science deals with is "forms of energy which have their origin in force." "Mind," says Dr. Carpenter, "is the one and only source of power."[510]

The terms _natural_ and _moral_ are employed to denote opposite modes of action and classes of effects. In the one case the mode of action is fixed and uniform, and the effect is necessary; in the other case the mode of action is free and volitional, and the effect is contingent and variable. The first is the order of nature where force reigns, the second is the order of moral life where freedom prevails. "Whatever is comprised in the chain and mechanism of cause and effect, of course necessitated, and having its necessity in some other thing antecedent or concurrent, this is said to be _natural_, and the aggregate and system of all such things is nature."[511] While, on the contrary, that which lies within the agent's power, and to which he determines himself by an act of free choice; and especially that which the agent knows he _ought_ to do, and in choosing which he is conscious of power to put forth, in the same unchanged circumstances, a different volition instead, is called _moral_.

Thus does morality commence with "the sacred distinction" between _thing_ and _person_. "On this distinction all legislation, human and Divine, proceeds." That which fundamentally distinguishes a person from a mere thing of nature is _free causality_--that is, "the power or immunity to put forth in the same circumstances either of several volitions." A thing is unconscious, involuntary, and powerless, and consequently limited to one sole possible eventuation. A thing has no responsibility for its movements, which it has not willed, and of the nature and consequences of which it is ignorant. A person alone is responsible, because he is intelligent and free; that is, he can foresee the consequences of his action, and freely determines himself to its performance. A thing has no dignity; dignity attaches only to personality. Personality is inalienable, sacred, and inviolable; it can not be abrogated, surrendered, or transferred, and it demands to be respected. In a word, it has both duties and rights, while things have neither.[512]

Thus do we find that all dignity, all sacredness, all responsibility, all morality belong to and are predicable only of the personal being, because intelligence and freedom are the essential moments of personality.

Furthermore, the sphere of the _moral_ is to be determined by another important limitation. Not all the actions of men are personal and responsible acts. Sensation is not a voluntary operation. When the external object is brought into proper relation with the animated organism, perception necessarily occurs. The intuitive apperceptions of the reason are impersonal; when a change transpires, the reason necessarily affirms the existence of a cause. Reflex nervous action is involuntary. Many muscular movements are spontaneous, but not volitional. A responsible action is an _intentional_ action--that is, an act performed to realize an end which lies within the agent's contemplation. Spontaneity or self-determination only thereby becomes _will_. A moral act is consequently a premeditated, intentional, voluntary act, and the merit or demerit of an agent is as his actual intention.

The last and most important limitation of the moral sphere is to those voluntary actions which have relation to personality, human and Divine. "The peculiar distinction of moral actions, moral character, moral principles, moral habits, as contrasted with the intellectual and other parts of man's nature, lies in this, that they always imply a relation between two persons."[513] Morality is the relation of person to person.

We sum up what has been said in the preceding paragraphs in these words: The moral government of God is a _legislation_ which has respect to personality, especially the relations of person to person; and it is an _administration_ under which the subjects have power to resist and violate its requirements, but which is provided with ample means to vindicate its authority, and maintain the moral order of the universe.

II. _The subjective conditions of moral government._--It will be apparent from what has been already said that the following conditions are essential to moral government:

(1.) The subject of moral government must be _intelligent_. He must be able to understand the Divine requirements, to perceive their inherent rightness, and to feel the sense of obligation to comply therewith. He must also be susceptible of certain pleasurable or painful _emotions_ which follow as the direct consequences of his actions, and secure an adequate retribution. In a word, he must have a moral consciousness, or, briefly, a _conscience_.

(2.) The subject of moral government must be a _free power_. He must be the efficient cause of his own action, and he must be conscious of this power of self-determination--that is, he must be conscious of power to put forth, in the same unchanged circumstances, either of several volitions. In short, he must have a _free will_.

These, then, are the essential conditions of moral agency--the possession of a _conscience_, and the _power to obey or disobey_ the requirements of moral law. Both these conditions of accountability exist in man. By virtue of his constitution as a spiritual being made in the image of God, he is capable of perceiving what is inherently right, just, and good. His reason intuitively apprehends the good, and affirms the imperative obligation to choose the good. His judgment pronounces upon the relation of human conduct to the law of right, affirming man has or has not done right. And his emotive nature yields him complacence and joy as the reward of well-doing, or inflicts pain and remorse as the punishment of wrong-doing. In the words of Chalmers, "he is endowed with a conscience which performs within his bosom all the offices of a lawgiver and a judge."

