Part 13

You tell the man, indeed, that he can if he will; and when he replies to you, that on your own principles the required volition is impossible, you refer him to the common notions of mankind. According to these, you say a man is guilty when he forbears to do right, since nothing is wanting to right-doing but a volition,--and guilty when he does wrong, because he wills to do wrong. According to these common notions, too, a man may fairly be persuaded to do right, when nothing is wanting but a will to do right. But do we find this distinction of natural and moral ability in the common notions of men? When nothing is required to the performance of a deed but a volition, do men conceive of any inability whatever? Do they not feel that the volition has a metaphysical possibility as well as that the sequent of the volition has a physical possibility? Have we not at least some reason to suspect that the philosophy of responsibility, and the basis of rebuke and persuasion lying in the common notions of men, are something widely different from the scheme of a necessitated volition?

This last class of theologians, equally with the first, derive all the force of their preaching from a philosophy, upon which they are compelled to act, but which they stoutly deny. Let them carry out their philosophy, and for preaching no place remains.

Preaching can produce good effects only by producing good volitions; and good volitions can be produced only by good motives: but good motives can exist under preaching only when the subjects of the preaching are correlated with the state of mind. But by supposition this is not the case, for the heart is totally depraved.

To urge the unregenerate man to put forth volitions in reference to his regeneration, may consist with a self-determining power of will, but is altogether irrelevant on this system. It is urging him to do what he cannot do; and indeed what all persuasion must fail to do in him as a mere passive subject. To assure him that the affair is quite easy, because nothing is required of him but to will, is equivalent to assuring him that the affair is quite easy, because it will be done when he has done it. The man may reply, the affair would indeed be quite easy if there existed in me a motive to produce the volition; but as there does not, the volition is impossible. And as I cannot put forth the volition without the motive, so neither can I make the motive which is to produce the volition--for then an effect would make its cause. What I cannot do for myself, I fear neither you, nor indeed an angel from heaven will succeed in doing for me. You array the truths, and duties, and prospects of religion before my mind, but they cannot take the character of motives to influence my will, because they are not agreeable to my heart.

You indeed mean well; but do you not perceive that on your own principles all your zeal and eloquence must necessarily have an opposite effect from what you intend? My affections not being in correlation with these subjects, the more you urge them, the more intense becomes my sense of the most disagreeable, or my positive refusal; and this, my good friends, by a necessity which holds us all alike in an inevitable and ever-during chain.

It is plainly impossible to escape from this conclusion, and yet maintain the philosophy. All efforts of this kind, made by appealing to the common sentiments of mankind, we have seen are self-contradictory. It will not do to press forward the philosophy until involved in difficulty and perplexity, and then to step aside and borrow arguments from another system which is assumed to be overthrown. There is no necessity more absolute and sovereign, than a logical necessity.

XVIII. The cardinal principles of Edwards's system in the sections we have been examining, from which the above consequences are deduced, are the three following:

1. The will is always determined by the strongest motive.

2. The strongest motive is always "the most agreeable."

3. The will is necessarily determined.

I shall close this part of the present treatise with a brief examination of the reasoning by which he endeavours to establish these points.

The reasoning by which the first point is aimed to be established, is the general reasoning respecting cause and effect. Volition is an effect, and must have a cause. Its cause is the motive lying in the correlation of mind and object. When several physical causes conflict with each other, we call that the strongest which prevails and produces its appropriate effects, to the exclusion of the others. So also where there are several moral causes or motives conflicting with each other, we call that the strongest which prevails. Where a physical cause is not opposed by any other force, it of course produces its effect; and in this case we do not say the strongest cause produces the effect, because there is no comparison. So also there are cases in which there is but one moral cause or motive present, when there being no comparison, we cannot affirm that the volition is determined by the strongest motive: the doing of something may be entirely agreeable, and the not doing of it may be utterly disagreeable: in this case the motive is only for the doing of it. But wherever the case contains a comparison of causes or of motives, it must be true that the effect which actually takes place, is produced by the strongest cause or motive. This indeed is nothing more than a truism, or a mere postulate, as if we should say,--let a cause or motive producing effects be called the strongest. It may be represented, also, as a petitio principii, or reasoning in a circle,--since the proof that the will is determined by the strongest motive is no other than the fact that it is determined. It may be stated thus: The will is determined by the strongest motive. How do you know this? Because it is determined. How does this prove it? Because that which determines it must be the strongest.

Edwards assumes, also, that motive is the cause of volition. This assumption he afterwards endeavours indirectly to sustain, when he argues against a self-determining will. If the will do not cause its own volitions, then it must follow that motive is the cause. The argument against a self-determining will we are about to take up.

2. The strongest motive is always the most agreeable. Edwards maintains that the motive which always prevails to cause volition, has this characteristic,--that it is the most agreeable or pleasant at the time, and that volition itself is nothing but the sense of the most agreeable. If there should be but one motive present to the mind, as in that case there would be no comparison, we presume he would only say that the will is determined by the agreeable.

But how are we to know whether the motive of every volition has this characteristic of agreeableness, or of most agreeableness, as the case may be? We can know it only by consulting our consciousness. If, whenever we will, we find the sense of the most agreeable identified with the volition, and if we are conscious of no power of willing, save under this condition of willing what is most agreeable to us, then certainly there remains no farther question on this point. The determination of consciousness is final. Whether such be the determination of consciousness, we are hereafter to consider.

Does Edwards appeal to consciousness?

