Part 6

"But yet there may be will and endeavour against future acts of the will, or volitions that are likely to take place, as viewed at a distance. It is no contradiction, to suppose that the acts of the will at one time may be against the act of the will at another time; and there may be desires and endeavours to prevent or excite future acts of the will; but such desires and endeavours are in many cases rendered insufficient and vain through fixedness of habit: when the occasion returns, the strength of habit overcomes and baffles all such opposition." (p. 37.)

Let us take the instance of the drunkard. The choice or volition to drink is the fixed correlation of his disposition and the strong drink. But we may suppose that his disposition can be affected by other objects likewise: as the consideration of the interest and happiness of his wife and children, and his own respectability and final happiness. When his cups are removed, and he has an occasional fit of satiety and loathing, these considerations may awaken at the time the sense of the most agreeable, and lead him to avoid the occasions of drunkenness, and to form resolutions of amendment; but when the appetite and longing for drink returns, and he comes again in the way of indulgence, then these considerations, brought fairly into collision with his habits, are overcome, and drinking, as the most agreeable, asserts its supremacy.

"But it may be comparatively easy to make an alteration with respect to such future acts as are only occasional and transient; because the occasional or transient cause, if foreseen, may often easily be prevented or avoided." (ibid.)

In the case of occasional drunkenness, for instance, the habitual correlation is not of mind and strong drink, but of mind and considerations of honour, prudence, and virtue. But strong drink being associated on some occasion with objects which are correlated to the mind, as hospitality, friendship, or festive celebrations,--may obtain the mastery; and in this case, the individual being under no temptation from strong drink in itself considered, and being really affected with the sense of the most agreeable in relation to objects which are opposed to drunkenness, may take care that strong drink shall not come again into circumstances to give it an adventitious advantage. The repetition of occasional drunkenness would of course by and by produce a change in the sensitivity, and establish an habitual liking for drink. "On this account, the moral inability that attends fixed habits, especially obtains the name of inability. And then, as the will may remotely and indirectly resist itself, and do it in vain, in the case of strong habits; so reason may resist present acts of the will, and its resistance be insufficient: and this is more commonly the case, also, when the acts arise from strong habit." (ibid.)

In every act of the will, the will at the moment is unable to act otherwise; it is in the strictest sense true, that a man, at the moment of his acting, must act as he does act; but as we usually characterize men by the habitual state of their minds, we more especially speak of moral inability in relation to acts which are known to have no correlation to this habitual state. This habitual state of the mind, if it be opposed to reason, overcomes reason; for nothing, not even reason itself, can be the strongest motive, unless it produce the sense of the most agreeable; and this it cannot do, where the habitual disposition or sensitivity is opposed to it.

Common usage with respect to the phrase want of power or inability to act in a certain way.

"But it must be observed concerning moral inability, in each kind of it, that the word inability is used in a sense very diverse from its original import. The word signifies only a natural inability, in the proper use of it; and is applied to such cases only wherein a present will or inclination to the thing, with respect to which a person is said to be unable, is supposable. It cannot be truly said, according to the ordinary use of language, that a malicious man, let him be never so malicious, cannot hold his hand from striking, or that he is not able to show his neighbour a kindness; or that a drunkard, let his appetite be never so strong, cannot keep the cup from his mouth. In the strictest propriety of speech, a man has a thing in his power if he has it in his choice or at his election; and a man cannot be truly said to be unable to do a thing, when he can do it if he will." (ibid.)

Men, in the common use of language, and in the expression of their common and generally received sentiments, affirm that an individual has any thing in his power when it can be controlled by volition. Their connexion of power does not arise from the connexion of volition with its cause, but from the conception of volition as itself a cause with its effects. Thus the hand of a malicious man when moved to strike, having for its antecedent a volition; and if withheld from striking, having for its antecedent likewise a volition; according to the common usage of language, he, as the subject of volition, has the power to strike or not to strike. Now as it is "improperly said that he cannot perform those external voluntary actions which depend on the will, it is in some respects more improperly said, that he is unable to exert the acts of the will themselves; because it is more evidently false, with respect to these, that he cannot if he will; for to say so is a downright contradiction; it is to say he cannot will if he does will: and, in this case, not only is it true that it is easy for a man to do the thing if he will, but the very willing is the doing." (ibid.)