The possession of this faculty necessarily supposes the existence of power in the agent to comply or not to comply with its behests. A moral law is designed only for the government of a free being, and nothing is moral or immoral which is not voluntary. If there is no self-determination, there is no proper personality to which the law of reason can attach. Remorse, on the one hand, satisfaction on the other, are emotions which are inconceivable and impossible in a being who is not consciously free.

_The nature and authority of conscience_ is a question which is earnestly discussed. Among philosophers and theologians there are diverse and conflicting opinions. It has been variously characterized as a _witness_ of our past actions; as a _judgment_ passed upon our actions; or as a _feeling_ arising in view of our actions. By one, conscience is regarded as an _appetite_--a craving for the right, but not a faculty intuitively perceiving the right. Another defines it "as a _capacity_ and a _tendency_ to inquire into duty, but not as supplying a law of duty."[514] While a third regards it as a state of the _sensibility_--"a simple feeling, emotion, or vivid sentiment which arises immediately in the mind in presence of certain actions, and to which we give the name of moral approbation."[515]

These definitions of conscience may all be regarded as containing some truth. They are all defective, however, in this one respect--_they fail to recognize an internal law which constitutes a subjective standard of right_, and an intuitive perception of moral distinctions and qualities in human action.

As an essay toward a clearer apprehension of the nature of conscience, we present the following propositions:

1. _Conscience is not a distinct faculty of the mind._ Conscience (_conscientia_ = joint or double knowledge) is the knowledge of self in relation to a known law of right and wrong. Conscience and consciousness may therefore be regarded as, in some respects, identical. The terms in their etymology and their general import are synonymous. There is, however, a technical distinction to be made. Consciousness expresses self-knowledge in general. Conscience expresses self-knowledge relative to responsibility. Consciousness is the recognition by the thinking subject of its own states and affections. Conscience is the knowledge of an act or an affection as having some moral quality--as being right or wrong.

2. _Conscience is, like consciousness, a complex phenomenon_, the result of the simultaneous action of the primary powers of the mind. The simplest fact of consciousness is a synthesis of sensation and reason in a primitive psychological judgment. Sensation alone is not knowledge, and it becomes consciousness only as it is illuminated and informed by the reason. And so a mere state of the sensibility--a mere feeling of approbation or disapprobation--does not constitute conscience until it is informed by the reason. Conscience is the unity of feeling and reason in a judgment which has respect to voluntary action.

3. _Conscience is the common field in which is revealed the result of the operation of all our faculties in their especial relation to moral law._ As consciousness is the common field in which the results of the operation of all our faculties come to light, so conscience is that department of the same field in which is revealed the action of the mind in relation to the unchangeable principles of order and right which dwell in the bosom of the Infinite. Conscience is pre-eminently the Godward side of our mental being, which reflects the moral character of God, and brings us into relationship with Him. It is that which carries us _per saltum_ to the immediate recognition of a God, the Lawgiver and the Judge who is over man, and which holds him in mysterious but indissoluble bonds of obligation. Conscience is therefore,

(1.) The _reason_ intuitively apprehending universal moral ideas and laws. It furnishes _the idea of the good_. It affirms that the good is universally _obligatory_. It asserts that the good has _desert_, worthiness, and dignity. And it demands for the good an appropriate recognition and a just reward.

(2.) The _understanding_ apprehending the relations in which we stand to God, to our fellow-beings, and to self as a moral personality endowed with reason and freedom.

(3.) The _judgment_ comparing the acts of a voluntary agent existing in certain relations with the immutable ideas and laws of the reason, and affirming this is _right_ and worthy of praise and reward, or that is _wrong_ and deserving of blame and punishment.

(4.) A particular state of the _sensibility_--the painful or pleasurable emotions which spontaneously arise in presence of right or wrong in our own actions or in the actions of our fellow-men.

Thus conscience is, as it were, the focal point at which are united and blended the varied acts and states of the soul in its immediate relation to the moral law. It is the synthesis of moral ideas, cognitions, and feelings in a moral judgment.

The co-operation of these powers and susceptibilities of the soul in their relation to the _good_ has a parallel and an illustration in their operation in relation to the _beautiful_.

The ideas of order, proportion, harmony, fitness, and unity in variety are unquestionably fundamental and necessary ideas of the _reason_. In the Divine reason these ideas have always existed as the laws in accordance with which He fashioned the material universe. And inasmuch as the human reason is configured to the Divine, these ideas must also exist in the human mind. Like statuary in the inner palaces of the soul, they are the models by which we recognize and the standards according to which we judge the forms of beauty in the external world. The correspondence between these external forms and the inner ideals of the reason is recognized by the _judgment_. And the delight we experience in presence of the beautiful in nature and art is a particular direction of the _sensibility_.

