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Updated: September 25, 2025
The inward persuasion that we are free to do, or not to do a thing, is but a mere illusion. If we trace the true principle of our actions, we shall find, that they are always necessary consequences of our volitions and desires, which are never in our power. You think yourself free, because you do what you will; but are you free to will, or not to will; to desire, or not to desire?
In this way we shall have a strong, well-knit soul-texture, made up of volitions and ideas like warp and woof. Mind and will will be so compactly organized that all their forces can be brought to a single point. Each concept or purpose will call up those related to it, and once strongly set toward its object, the soul will find itself borne along by unexpected forces.
By admitting that 'human volitions take place as inevitable effects of antecedent causes, that they must be such, and cannot be other than such, as antecedent causes make them, I have admitted that the will, though independent of law, is absolutely subject to, and must implicitly obey, causes. Freewill, then, must be shown to be compatible not with foreknowledge only, but with necessity also.
All the preceding circumstances of the catenations of animal motions will be more clearly understood by the following example of a person learning music; and when we recollect the variety of mechanic arts, which are performed by associated trains of muscular actions catenated with the effects they produce, as in knitting, netting, weaving; and the greater variety of associated trains of ideas caused or catenated by volitions or sensations, as in our hourly modes of reasoning, or imagining, or recollecting, we shall gain some idea of the innumerable catenated trains and circles of action, which form the tenor of our lives, and which began, and will only cease entirely with them.
The scheme of necessity denies the reality of moral distinctions. For, if all things in the world, the acts of the will not excepted, be produced by an extraneous agency, it seems clear that it is absurd to attach praise or blame to men on account of their volitions. Nothing appears more self-evident than the position, that whatever is thus produced in us can neither be our virtue nor our vice.
After we have acquired our height and solidity we make no more new parts, and the system obeys the irritations, sensations, volitions; and associations, with, less and less energy, till the whole sinks into inaction. Three causes may conspire to render our nerves less excitable, which have been already mentioned, 1.
Is it not the merest mockery to assure them that they really have hearts, and wills, and feelings, if they “must go wrong,” if they must put forth the volitions for which they shall be tormented forever? Upon this distinction we shall not dwell, as we have fully considered it in our “Examination of Edwards on the Will.” We shall merely add, that it is not an invention of modern times.
From these two mental conditions must spring a character, distinguished alike by piety towards God, and by high integrity, benevolence, and active usefulness towards man. He who earnestly cultivates this purity within, feels that he requires continual watchfulness, and a constant direction of the mind to those truths and moral causes which are calculated to influence his volitions.
Herein lies the explanation of that paradox in religious feeling which attributes sin to the free will, but repentance and every good work to divine grace. Physically considered as theology must consider the matter both acts and both volitions are equally necessary and involved in the universal order; but practical religion calls divine only what makes for the good.
This eternal Being is also immutable, if by this attribute be understood that he cannot change his nature; but if it be intended to infer by it that he cannot change his mode of action or existence, it is without doubt deceiving themselves, since even in supposing an immaterial being, they would be obliged to acknowledge in him different modes of being, different volitions, different ways of acting; particularly if he was not supposed totally deprived of action, in which case he would be perfectly useless.
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