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11. Now let us consider for a moment the nature of some of those metaphysical assertions that have been put forward under the infallible attestation of consciousness. It is to be seen whether they are contained within the very narrow limit, where consciousness, immediate and direct, is really infallible, or, I should rather say, final. The existence of an External Material world independent of the percipient mind is one of those doctrines; but does this doctrine confine itself to what my consciousness infallibly assures me of, namely, a certain series of feelings-sensations, ideas, emotions, volitions? Certainly not. There is a manifest extension of the actual consciousness beyond what it can possibly reveal. There may be good grounds for believing the doctrine, as there are for believing many things that pass beyond immediate and infallible intuition, but it cannot be correct to say that consciousness, pure and simple, is the foundation of the belief. It is not within the sphere of any immediate cognition of mine, that some unknown cause is the necessary antecedent of my sensations, which cause persists when I am no longer affected by it. The persistence of the supposed agency is an assumption beyond the present consciousness, very natural as human beings are constituted, but very fallible, as we know from other things. Innate Moral distinctions are also said to receive the attestation of an unerring consciousness. It cannot require much reflection to show how far such a doctrine steps beyond any single immediate cognition. That I feel at any one moment a sentiment of the kind called 'moral disapprobation,' may be true enough. It is quite another thing to maintain, that there is revealed to me at that moment the mode whereby I became possessed of the sentiment. It is like saying that a New Zealander touring in the British Isles sees that we are an aboriginal population. We do not doubt that a characteristic impression is produced upon the mind of a traveller in Britain, and that he is conscious and convinced of the difference between it and the impression of another country; but it wants much more than observation to shape historical theories.

12. To return to the case of Freedom. A man may well be conscious of the concurrence, or immediate sequence, of a pleasurable sensation and an action, of a painful sensation and another action, and so on, through the whole sphere of volition. If he confines himself to one instant, or to a short interval of time, and relates exactly the experience of that interval, we give him credit for being upon very sure ground. Yet in this simple operation, there are already two different openings for mistake. His expression, even in that small matter, may not succeed in representing the truth, and he may be unconscientious, and have a motive for deceiving us. How then, when he goes to assemble his past experiences, and generalize them into a theory of the Will? For, say what we may, the doctrines of Freedom and Necessity are generalized theories, affirming a character common to all the volitions of all men. Granting an entire infallibility to the consciousness of a single mental act, it is too much to select one especially difficult generalization, as infallibly conducted by the human mind, which we know to be constantly blundering in the easiest generalizations. The notion of Freedom, for example, is not an intuition, any more than the notion of the double decomposition of salts. There is a collection of remembered volitions, and a comparison drawn between them and one peculiar situation of sentient beings, the situation of being unloosed from an overpowering compulsion from without, as when the dog is loosed from his chain, or the prisoner set at liberty. The theorists that we are supposing compare the whole compass of voluntary acts with this single predicament, and find, as they think, an apposite parallel, under which the will is generalized and summed up for good. But comparison is not an infallible operation of the human intellect. Very far otherwise. Nothing gives us more trouble to obtain and substantiate than a thoroughly suitable comparison, when a great multitude of particular facts of varying hue is concerned. Our existing systems of knowledge have numerous bad comparisons, and these have been probably preceded by still worse. My own judgment, or if you will, my Consciousness, which really means

all the collective energies of my intellect addressed to the study of the mind, tells me that the comparison of Will in general to the special idea of Freedom is especially bad. I will even venture the opinion, that it is an unlikely and farfetched comparison, and does not spontaneously occur to any one's mind. We inherit it as a tradition, which we venerate, and strive to reconcile it with the facts from motives of respect. No doubt if the counter-doctrine of Necessity is dressed up in a repulsive garb, and if we are represented as being in all our actions like the dog chained, or the captive physically confined to a given routine of life, we may readily feel the inappropriateness of that comparison, and repudiate it with some. vehemence, declaring that, on the contrary, we are free. In the sense of denying a hypothesis of compulsion, there may be a momentary suitableness in the term liberty; which does not, however, go to prove that the faculty of the will is fairly resumed, or correctly generalized and represented, by the notion of Liberty. It is a great stretch of asseveration to call the construction of an enormous theory a function, or act, of consciousness, so simple and easy that we cannot make a slip in performing it, being practically and theoretically infallible the while.