This is not, however, the chronological order in which the idea of the beautiful is developed in the mind. The sense of beauty first reveals itself in the spontaneous consciousness in presence of the order and harmony and fitness which pervade the universe. We experience delight without being able to specialize the precise causes of our pleasure. But the reflective consciousness, which is pre-eminently analytic, brings out into clear light the fundamental ideas of order, harmony, fitness, and unity, which had a prior existence in the reason, and have now recognized themselves as mirrored in the universe. The repeated observation of the forms of beauty around us, and the comparison of these with the standard ideas of the reason, will result in the beau-ideal of a pure and correct taste--true αἰσθητικόν.

So in relation to the idea of the _good_. It does not stand forth to the eye of consciousness, in the first instance, as an abstract conception. The _moral sense_--the affection of the sensibility in presence of voluntary and responsible action--is first revealed in the spontaneous consciousness. When we behold an act of justice, of kindness, of beneficence, we experience the fullest satisfaction. We admire and esteem the actor. We feel that his conduct is praiseworthy, and that he is deserving of honor and reward. These sentiments spring up spontaneously and involuntarily in our bosoms long before we have defined their reason and law. The reflective consciousness subsequently elicits the rational ideas which underlie these emotions--the ideas of the useful, the just, the beneficent, the noble, and the perfect, all which are finally embraced in the idea of the _good_. And the repeated comparison of the conduct of voluntary agents existing under certain relations, with the fundamental ideas of the reason, these standards of right erected in the soul, will result in an ideal of moral excellence--a true ἐθικόν.

If this doctrine of conscience be the product of a true psychological method, it will enable us to account for the apparent want of uniformity in its suffrages in individual cases, and the varied phenomena presented in different men.

Conscience, like consciousness, has its gradual development. Though natural and necessary to every human soul whose powers are normally developed, it is not exercised at the beginning of its existence, but only after certain conditions of growth and stages of growth have been attained. This development may be arrested or it may be perverted. The absence of proper conditions, the lack of suitable discipline and culture in any one of the faculties whose operation enters into the concrete phenomena, will modify the general result. An excess of _sensibility_ will give a morbid conscience; the lack of sensibility, a slumbering conscience. A defective apprehension of the relations in which we stand to God and to our fellow-men will prevent our seeing our specific duties. Inattention to the character of our own motives, or ignorance of the real intentions of other men, may mislead the _judgment_ in discriminating between the quality of actions. There are also natural differences in the soundness and accuracy of the judgments of individual men. We meet those who with a limited acquaintance with particular facts and abstract notions are nevertheless endowed with sound practical judgment; while others, with a larger knowledge of facts and general principles, are strangely defective in judgment. Finally, unless men accustom themselves to reflection, to analysis, the ideas of the just, the right, the good, do not come clearly into the light of consciousness. Hence the different manifestations of conscience in individual men.

We claim, however, that the moral ideas of the reason are in all men _identical_; that they exist and operate, even though unconsciously, in all minds, determining their moral judgments; and that _when the same relations of personality are clearly before the mind the moral judgments of men are uniform_.

In spite of all the topical moralities to which factitious circumstances may have given birth, there is unquestionably _a universal and immutable morality_. In every nation under heaven, veracity, justice, and beneficence are separated by a clear, unmistakable line from falsehood, injustice, and cruelty; nor can all the casuistry and sophistry in the universe transpose or confound them. Custom, prescription, conventions of human opinion, factitious circumstances, can never blur over and obliterate these lines which separate right and wrong. Beneath all these apparent differences, the conscience will make her voice heard in the depth of the soul, in the common sentiments of mankind, and in the statutes of universal jurisprudence. The great ideas of justice and right were prominent and well defined among the nations of antiquity. "Nemesis and Themis were not only their abstractions and deities--they were embodied in their systems of jurisprudence. Law secured property and sanctified life. Law guarded every relation and ordered every act. Law was the theme of their philosophy and the burden of their song. We are not unacquainted with the jealousies and disputes of their schools of philosophy. They placed the good of man and the reason of morality in the most incongruous things, but _they never differed concerning the conduct which was right_. Epicurus and Zeno knew no divergence here."[516] Indeed, they asserted the immutability of moral law for all times and places--

"The unwritten laws of God that know not change;
They are not of to-day nor yesterday,
But live for ever."[517]