It is improper, according to this, to say that a man cannot do a thing, when nothing is wanting but an act of volition; for that is within our power, as far as it can be within our power, which is within the reach of our volition.

It is still more improper to say that a man is unable to exert the acts of the will themselves, or unable to produce volitions. To say that a man has power to produce volitions, would imply that he has power to will volitions; but this would make one volition the cause of another, which is absurd. But, as it is absurd to represent the will as the cause of its own volitions, and of course to say that the man has ability to produce his volitions, it must be absurd likewise to represent the man as unable, in any particular case, to produce volitions, for this would imply that in other cases he is able. Nay, the very language is self-contradictory. If a man produce volitions, he must produce them by volitions; and if in any case he is affirmed to be unable to produce volitions; then this inability must arise from a want of connexion between the volition by which the required volition is aimed to be produced, and the required volition itself. So that to affirm that he is unable to will is equivalent to saying, that he cannot will if he will--a proposition which grants the very point it assumes to deny. "The very willing is the doing," which is required.

Edwards adopts what he calls the "original" and "proper," meaning of power, and ability, as applied to human agents, and appearing, "in the ordinary use of language," as the legitimate and true meaning. In this use, power, as we have seen, relates only to the connexion of volition with its consequents, and not to its connexion with its antecedents or motives. Hence, in reference to the human agent, "to ascribe a non-performance to the want of power or ability," or to the want of motives, (for this is plainly his meaning,) "is not just," "because the thing wanting," that is, immediately wanting, and wanting so far as the agent himself can be the subject of remark in respect of it, "is not a being able," that is, a having the requisite motives, or the moral ability, "but a being willing, or the act of volition, itself. To the act of volition, or the fact of 'being willing,'" there is no facility of mind or capacity of nature wanting, but only a disposition or state of mind adapted to the act; but with this, the individual can have no concern in reference to his action, because he has all the ability which can be predicated of him legitimately, when he can do the act, if he will to do it. It is evident that there may be an utter moral inability to do a thing--that is the motive may be wanting which causes the volition, which is the immediate antecedent of the thing to be done; but still if it is true that there is such a connexion between the volition and the thing to be done, that the moment the volition takes place the thing is done; then, according to Edwards, the man may be affirmed to be able to do it with the only ability that can be affirmed of him.

We can exert power only by exerting will, that is by putting forth volitions by choosing; of course we cannot exert power over those motives which are themselves the causes of our volitions. We are not unable to do anything in the proper and original and legitimate use of the word when, for the want of motive, we are not the subjects of the volition required as the immediate antecedent of the thing to be done; but we are unable in this use when, although the volition be made; still, through some impediment, the thing is not done. We are conscious of power, or of the want of power only in the connexion between our actual volitions and their objects.

"Sec. V. Concerning the Notion of Liberty, and of moral Agency."

What is liberty? "The plain and obvious meaning of the words freedom and liberty, in common speech, is power, opportunity, or advantage that any one has to do as he pleases. Or, in other words, his being free from hinderance, or impediment in the way of doing, or conducting in any way as he wills. And the contrary to liberty, whatever name we call it by, is a person's being hindered or unable to conduct as he will, or being, necessitated to do otherwise." (p. 38.) Again, "That power and opportunity for one to do and conduct as he will, or according to his choice, is all that is meant by it; without taking into the meaning of the word, anything of the cause of that choice, or at all considering how the person came to have such a volition; whether it was caused by some external motive, or internal habitual bias; whether it was determined by some internal antecedent volition, or whether it happened without a cause; whether it was necessarily connected with something foregoing, or not connected. Let the person come by his choice any how, yet if he is able, and there is nothing in the way to hinder his pursuing and executing his will, the man is perfectly free, according to the primary and common notion of freedom." (p. 39.)

This is Edwards's definition of liberty, and he has given it with a clearness, a precision, and, at the same time, an amplification, which renders it impossible to mistake his meaning.

