Albert J. Leffingwell

“ Others make both free-will and necessity utterly unfathomable mysteries, and then choose between them. Sir William Hamilton, while admitting that freedom of the will is "wholly incomprehensible"; that we "can not conceive a free volition"; that we are "utterly unable speculatively to understand how moral liberty is possible to man or God"—insists, nevertheless, that the doctrine of necessity is equally unthinkable, because we can not conceive an infinite regression of causes to all eternity; and then finds in "our consciousness of an uncompromising law of duty" a decisive proof of free-will. ”

“ Here is a little image of what you will be in hell, except you repent and fly to Christ.—Sermon X. Do but consider what it is to suffer extreme torment for ever and ever; to suffer it night and day, from one day to another, from one year to another, from one age to another; in pain, in wailing and lamenting, groaning and shrieking and gnashing your teeth; with your bodies and every member full of racking torture ”

“ How dismal will it be under these racking torments to know that you never, never shall be delivered from them; to have no hope; when after you have worn out the age of the sun, moon, and stars, without any rest day or night, or one minute's ease, yet you shall have no hope of ever being delivered; you shall know you are not one whit nearer the end of your torments; but the same groans, the same shrieks, the same doleful cries are incessantly to be made by you, and the smoke of your torment shall ascend up for ever and ever ”

“ This is certainly to claim for consciousness of duty, as a witness, a superior function to that which it fills as an agent; for if it has proved again and again an unreliable guide to conduct—leading Calvin to burn Servetus, the Inquisition to torture heretics, and the Puritans to hang witches and Quakers—it is not easy to see why so imperfect a guide to action should be of such supreme value as a testimony to freedom of action. ”

“ Of eternal fires, which serve at once to torture the skeptic and heighten the felicity of the saint, it knows nothing; the belief in them belongs rather to those cherished mysteries of faith which lie far beyond its scope. In that functional activity we call mind, it recognizes no power to originate uncaused volition. The universe is subject to law. Nothing ever happens or comes to pass without a cause. The cause determines the event, so that it could not be otherwise. What determines volition? Motives. The will is always determined by the strongest motive. ”

“ If we define the will as that "by which the mind chooses anything," and an act of the will as an act of choosing or choice between two or more courses of conduct, or between action and inaction, it is evident that by far the greater portion of our acts occur without conscious exercise of this faculty. Walking along a muddy street, engaged in deep thought or earnest conversation with a friend, one picks his way, but consciously does not determine where at each step his foot is to be placed. We laugh when amused ”

“ In the spider springing upon the entangled fly, the cat playing with its victim before tearing it to pieces, in the teeth of the shark, the fangs of the rattlesnake, the poisonous slaver of the rabid dog; in the deposition of tubercle, the slow growth of cancer, the ravages of syphilis upon innocent childhood, we get glimpses of the great mystery of Evil, separate from human will, where we pity but never condemn. ”

“ These all chose what to them seemed most desirable; for, beyond torture and death, they seemed to see the martyr's crown, the eternal reward. Not less on these supreme occasions than in the most ordinary affairs of daily life, choice is determined by the apparent desirableness of things. ”

“ I propose, therefore, to go directly upon the ground assumed as their own by the advocates of free-will, and rest the proof of causation upon the uniform testimony of consciousness. It seems to me that the evidence in favor of the scientific view is so cumulative and convincing that a reasonable being, capable of comprehending the problem, and unbiased by dogma, could, after its consideration, more easily assert his intangibility than his liberty of volition. ”

“ We speak of ourselves as acting "from the impulse of the moment," from habit, or "as we always do under such circumstances." Let any one, for instance, review in his mind the events of yesterday, from the first moment of awakened consciousness until he sank into slumber at night, and remember, if he can, before how many of the ten thousand actions which constituted his daily life he paused to choose. ”

“ So long as this remains the orthodox view of the fate reserved for a majority of the human race, so long as to doubt the reality of such a Deity is to incur the suspicion of atheism, it will be difficult for men to yield the intellectual figment of "free-will" for the logic of necessity. True, the doctrine of predestination, which teaches that "by the decree of God, and for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestined unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death," still stands in many a creed; but most men do not suspect its existence ”

“ And if, perchance, some day the world should learn to discriminate in the sphere of human action between the deed and doer; if, acknowledging necessity, it should come to have a larger and more comprehensive charity for all mankind, will it have strayed very far from the example and precepts of the world's great Teacher? ”

“ But, omitting the petty experiences of our every-day life, let us test the proposition by reference to the highest occasions of choice possible to man. Life is sweet, and yet how poor would be the records of heroism did they not tell us of men who, for the sake of great and noble ends, preferred death! ”

“ Otherwise unable to reconcile eternal torture with an ideal of divine justice, probably the faith of ninety-nine out of every hundred persons is that each human being possesses a perfect liberty of choice, and undetermined volition. ”

“ Nor, finally, will belief in the conformity of will to law hinder our approval and admiration of great and good deeds. The highest and noblest action results never from conscious choice, but springs unconsciously from the force of noble character—"instinctively," as we sometimes say. Of Cato, it was said that he was good because he could not be otherwise. So far from lessening the excellence of conduct that noble motives act always with irresistible force upon great men, that is the chief reason for honoring them, because they at least could not act ignobly. ”