"There is," says Cicero, "one true and original law, conformable to nature and reason, diffused over all, invariable, eternal, which calls to the fulfillment of duty and to abstinence from injustice, and which calls with that irresistible voice which is felt in all its authority wherever it is heard. This law can not be curtailed or abolished, nor affected in its sanctions by any law of man. A whole senate, a whole people, can not dispense with its paramount obligation. It requires no commentator to render it distinctly intelligible, nor is it different at Rome, at Athens, now and in ages before and after, but in all ages and all nations it is and has been and will be one and everlasting--one as that God, its author and promulgator, who is the common Sovereign of all mankind, is Himself one. Man is truly man as he yields himself to this Divine influence. He can not resist it but by flying, as it were, from his own bosom, and laying aside the general feelings of humanity, by which very act he must already have inflicted on himself the severest of punishments, even though he were to avoid what is usually accounted punishment."[518]

Among the most savage tribes, as among the most refined and polished nations, are also to be found the same common principles of morality. Theft, murder, adultery are offenses condemned and punished by every nation under heaven. The high qualities of virtue are the things which win esteem and command respect in every country, however rude. Were proof demanded, we might bring it at once from the darkest corners of the earth. The savage Fijian regards theft, adultery, abduction, incendiarism, and treason as serious crimes.[519] And Dr. Livingstone tells us that, "On questioning intelligent men among the Backwains as to their former knowledge of good and evil, of God, and of a future state, they have scouted the idea of any of them ever having been without a tolerably clear conception on all these subjects. Respecting their sense of right and wrong, they profess that nothing we indicate as sin ever appeared to them as otherwise, except the statement that it was wrong to have more wives than one."[520]

We conclude that the universal consciousness of our race, as revealed in human history, languages, legislations, and sentiments, bears testimony to the fact that the ideas of right, duty, accountability, and moral desert are native to the human mind; and consequently the existence of the first condition of moral government--namely, the possession by its subject of a _conscience_--is an unquestionable fact.

The _second_ condition of moral government is the existence, in the subject, _of free self-determining power_: the agent must be the real cause and the sole cause of his own actions; he must have freedom both _to_ and _from_ the act.

Under a reign of necessity there can be no moral government and no just retribution. It is, at best, a mere physical or natural government; for moral government must be of beings who are free and self-determined, and not of mere machines. To blame a necessitated thing is irrational, to punish it is a cruelty and an injustice. The necessitarian himself is unable to conceal his conscious embarrassment in presence of these difficulties, and to save his theory he becomes reckless in assertions. He affirms that "the whole system of morality--its duties and responsibilities; the whole scheme of moral government, with its rewards and punishments--remains, on his theory, as entire and stable as ever."[521] This affirmation runs athwart all the dictates of common-sense, and collides with the universal conviction of humanity. He is the only consistent necessitarian who rejects the Christian doctrine of sin, denies all accountability and retribution, and reduces the government of God to mere physical impulsion and the management of a universal mechanism. The necessitarian dogma can not be made to quadrate with our primitive convictions; it is out of harmony with all our instinctive beliefs. The innate idea of right, the native sense of duty and accountability, the consciousness of sin, our faith in the justice of God, our religious hopes and fears, all impel us onward to find a rational and valid basis for human responsibility and moral government in the freedom of the will.

That man does possess an alternative power of self-determination and choice is evident:

1. _From the direct testimony of consciousness._ We _know_ that any doing of ours might have been reserved--we _feel_, by that same direct consciousness which certifies our existence and our reason, that we have the fullest power of choice. No subtlety, no abstraction of argument, can convince us that we are otherwise than free. "Men are not conscious of compulsion of any kind, not conscious of certain mental states, called choices, which are either wholly or partially independent of their free agency; but they are perfectly and distinctly conscious of entire liberty, and of complete inward power to choose."[522]

That we have a direct consciousness of freedom is the doctrine of most of the writers on moral science. Cousin is emphatic in the assertion of this doctrine: "I am conscious of this sovereign power of the will. I feel in myself, before its determination, the force that can determine itself in such a manner or in such another. At the same time that I will this or that I am equally conscious of the power to will the opposite; I am conscious of being master of my resolution, of the ability to arrest it, continue it, repress it."[523] The distinguished Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh, Dr. Calderwood, teaches the same doctrine: "It is in our consciousness of self-control for the determination of activity that we obtain our only knowledge of causation. Every one knows himself as the cause of his own actions. In the external world we continue ignorant of causes, and are able only to trace uniform sequence, as Hume and Comte have insisted. But in consciousness we distinguish between sequence and causality. We are conscious of our own causal energy by knowing the origin of our activity in self-determination."[524]

