gation laid upon man, he must have power to discharge it. Man would be a monster if he were not free; for he would be, on the one hand, bound to obey a law, and, on the other hand, without power to obey it freely. We may, therefore, according to the rules of the severest logic, reason in this way-Man is under obligation, therefore he is free." (Cousin, Sur le Beau, &c., prem. édit. p. 328.)

“That no man can be under a moral obligation to do what it is impossible for him to do, or to forbear what it is impossible for him to forbear," said Dr. Reid, "is an axiom as self-evident as any in mathematics. It cannot be contradicted without overturning all moral obligation; nor can there be any exception to it when it is rightly understood."

"If the things which move the will are not in our power," says Cicero (De Fato, cap. 17), " then neither our actions nor our volitions are free-then there is no room for praise or blame, for reward or punishment." But as this conclusion is faulty, it follows that we are free, and things do not follow by necessity or fate.

The strength of this argument is candidly admitted by some of the advocates of Necessity. Lord Kames has said (Essays on Mor. and Nat. Rel., p. 195), "That the difficulty which this argument presents is great, and never has been surmounted by the advocates for Necessity."

The argument appears the more clear and strong, the more carefully the elements of our moral nature are examined. The fact that a power has been given to us by which we distinguish between Right and Wrong implies that we have liberty to use it. The same thing is implied in the sense of obligation which accompanies the perception of the distinction between Right and Wrong. The feelings of approbation and disapprobation which we experience in our mindsthe sentiments of praise and blame with which we contemplate the character and conduct of our fellow-men-and the ideas of merit and demerit, reward and punishment, which we cannot help entertaining in reference to ourselves and others,-all proceed upon the fact that man has been endowed with some measure of active power and freedom in the use of it.

"If we adopt the system of necessity," said Dr. Reid, "the terms moral obligation and accountableness, praise and blame, merit and demerit, justice and injustice, reward and punishment, wisdom and folly, virtue and vice, ought to be disused, or to have new meanings given to them, when they are used in religion, in morals, or in civil

government; for upon that system, there can be no such things as they have been always used to signify.” (See Hamilton's Reid, note, p. 417.)

IV. Human law and government proceed upon the fact that man is a free agent.

Man, as possessing a moral nature, is liable to be called to account by his Maker and by his own mind. But he is also liable to be called to account by the laws and government of civil society; and this liability rests on the ground of his being a free agent.3 Man is not only a law to himself, but makes laws for others. Proceeding on the difference between right and wrong, and also on the fact that some actions are beneficial and others hurtful in their consequences, man has made arrangements by which, in so far as his power extends, actions reckoned good are encouraged and protected, while actions reckoned evil are condemned and punished. The same actions may not everywhere have been characterized in the same way. But wherever law and government have been recognized, some things have been prohibited and punished, while other things have been allowed. This, it is argued, proceeds upon the fact that men are free agents-that they believe themselves and others to possess a power to do or not to do-to do this or to do that to avoid what is prohibited, and to perform what is enjoined. If all human actions are necessary, and cannot be otherwise than they are, then, all attempts to regulate and restrain them would be useless, and law and government would give place to the stern dominion of an unalterable destiny. Yet from the beginning of the world to the present hour, men have acted on the belief that they can regulate their own individual conduct, and have endeavoured to regulate the conduct of one another by law and government. The different results which have flowed from different schemes of human policy, show that the human character is not the fixed and unvarying product of necessity, but the result of knowledge and of free choice, and that when

3" All political discussion, whether speculative or practical, constantly assumes that man is a self-moving agent, that he determines his own will, that he has the power of choosing or rejecting any given course of conduct, and that he is responsible for his own acts.

All the proceedings of a government rest upon the same assumption."-CORNEWALL LEWIS,

On Politics, ch. 23, sect. 10.-" If nothing be in our power, then our laws are superfluous; but every nation useth some laws naturally, as knowing that they have power to do such things as their laws enjoin."-NEMESIUS, De Natura Hominis. Englished by Geo. Wither, ch. 39, 12mo.. Lond. 1636.

full scope is given to the rational and responsible nature of man, he rises to the true dignity of his being, and rejoices in the liberty wherewith his Creator made him free.

It has also been argued―

V. That the whole business of human life proceeds on the fact that men are free agents.

But as this argument and some others of a like kind have been urged, in terms not widely different, on both sides of the question, it is unnecessary to dwell on them.

CHAPTER X.

ARGUMENTS FOR NECESSITY.

By the advocates of Necessity it is argued―

I. That Liberty, as implying a self-determining power, is inconceivable and absurd.

Liberty," say the Necessitarians, "consists only in a power to act as we will; and it is impossible to conceive in any being a greater liberty than this. Hence, it follows that liberty does not extend to the determinations of the will, but only to the actions consequent to its determinations, and depending upon the will. To say that we have power to will such an action, is to say that we may will it if we will. This supposes the will to be determined by a prior will; and for the same reason, that will must be determined by a will prior to it, and so on in an infinite series of wills, which is absurd. To act freely, therefore, can mean nothing more than to act voluntarily; and this is all the Liberty that can be conceived in man or in any being."