He does,--but without formally announcing it. The following passage is an appeal to consciousness, and contains Edwards's whole thought on this subject: "There is scarcely a plainer and more universal dictate of the sense and experience of mankind, than that when men act voluntarily, and do what they please, then they do what suits them best, or what is most agreeable to them. To say that they do what pleases them, but yet what is not agreeable to them, is the same thing as to say, they do what they please, but do not act their pleasure; and that is to say, that they do what they please, and yet do not what they please." (p. 25.) Motives differ widely, intrinsically considered. Some are in accordance with reason and conscience; some are opposed to reason and conscience. Some are wise; some are foolish. Some are good; some are bad. But whatever may be their intrinsic properties, they all have this characteristic of agreeableness when they cause volition; and it is by this characteristic that their strength is measured. The appeal, however, which is made to sustain this, is made in a way to beg the very point in question. Will not every one admit, that "when men act voluntarily and do what they please, they do what suits them best, and what is most agreeable to them?" Yes. Is it not a palpable contradiction, to say that men "do what pleases them," and yet do "what is not agreeable to them," according to the ordinary use of these words? Certainly.

But the point in question is, whether men, acting voluntarily, always do what is pleasing to them: and this point Edwards assumes. He assumes it here, and he assumes it throughout his treatise. We have seen that, in his psychology, he identifies will and desire or the affections:--hence volition is the prevailing desire or affection, and the object which moves the desire must of course appear desirable, or agreeable, or pleasant; for they have the same meaning. If men always will what they most desire, and desire what they will, then of course when they act voluntarily, they do what they please; and when they do what they please, they do what suits them best and is most agreeable to them.

Edwards runs the changes of these words with great plausibility, and we must say deceives himself as well as others. The great point,--whether will and desire are one,--whether the volition is as the most agreeable,--he takes up at the beginning as an unquestionable fact, and adheres to throughout as such; but he never once attempts an analysis of consciousness in relation to it, adequate and satisfactory. His psychology is an assumption.

3. The will is necessarily determined.

How does Edwards prove this? 1. On the general connexion of causes and effects. Causes necessarily produce effects, unless resisted and overcome by opposing forces; but where several causes are acting in opposition, the strongest will necessarily prevail, and produce its appropriate effects.

Now, Edwards affirms that the nature of the connexion between motives and volitions is the same with that of any other causes and effects. The difference is merely in the terms: and when he calls the necessity which characterizes the connexion of motive and volition "a moral necessity," he refers not to the connexion itself, but only to the terms connected. In this reasoning he plainly assumes that the connexion between cause and effect in general, is a necessary connexion; that is, all causation is necessary. A contingent, self-determining cause, in his system, is characterized as an absurdity. Hence he lays himself open to all the consequences of a universal and absolute necessity.

2. He also endeavours to prove the necessity of volition by a method of approximation. (p. 33.) He here grants, for the sake of the argument, that the will may oppose the strongest motive in a given case; but then he contends that it is supposable that the strength of the motive may be increased beyond the strength of the will to resist, and that at this point, on the general law of causation, the determination of the will must be considered necessary. "Whatever power," he remarks, "men may be supposed to have to surmount difficulties, yet that power is not infinite." If the power of the man is finite, that of the motive may be supposed to be infinite: hence the resistance of the man must at last be necessarily overcome. This reasoning seems plausible at first; but a little examination, I think, will show it to be fallacious. Edwards does not determine the strength of motives by inspecting their intrinsic qualities, but only by observing their degrees of agreeableness. But agreeableness, by his own representation, is relative,--relative to the will or sensitivity. A motive of infinite strength would be a motive of infinite agreeableness, and could be known to be such only by an infinite sense of agreeableness in the man. The same of course must hold true of any motive less than infinite: and universally, whatever be the degree of strength of the motive, there must be in the man an affection of corresponding intensity. Now, if there be a power of resistance in the will to any motive, which is tending strongly to determine it, this power of resistance, according to Edwards, must consist of a sense of agreeableness opposing the other motive, which is likewise a sense of agreeableness: and the question is simply, which shall predominate and become a sense of the most agreeable. It is plain that if the first be increased, the second may be supposed to be increased likewise; if the first can become infinite, the second can become infinite likewise: and hence the power of resistance may be supposed always to meet the motive required to be resisted, and a point of necessary determination may never be reached.

If Edwards should choose to throw us upon the strength of motives intrinsically considered, then the answer is ready. There are motives of infinite strength, thus considered, which men are continually resisting: for example, the motive which urges them to obey and love God, and seek the salvation of their souls.

III.

AN EXAMINATION OF THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST A SELF-DETERMINING AND CONTINGENT WILL.

Edwards's first and great argument against a self-determining will, is given in part II. sec. 1, of his work, and is as follows:

The will,--or the soul, or man, by the faculty of willing, effects every thing within its power as a cause, by acts of choice. "The will determines which way the hands and feet shall move, by an act of choice; and there is no other way of the will's determining, directing, or commanding any thing at all." Hence, if the will determines itself, it does it by an act of choice; "and if it has itself under its command, and determines itself in its own actions, it doubtless does it in the same way that it determines other things which are under its command." But if the will determines its choice by its choice, then of course we have an infinite series of choices, or we have a first choice which is not determined by a choice,--"which brings us directly to a contradiction; for it supposes an act of the will preceding the first act in the whole train, directing and determining the rest; or a free act of the will before the first free act of the will: or else we must come at last to an act of the will determining the consequent acts, wherein the will is not self-determined, and so is not a free act, in this notion of freedom." (p. 43.)