The direct consciousness of freedom is denied by Sir William Hamilton. This denial is a necessary consequence of his doctrine of relativity. If we are not conscious of self as a reality, but only of certain modes or affections, then, of course, we can not be conscious of self as a free power. But as Mansel has forcibly replied: "Does it not rather appear a flat contradiction to maintain that I am not immediately conscious of myself, but only of my sensations or volitions? Who, then, is the _I_ that is conscious; and how can _I_ be conscious of such states as _mine_? In this case it would surely be more accurate to say, not that I am conscious of my sensations, but that the sensation is conscious of itself; but, thus worded, the glaring absurdity of the theory would carry with it its own refutation.... Self-personality is revealed to us with all the clearness of an original intuition."[525] With an inconsistency which shows the fallacy of Sir William Hamilton's whole theory of relativity, he admits that, "As clearly as I am conscious of existing, so clearly am I conscious at every moment of my existence that the conscious Ego is not itself a mere modification, nor a series of modifications of any other subject, but that it is itself something different from all its own modifications, and a _self-subsistent entity_."[526]

If, then, we admit, as we must admit, the existence of an immediate consciousness, not merely of the phenomena of mind, but of the personal self as actively and passively related to them, we must also admit the direct testimony of conscience to the fact of liberty. "I am conscious not merely of the phenomenon of volition, _but of myself as producing it, and as producing it by choice, with a power to choose the opposite alternative_."

The necessitarians are all compelled to concede that the universal conviction of our race is, and always has been, that man is free. They have, however, asserted that this dictate of common-sense is not to be accepted as philosophically true. Lord Kames admits the natural conviction of freedom from necessity, though he declares it to be an illusion:

"Man fondly dreams that he is free to act;
Naught is he but the powerless, worthless plaything
Of the blind force that in his will itself
Works out for him a dread necessity."

And Hommel, certainly one of the ablest and most decided of fatalists, says, "I must believe that I have a feeling of liberty, at the very moment I am writing against liberty, upon grounds which I regard as incontestable. Zeno was a fatalist only in theory; he did not act in conformity with his convictions."[527]

The possession of alternative power is a fact of consciousness as clear and indubitable as the fact of personal existence. It is admitted by the necessitarians that all men have "a natural conviction of freedom;" they believe themselves to be free beings, and they act upon this belief in all the relations of life. If this fact of consciousness is an illusion, then our existence is also an illusion, for that same intuition which certifies to me that I exist certifies also that I am free. If the testimony of consciousness is invalidated, there is no criterion for truth. If one of its deliverances is found to be false, how can we vindicate the veracity of any? "Our faculties are bestowed upon us as the instruments of deception; the root of our nature is a lie, and universal skepticism is the only goal."

2. _The idea of moral obligation necessarily presupposes the freedom of the will._ This is a principle so obvious that it needs no elucidation. If man have duties, he must possess the power of fulfilling them. He ought to be free if he ought to obey law, or human nature is in contradiction with itself. The direct certainty of obligation implies the corresponding certainty of freedom. Hence Kant's well-known canon, "_I ought, therefore I can._" Though denying the direct consciousness of freedom, Kant maintained with earnestness that the fact of liberty is guaranteed by the existence of the moral law, whose categorical imperative _thou shalt_ necessarily implies a corresponding _thou canst_. To the same effect are the words of Sir William Hamilton: "The fact that we are free is given to us in the consciousness of an uncompromising law of duty.... Our consciousness of the moral law, which without a moral liberty in man would be a mendacious imperative, gives a decided preponderance to the doctrine of freedom over the doctrine of fate."[528] Physical causation and moral obligation can not coexist side by side. In proportion as we extend the domain of necessity we must diminish that of duty.

3. _The sense of responsibility presupposes the freedom of the will._ This sense of responsibility is native to the human mind. Every man feels himself to be accountable for his own conduct, not only at the bar of his own conscience, but before the moral judgment-seat of his fellow-men. Every where he recognizes the right of his fellow-men to inquire into his character, to sit in judgment upon his conduct, and to esteem and treat him accordingly. We necessarily impute blame when an unjust action is performed by another; we feel conscious of guilt and unworthiness when a wrong is done by ourselves. These are facts of universal consciousness. But these sentiments are irrational and absurd if man is a mere machine impelled by natural causes, and has no self-determining power.[529] Whatever disasters may overtake us in the course of nature, however we may suffer by the wild tornado or the blighting mildew, how much soever of our property may be swallowed up by the ocean tempest or the devouring flame, we impute no blame; and we experience here emotions essentially different from those which we experience when a wrong is intentionally inflicted upon us by our fellow-men. "Suppose yourself to have been the victim of some act of injustice and villainy by which you were reduced to penury, and your family to want and indigence. By what philosophy can you eradicate the sense of wrong or cease to impute blame to the man whose perfidy has despoiled your life? You may forgive him, and follow him with your prayers to the last hour of your life, but you will still pray for him as a guilty man whose crime has been the burden of your life." Now what is this radical and fundamental difference between the events of the material universe and the actions of men? and what is the rational basis for the different feelings we experience and the diverse judgments we pass in regard to them?