Liberty has nothing to do with the connexion between volition and its cause or motive. Liberty relates solely to the connexion between the volition and its objects. He is free in the only true and proper sense, who, when he wills, finds no impediment between the volition and the object, who wills and it is done. He wills to walk, and his legs obey: he wills to talk, and his intellect and tongue obey, and frame and express sentences. If his legs were bound, he would not be free. If his tongue were tied with a thong, or his mouth gagged, he would not be free; or if his intellect were paralysed or disordered, he would not be free. If there should be anything preventing the volition from taking effect, he would not be free.

Of what can the attribute of Liberty be affirmed?

From the definition thus given Edwards remarks, "It will follow, that in propriety of speech, neither liberty, nor its contrary, can properly be ascribed to any being or thing, but that which has such a faculty, power, or property, as is called will. For that which is possessed of no will, cannot have any power or opportunity of doing according to its will, nor be necessitated to act contrary to its will, nor be restrained from acting agreeable to it. And therefore to talk of liberty, or the contrary, as belonging to the very will itself, is not to speak good sense; for the will itself, is not an agent that has a will. The power of choosing itself, has not a power of choosing. That which has the power of volition is the man, or the soul, and not the power of volition itself. And he that has the liberty, is the agent who is possessed of the will; and not the will which he is possessed of." (p. 38.)

Liberty is the attribute of the agent, because the agent is the spiritual essence or being who is the subject of the power or capacity of choice, and his liberty consists as we have seen in the unimpeded connexion between the volitions produced in him and the objects of those volitions. Hence, free will is an objectionable phrase. Free agent is the proper phrase, that is, an agent having the power of choice and whose choice reaches effects.

Moral Agent.

"A moral agent is a being that is capable of those actions that have a moral quality, and which can properly be denominated good or evil in a moral sense, virtuous or vicious, commendable or faulty." (p. 39.)

In what lies the capability of actions having a moral quality?

"To moral agency belongs a moral faculty, or sense of moral good and evil, or of such a thing as desert or worthiness, of praise or blame, reward or punishment; and a capacity which an agent has of being influenced in his actions by moral inducements or motives, exhibited to the view of the understanding or reason, to engage to a conduct agreeable to moral faculty." (p. 40.)

A moral agent is a being who can perform moral actions, or actions which are subject to praise or blame. Now the same action may be committed by a man or by a brute--and the man alone will be guilty: why is the man guilty? Because he has a moral sense or perception by which he distinguishes right and wrong: the brute has no such sense or perception. The man having thus the power of perceiving the right and wrong of actions--actions and their moral qualities may be so correlated to him as to produce the sense of the most agreeable or choice. Or, we may say generally, moral agency consists in the possession of a reason and conscience to distinguish right and wrong, and the capacity of having the right and wrong so correlated to the mind as to form motives and produce volitions. We might define a man of taste in the fine arts in a similar way; thus,--a man of taste is an agent who has the power of distinguishing beauty and ugliness, and whose mind is so correlated to beauty that the sense of the most agreeable or choice is produced. The only difference between the two cases is this: that, in the latter, the sense of the most agreeable is always produced by the beauty perceived; while in the former, the right perceived does not always produce this sense; on the contrary, the sense of the most agreeable is often produced by the wrong, in opposition to the decisions of reason and conscience.

I have now completed the statement of Edwards's system, nearly in his own words, as contained in part I. of his work. The remarks and explanations which have been thrown in, I hope will serve to make him more perfectly understood. This end will be still more fully attained by presenting on the basis of the foregoing investigation and statement, a compend of his psychological system, independently of the order there pursued, and without largely introducing quotations, which have already been abundantly made.

COMPEND OF EDWARDS'S PSYCHOLOGICAL SYSTEM.

I. There are two cardinal faculties of the mind. 1. The intellectual--called reason or understanding. 2. The active and feeling--called will or affections.

II. The relation of these to each other. The first precedes the second in the order of exercise. The first perceives and knows objects in their qualities, circumstances, and relations. The second experiences emotions and passions, or desires and choices, in relation to the objects perceived.