13. Moral Agency.—Responsibility.—It is a common phrase to describe human beings as moral and responsible agents. The word 'moral' has here obviously two meanings, the one narrow, as opposed to immoral, the other wider, as opposed to physical. The same ambiguity occurring in the designation Moral Philosophy,' gives to that subject a wide or a contracted scope, according to which of the two meanings is understood; being on one supposition confined to Ethics, or Duty, and on the other comprehending, if not the whole of the human mind, at least the whole of the Emotions and Active Powers. In the large sense, I am a moral agent when I act at the instigation of my own feelings, pleasurable or painful, and the contrary when I am overpowered by force. It is the distinction between mind and the forces of the physical world, such as gravity, heat, magnetism, &c.; and also

between the voluntary and involuntary activities of the animal system. We are not moral agents as regards the action of the heart, the lungs, or the intestines. Every act that follows upon the prompting of a painful or pleasurable state, or the associations of one or other, is a voluntary act, and is all that is meant or can be meant by moral agency. Every animal that pursues an end, following up one object, and avoiding another, comes under the designation. The tiger chasing and devouring his prey, any creature that lives by selecting its food, is a moral agent. It would be well if the same word were not indiscriminately applied to two significations of such different compass; for there can be little doubt that perplexity and confusion of idea have been maintained thereby. Still, nothing can be better established than the recognition of both significations, and we are bound to note the circumstance that the 'moral' which at one time coincides with the ethical,' at other times is co-extensive with the voluntary.'

14. The term 'Responsibility,' is a figurative expression, of the kind called by writers on Rhetoric 'metonymy,' where a thing is named by some of its causes, effects, or adjuncts, as when the crown is put for royalty, the mitre for the episcopacy, &c. Seeing that in every country, where forms of justice have been established, a criminal is allowed to answer the charge made against him before he is punished; this circumstance has been taken up, and used to designate punishment. We shall find it conduce to clearness to put aside the figure, and employ the literal term. Instead, therefore, of responsibility, I shall substitute punishability; for a man can never be said to be responsible, if you are not prepared to punish him when he cannot satisfactorily answer the charges made against him. The one step denoted by responsibility necessarily supposes a previous step, accusability, and a subsequent step, liability to punishment. Any question, therefore, growing out of the term in discussion is a question of accusing, trying, and punishing some one or more individual beings.

The debateable point arising here is as to the limits and conditions of the imposition of punishment. There are certain

instances where punishment is allowed to be just and proper, as in the correction of the young, and the enforcing of the law against the generality of criminals. There are other instances where the propriety of punishing is disputed; as in very young infants, the insane, and the physically incapable. There are, however, two very different grounds of objection that may be taken. The first and principal ground is that the action required under menace of punishment is not one within the capability of the individual, not a voluntary action; in other words, no amount of motive can instigate such an action. It may not be within the range of the individual's powers. One may be asked to do a work that surpasses the physical strength under the strongest spur that can be applied; an unskilled workman may be tasked with an undertaking requiring skill; a mechanic skilled in his art may be deprived of his tools, and yet expected to do his work. All these are obvious cases of the inadmissibility of punishment. So, too, a state of mind which cannot comprehend the meaning of an enactment or a penalty—as infancy, idiotcy, insanity, ignorance of the dialect spoken, excuses the individual from punishment.

15. A second ground of objection is, not the impossibility of bringing about the action by a mere motive urging to it, but the very great severity of motive necessary. You may exact from a man something that is barely compassable by him, when urged to the very utmost limit, by the strongest motives that it is possible to provide. You may threaten to take away the life of your slave if he does not exert himself beyond the point of utter exhaustion, and you will probably succeed in getting a little more out of him. The question now is one of justice, expediency, and humanity, and not of metaphysical possibility. Punishment is a thing competent, a thing not nugatory, whenever the act can be induced by mere urgency of motive; nevertheless, there may be great and grave objections, on the score of just and humane principle, to the application of it. Draconian codes and barbarous inflictions may answer their end, they may confine themselves to what men have it in their power to do or refrain from, when