There is only one answer to this question. The ultimate ground-difference is found in the fact that one class of events is _necessary_--there is no adequate power in the thing to be or do otherwise; the other class of actions is _free_--they need not have been performed, the actor had full power for a contrary choice. In the world of nature _force_ reigns; in the world of moral life _liberty_ prevails. The fundamental principle of difference is the _freedom of the will_.

This second condition of moral government--namely, the possession of _free alternative power_ on the part of the subject to comply, or refuse to comply, with the requirements of moral law--is thus established, first, by the direct testimony of consciousness, from which there can be no appeal, and, secondly, by necessary inference from collateral facts of consciousness, which can not be invalidated by counter-proofs.

Unhappily, the restlessness of speculative minds, the necessities of false theories in philosophy, or the unwarrantable assumptions of dogmatic theologians, have led to the disregard of the affirmations of universal consciousness. Men have asked, How can freedom be possible in a dependent creature? How can it be consistent with our belief in the principle of universal causation? How can it be harmonized with the fact that man always acts under the influence of motives? How can it be reconciled with the omnipotence and absolute prescience of God?

We shall now address ourselves to the consideration of the arguments against the doctrine of the freedom of the will which are suggested by these queries.

1. The first is the _Metaphysical or Causational Argument_. The rational intuition that "every event must have a cause" is a universal and necessary truth. It must therefore be rigorously applied to all mental as well as to all physical phenomena. Every volition must have a cause, and if caused it can not be _free_. This is the grand argument upon which the necessitarian mainly relies, and it is urged with eloquence and force by Edwards, Chalmers, and McCosh.

Now that "every event must have a cause" is an _à priori_ truth, which is as readily accorded by the freedomist as it is vehemently insisted upon by the necessitarian. No philosophic writers have more ably and clearly enounced this law of causality than the freedomists Reid, Stewart, and Cousin. They rely upon it as one of the main pillars of the Theistic argument. And they apply it, in all its integrity, to mental as well as to physical phenomena. They hesitate not to say that "_every volition must have a cause_." That cause is the efficient creative power which resides in a free, spiritual personality. And that power is not, like a material or physical cause, shut up to one sole mode of effectuation: it is an _alternative_ power, a pluri-efficient cause. Where, then, is the discrepancy between the universal principle of causality and the doctrine of alternative causation? Is the infinite First Cause confined to one solely possible mode of effectuation? If so, how will you account for the endlessly varied effects which appear in the physical universe? God is the Eternal _One_; whence the plurality and diversity of his creative acts if He be not an equipotent cause? And yet, of all the events which have transpired in the universe, whether natural or supernatural, we affirm "every event must have had a cause."[530] The endless diversity of effects which originate in the alternative causation of God is in perfect harmony with this universal law of causality.

But on a closer examination it will be found that when the necessitarian attempts to invalidate our consciousness of alternative power by the application of the causational argument he adroitly shifts his ground. He assumes another proposition, which is neither equivalent to the above axiom, nor in itself axiomatic and self-evident, nor justifiably assumed without proof. McCosh says "the doctrine of necessity is founded on the intellectual intuitions of man's mind, which lead us, in mental as in material phenomena, to anticipate the _same_ effects to follow the _same_ causes"[531]--that is, every cause is inalternative or unipotent; one effect, and only one can follow.

Now that a given phenomenon must have a cause is one assertion; that the _same_ cause will again and forever produce the _same_ effect is another. The first is an axiom, the second is an induction. That "every event must have a cause" is a rational intuition. That "like causes will produce always like effects" is a generalization from our limited experience, and on a further analysis will be found to apply only to our cognitions of the _material_ universe. It is grounded simply on what we know empirically of the uniformity of nature. Now we have no _à priori_ intuitive conviction of the uniformity of nature. As the result of maturer thought, McCosh admits this in his work on the "Intuitions of the Mind:" "It is vain to speak of the belief in the uniformity of nature as a self-evident, a necessary, or a universal truth" (page 276). It is perfectly conceivable that the world might have been so constituted that there should have been no regularity in the succession of events. The causes of all the events in nature might have been _supernatural_, and consisted in the immediate free volitions of the Deity, or subordinate angelic agencies.[532] They might have been all "miraculous," and yet the true law of causality would not have been violated, or in any way invalidated. And so when man, in the exercise of his free alternative power, produces a new succession of events in physical nature, or moves disorder and ἀνομία into the moral sphere, this is no way inconsistent with the axiom that "every event has a cause."