According to this reasoning, Liberty can be predicated only of the actions done in consequence of volitions, and does not extend to the volitions themselves. A free agent is, therefore, defined by Hobbes to be, "he that can do if he will, and forbear if he will." And this definition has been adopted1 by Leibnitz, Collins, Edwards

1 "It is carefully to be remembered," says Mr. Locke (On Hum. Understand.,

b. ii. ch. 21, § 25), "that freedom consists in the dependence of the existence or non

(Inquiry, pt. i. sect. 5), and the later Necessitarians in general. Any other idea of Liberty is pronounced to be-1. Inconceivable; and 2. Absurd or self-contradictory.

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1. Liberty, as denoting a power to act as we will," is not the only nor the true and adequate sense of the term. Dr. Reid has mentioned three distinct senses in which it is common to use it. (Act. Pow., Essay iv. ch. 1.) 1. Physical Liberty-When we are free from bodily confinement or force, and have " power to act as we will." 2. Legal Liberty-When we are not restrained by the authority of law. 3. Moral Liberty - When we are free from necessity, and determine to act in one way or in a different way.

Now, Hobbes and the Necessitarians identify physical liberty with moral liberty, and maintain that when man is free from bodily confinement or force, and has “power to act as he will," he has all the freedom that can be conceived of in man or in any being. But he who is under no physical impediment to act may be under the restraints of law, or he may be determined to act by something involuntary in the state of his own mind, and so may not be free. Thus a man is physically free to fire off a loaded pistol when the pistol is ready in his hand, the muscles of which will draw the trigger in obedience to his volition. But if the contents of the pistol are to be discharged into the bosom of a fellow-creature, he is not legally free to do so; for the law prohibits the taking away the life of another without reason. Should the man be told, however, that unless he takes away the life of another that other will take away his life, then the prohibition of the law is removed; but the man is not morally free, he has no room for choice, and the determination of his will is the necessary consequence of his external circumstances. So that moral freedom implies freedom not only from physical force, but also from legal restraint, and from everything which takes from the agent power to determine on any one of two or more ways of acting.

Such, it is contended by Libertarians, is the true and adequate notion of Liberty, in accordance with which we estimate the character and conduct of moral agents. We praise them highly when they resist strong temptations; but we do not blame them highly

existence of any action upon our volition of it, not on our preference. He that is a prisoner in a room twenty feet square, being at the north side, is at liberty to walk twenty feet southward, because he

can walk or not walk: but is not at liberty to walk twenty feet northward." This is a definition, says Mr. Solly, which might be expected from a philosophical turn. key.

We con

when they fall under trials which are unusually severe. demn the man who tells a deliberate falsehood for a paltry bribe; but we are not so stern in condemning him who reveals a secret to save his life. Why? Because in the one case the man was not assailed by anything which impaired his full freedom of choice; but in the other case the man was so assailed. Constituted as human nature is, a paltry bribe can be easily weighed against the duty of speaking the truth; but the torture of the rack and the fear of death are such violent motives that they may unhinge the mind and impair the exercise of free choice. Therefore it is, that in estimating moral conduct, we take into account the whole circumstances of the case, and see, not only whether the agent is free from bodily impediment and legal restraint, but also from anything or everything that can impair the full exercise of free choice; for liberty would be but a mockery, if, while he was not restrained by the hand of force or the voice of law, the actions of a moral agent should be the necessary consequence of something involuntary in the state of his mind, or of something in his external circumstances.

"Whether this notion of moral liberty be conceivable or not," said Dr. Reid (Act. Pow., Essay iv. ch. 2), "every man must judge for himself. To me there appears no difficulty in conceiving it. I consider the determination of the will as an effect. This effect must have a cause which had power to produce it; and the cause must be either the person himself, whose will it is, or some other being. The first is as easily conceived as the last. If the person was the cause of that determination of his own will, he was free in that action, and it is justly imputed to him, whether it be good or bad. But if another being was the cause of this determination, either by producing it immediately, or by means and instruments under his direction, then the determination is the act and deed of that being, and is solely imputable to him."

In this passage Dr. Reid, like some other advocates of Liberty, has placed the power of determining, not in the Will as a faculty, but in the person as a moral agent. And, that a moral agent should possess such a power, he thought was easily conceivable. He accepted as valid the reasoning of Dr. Samuel Clarke (Demonst. of the Being, &c., prop. ix. and x.), to prove that the Deity is a free agent himself, and that no contradiction is implied in supposing free agency communicated to His creatures. "If he is pleased to communicate to the work of his hands some degree of his wisdom, no reason can