“ Mind, I do not say the thing chosen is really desirable; perhaps the only courses open are all very undesirable, terrible, full of painful consequences, and the confused mind may pass from one to another with a hesitating tremulousness of indecision—obliged, however, ultimately to make a choice. Put yourself to any fair test, and see if you can possibly choose that which you prefer least to choose. Pain is exceedingly undesirable, is it not? ”

“ The reason is not far to seek: it lies in the teaching of theology regarding man's future state. We instinctively feel that, if upon the nature of our actions depends the awful fate of unending happiness or misery in another existence, justice to the creature demands that his liberty be undetermined in any way by the Creator. Now, theology for the past eighteen centuries has taught, as it yet teaches, this doctrine of eternal punishment. ”

“ Since by these facts of organization, education, religious training, social position, etc., independent of our wish or will, are determined for us the view s we invariably take of the apparent desirableness of all objects or actions—since upon this apparent desirableness the choice of conduct of mankind invariably depends—it follows that the human will is as subject to the law of causation as the movements of the planets or the flight of an insect in the air. ”

“ Theology, fearful, on the one hand, of rendering Deity the cause of evil, and, on the other, of limiting his due share in the government of the universe, usually teaches that necessity and free-will are alike true, though not to be reconciled ”

“ Sir Philip Sidney, mortally wounded, taking from his parched lips the water brought him, that a poor soldier, who looked longingly with dying eyes at the cup, might first drink; the martyrs who have chosen to suffer ignominy and death that we might have freedom of thought and speech—these are types of men humanity will ever honor ”

“ The Jesuit among the Hurons could choose a daily martyrdom that, now and then, he might touch a dying papoose with holy water and snatch its little soul from eternal fires; can we imagine a Universalist clergyman so suffering for such results? How largely also are our notions of right and wrong determined for us by early parental training! ”

“ These are only a few out of the infinite number of circumstances, beyond individual control, which decide what shall be the views we take of the qualities of things and the desirableness of action. They mold character; they shape opinions; they make the man what he is. ”

“ The fact is, goodness is essentially beautiful, and in the slow progress of mankind upward, from savagery to the ultimate civilization yet to be, can not fail to command admiration. Evil is hateful, independently of its relations to ethics, and its awful realm extends far beyond the area of human action. ”

“ Both views of Sunday are merely results of religious education at a period when the mind is peculiarly receptive, and when no one claims that a child should decide as to the correctness of the opinions taught. ”

“ But let us suppose that mankind should some day admit the proposition that moral responsibility, in the theological sense, does not exist; that the will is determined by the strongest motive: what fearful results would ensue! Would punishment cease to follow crime? On the contrary, its use would never be more logical. If the stronger motive has led an individual to transgress the rights of society, then society must punish for three reasons: 1. ”

“ Or the decision may be due to occasion and other surrounding circumstances attending the moment of choice. There is a profound significance in the petition, "Lead us not into temptation." Many a woman walks our streets wrecked, from the fortuitous conjunction of opportunity, temptation, and desire, whose virtue would never have yielded to either alone. What an immense influence is exerted upon men's desires by their religious belief! ”

“ But, if this be granted, it immediately becomes evident that one's views of what is desirable arise from an infinite variety of coincident circumstances with which the individual concerned had no more to do than with the shape of his skull or the color of his skin. That no two persons have exactly the same preferences or tastes, or would choose alike on every occasion, is a truism. ”

“ You have often seen a spider when thrown into the midst of a fierce fire; and have observed how immediately it yields to the force of the flames, and the fire takes possession of it, and at once it becomes full of fire, and is burned into a bright coal. ”

“ That society may be protected from a dangerous man. These reasons are all consistent with the doctrine of necessity; what others would the advocates of uncaused volition add? To assert that punishment should only be inflicted where "moral responsibility" exists, is either to confer it upon our domestic animals, or else to deny the justice of our every-day action regarding them. A child throws stones at strangers passing by ”

“ History does not record for us instances of greater self-abnegation, of more intense eagerness to suffer and to die for others, than those of the Jesuit missionaries who labored among the Indians of this country two centuries ago. ”

“ But this is a point which we are all able to investigate for ourselves. Indeed, the peculiar advantage of metaphysical study is the opportunity universally possessed of testing theory by observation, in watching the operations of our own minds. ”

“ Hunger and poverty meet a thousand temptations that never assail full stomachs and well-clothed bodies. Victor Hugo says that English statistics prove four robberies out of five to have hunger for their immediate cause. Or the state of the health may influence men's views of the desirableness of, things. ”

“ The social condition of men has a great influence in this respect. I do not suppose the Prince of Wales ever perceived the desirableness of snatching a loaf from a baker's cart; but many a starving London tramp has felt it. ”

“ A drunkard's children are often endowed with a craving for stimulants, that sooner or later brings them to drunkards' graves. One man possesses fierce and strong animal propensities; another is never tempted by vicious allurements. ”

“ Of the effect of impaired vitality in vitiating desires, every physician is aware. Many of us, offered a glass of wine, could accept it without the remotest danger of thereby becoming drunkards; but others, men like Mr. ”