"In our very definition of freedom of will we assume in the volitional sphere the inapplicability of the maxim that 'like causes ever and always produce like effects.' We assume that _either_ one of several effects is legitimate from the _same_ cause. And while we admit that in non-volitional causation the law that 'every event must have a cause' means that every event must have its own peculiar cause, adequate for itself alone, in volitional causation an event may have a cause adequate either for it or for other event; and whichever event exists, the _demands of the laws of causation are completely satisfied_."[533]

Driven from this boasted stronghold, the necessitarian resorts to his favorite dialectic strategy. He demands the explanation of equipotent causation, how one cause can be adequate to several effects. He asks, _What causes the will to put forth one particular volition rather than another?_

Now when we have shown that, as a fact of consciousness and experience, a personal, _spiritual_ cause is adequate to several results, we are entitled in reason and justice to protest against any attempt to push the inquiry a step farther. We have attained an ultimate fact, and we have no right to cast doubt upon its authority by raising perplexing questions as to the _how_ or _why_ of that which _is_. This is precisely the method by which the atheist Holyoake would invalidate the argument for the existence of the infinite First Cause. He subjects the Deity to this universal law of causality, and asks, What caused the Creator to create? "The atheist holds that the universe is an endless series of causes and effects _ad infinitum_, and therefore the idea of a _first_ cause is an absurdity and a contradiction." The "infinite series" of Edwards and of Holyoake are constructed on the same principle. They both ask _a_ cause for _the_ cause.

When, therefore, it is asked, What causes the will to effect one volition rather than another? our answer is, _Nothing whatever!_

"Of its own effect, WILL, in its proper conditions, is not a partial, but a full and adequate cause. Put your finger upon any effect (volition) and ask, What caused this result exclusively of the others? and the reply is, The will, or the agent in willing. Ask then what caused the will in its conditions to cause the volition, and the reply is, NOTHING. Nay, you are a bad philosopher in asking; for for its own effect will or the willing agent is a complete cause: as complete a cause as any cause whatever; _and every complete cause produces its effect_ UNCAUSEDLY. The volition, like every other effect, is completely accounted for when a complete cause is assigned. To ask what caused the complete cause to produce the effect is to ask the cause of causation."[534]

But such an "alternative" power, the necessitarian affirms, is incomprehensible and inexplicable. To which we need only reply in the language of Hamilton, "The scheme of freedom is not more incomprehensible than the scheme of necessity."[535] "_Omnia exeunt in mysterium_"--there is nothing the absolute ground of which is not a mystery. In saying so much, however, we by no means grant the affirmation of Hamilton that "we are unable to conceive an absolute commencement [of being or motion]; we can not therefore conceive a free volition."[536] This is not admitted by Mansel, the disciple and annotator of Hamilton, as flowing even from his mental "law of the conditioned." "It may be true, as a fact, that no material atom has been added to the world since the first creation; but the assertion, however true, is certainly not _necessary_. The Power which created once must be conceived as able to create again, whether that ability is actually exercised or not. The same conclusion is still more evident when we proceed from the consideration of matter to that of mind. Of matter we maintain that the creation of new portions is perfectly conceivable as a result, if not as a process. Every man who comes into the world comes into it as a distinct individual, having a personality and consciousness of his own; and that personality is a distinct accession to the number of persons previously existing.... I believe that every new person that comes into the world is, as a person, a new existence."[537] So a volition is a _new_ existence, an absolute origination, "a beginning of motion" which has its source in the primordial power of the human spirit as spirit. The _fact_ is undeniable, the _mode_ is inexplicable. But the inconceivability of the mode in which the will creates a volition no more renders the fact doubtful than the impossibility of conceiving how a new and distinct self-conscious personality comes into existence invalidates the fact that "I exist, and know myself as a distinctly existing being."

2. _The Psychological Argument._--This may be briefly stated in the following terms:

It is a fact of observation and experience that _motives_ do stand to the will in the relation of _causes_ which necessitate volition. They have an exact mathematical commensurability, and their prevalence is in the precise ratio of their antecedent intrinsic _strength_. If motives are wanting, there can be no choice; but when the same motives are presented to the same mind, it obeys them with such remarkable _uniformity_ that human actions may be reduced to statistical tables as reliable and as accurate as tables of mortality.

We might here at once, and with justice, enter our caveat against the attempt to invalidate a primitive datum of consciousness by alleged deductions from the exterior phenomena of human life and history. A primitive datum of consciousness is unquestionable and infallible. A process of induction is liable to the interpolations of error. The latter is therefore a lesser authority than the former, and a merely derivative assurance can not be argued against an ultimate fact. We must regard it as a philosophic canon that an experience cognition can not conflict with an intuitive belief. The exterior phenomena of life and history, properly interpreted, must harmonize with the interior facts and laws of the human mind, for what is _history_ but the development, under the conditions and relations of time, of the primitive powers, ideas, and laws of humanity? If, then, consciousness attests the presence in man's spiritual nature of a power, in the same circumstances, to choose either of several ways, we may confidently expect that the phenomena of the moral world will not belie that testimony. Now it is a palpable fact that an unbroken law of continuity and uniformity pervades the material universe. It is locked up in an unchangeable status. There is no deviation and no progression. All things remain as they were since the beginning. The fundamental fact lying at the basis of this undeviating uniformity of nature is that material causes are unipotent, and shut up to one solely possible mode of effectuation.[538] And it is equally palpable that the phenomena of the moral world, the sphere of human life and history, reveal contingency, diversity, alteriety, and progression. Humanity has not revolved in cycles, neither has it run in the inflexible grooves of an anterior causation, nor remained in the dead-lock of an unchangeable status. History is not an inflexible frame-work in which all events have been shaped by necessity; it is a development of the inherent powers and capabilities of humanity, and it teaches us that new trains of causes have been originated, and new conditions have been superinduced by man. The ground-fact which underlies all the diversity, contingency, and progress which appear in the moral world is that volitional causes are equipotent and efficient for any one of the several results.[539] In moral development the progressive principle is just the freedom of the will. The facts of the inner and outer world are therefore in harmony.

The theory of the necessitarian assumes that the will is a mere passivity, a simple conductor of the impulse which motive power exerts, a mere transition-point where ideal force is transformed into physical force, and desires, inclinations, moral convictions, divine influences become necessary acts. Motives thus prevail by their antecedent intrinsic power just as physical forces prevail in mechanical and vital dynamics. And, proceeding upon this assumption, he labors to construct a science of Ethology in which he would anticipate human action by statistics, and show how individual character _must_ be in accordance with physical and mental causation. Whereas consciousness asserts that the will "is not a bleak mechanical thing." It is a free alternative power. It is a full, complete, adequate cause. It is _spirit_, not matter.

Now it is freely granted that the mind acts in view of motives, acts in accordance with motives, acts in a certain qualified sense under the influence of motives; _but the freedomist emphatically denies that the will is necessitated to action by motives_. Motives may be reason _for_ action, conditions under which will acts, but they are not causes _of_ action. They may solicit, invite, urge to action, but they can not constrain, compel, and force action.[540]

Motives have no fixed correlation to the will. They address themselves to the feelings, the judgment, the conscience, and not directly and immediately to the will. They may awaken desire, fear, inclination, preference, a sense of obligation; but these are all states of the intellect and sensibility, and may coexist in the same mind with a state of indetermination and non-differentiation in the will. That which is desirable may appeal to the feelings, that which is eligible to the judgment, that which is obligatory to the conscience, and these may excite the mind in different degrees of intensity; but none of them have power to move the will. We may be able intellectually to perceive that some motives are intrinsically "higher" than others, that some have a prevolition power to excite all minds more intensely than others; but they do not prevail and secure action in any ratio with their supposed _à priori_ strength. They can only become real motives for the will by its voluntary placing its interest in them and making them objects of its choice.[541] All the actual strength which a motive has is derived from the action of the will. On this subject we offer the following propositions:

(1.) _The so-called strength of a motive is the degree of probability that the will will act in accordance with or on account of it._ "And it is most important to remark that the _result_ is not always, nor in most cases, necessarily as the _highest probability_. The will may choose for the higher or for the lower. And as the will may choose for a lower rather than a higher probability, so the will may choose on account of what is called antecedently a _weaker_ over a _stronger_ motive. And hereby is once for all established the difference between mechanical force and motive influence--that whereas in the former, by necessity, the greater effect results from the greater force, in the latter the less is possible from the greater, the greater from the less."[542] That result is not as the highest probability Dr. Whedon has shown most conclusively from the doctrine of Contingencies or Probabilities. And on this he grounds his doctrine of _contingent motive probability_. "This contingent character of motive influence is correspondent with the alternative character of that which is its sole possible object--will. An alternative will and a contingent motive influence are correlatives. They mutually explain and sustain each other. To admit either is to admit both. And so a unipotent will and a necessary motive influence are correlatives. He who is compelled to admit one is compelled to admit the other. It will be a mere controversy about a word to say that an influence which does not produce effect is no influence. That may legitimately be called an influence, it is important to add, which is conceived as _possessing an intrinsic probability for result, though the higher probability be a contingency_ for which there exists power of _failure_. If so, then the doctrine of contingent motive influence is established, and the doctrine of volitional necessity is at an end. The relation between physical force and effect is _necessity_. The relation between motive and volition is _contingency_."[543]