Liberty of will

“ Will is will, and liberty is power. Let us gradually examine the chain of what passes within us, without confusing our minds with any scholastic terms, or antecedent principle.
It is proposed to you to ride on horseback; it is absolutely necessary for you to make a choice, for it is very clear that you must either go or not; there is no medium, you must absolutely do the one or the other. So far it is demonstrated that the will is not free. You will get on horseback; why? Because I will to do so, an ignoramus will say. This reply is an absurdity; nothing can be done without reason or cause. ”

“ The will is the infallible sign and the peculiar power of a real and effective being; for how could he who should be only a mode of another being find in his own borrowed being a power capable of willing and producing acts of which he should feel himself the cause, and the responsible cause?
If the philosophy of sensation, by setting out from passive phenomena, cannot explain true activity, voluntary and free activity, we might regard it as demonstrated that this same philosophy cannot give a true doctrine of morality, for all ethics suppose liberty. ”

“ That is to say, a necessity which cuts off or prevents the external consequence of our choice, is inconsistent with liberty of the will; but that which takes away one choice, and sets up another, is perfectly consistent with it! ”

“ The idea of liberty, as it stands connected with the controversy in question, has reference to the manner in which our volitions come to pass, to the relation which subsists between motives and their corresponding actions. When we say that the will is free, we mean “that it is not necessarily determined by the influence of motives;” we mean to deny the doctrine of moral necessity, or that the relation which subsists between a motive and its corresponding act, is not that which subsists between an efficient cause and its effect. ”

“ The sensibility does not act, it merely suffers. The appetites and passions, which have always been called the “active powers,” the “moving principles,” and so forth, should be called the passive susceptibilities. Unless this truth be clearly and fully recognized, and the commonly received notion respecting the relation which the appetites and passions sustain to the will, to the active power, be discarded, it seems to me, that the great doctrine of the liberty of the will, must continue to be involved in the sadest perplexity, the most distressing darkness. ”

“ Lastly, from the use of the words free will, no liberty can be inferred of the will, desire, or inclination, but the liberty of the man; which consisteth in this, that he finds no stop in doing what he has the will, desire, or inclination to do. ”

“ But, by one escape or another, the will, the soul, goes free. Sooner or later, every human being comes to know and prove in his own estate that freedom of will is the only freedom for which there are no chains possible, and that in Nature's whole reign of law nothing is so largely provided for as liberty. Sooner or later, all this must come. But, if it comes later, it comes through clouds of antagonism, and after days of fight, and is hard-bought. ”

“ It is this union of the will which establishes in perfect peace. Yet, though my own will was lost I have found since, in the strange states I have been obliged to pass through, how much it had yet to cost me to have it totally lost. How many souls are there which think their own wills quite lost, while they are yet very far from it! They would find they still subsist, if they met with severe trials. Who is there who does not wish something for himself, either of interest, wealth, honor, pleasure, conveniency and liberty. ”

“ But what greater truth is there than this, that God has delivered precepts, and that human spirits have freedom of will?‘ Elsewhere he says, ‘Nothing is more within our power than our own will. The will is that by which we commit sin, and by which we live righteously.’ Nothing can be plainer than that the writer of these passages admitted the liberty of the human will, and the necessity of our own exertions in conjunction with divine grace. How this is to be reconciled with his general doctrine, is perhaps indicated in the following passage from his book De Gratiâ et lib. ”

“ Here, it will be seen, that liberty, according to this notion of it, has no relation to the manner in which the will arises, or comes into existence; if one's external conduct can only follow his will, he is free. ”

“ The essential freedom of will is, and must always be, a thought: hence the way by which will can make itself objective mind is to rise to be a thinking will,—to give itself the content which it can only have as it thinks itself.
True liberty, in the shape of moral life, consists in the will finding its purpose in a universal content, not in subjective or selfish interests. ”

“ Is this Liberty, the only liberty of man, a liberty which may be destroyed by chains, bolts, and bars? Is this Liberty as distinguished from Necessity the liberty which lays the foundation of moral obligation?
3. If this is the only sense in which man is free, then dire Necessity reigns throughout the entire domain of human agency. If all acts of Will are the necessary consequents of the influences to which the mind is at the time subjected, much more must a like necessity exist between all acts of Will and their consequents, external and internal. ”

“ But if you choose the liberty and pride and strength of the single soul, and the free fraternization of men, as the purpose which your life is to make manifest then do not sell it for tinsel. Think that your soul is strong and will hold its way; and slowly, through bitter struggle perhaps the strength will grow. And the foregoing of possessions for which others barter the last possibility of freedom will become easy. ”

“ For he says, “I have chosen rather to express myself thus, that the will always is as the greatest apparent good, or as what appears most agreeable, than to say the will is determined by the greatest apparent good, or by what seems most agreeable; because an appearing most agreeable to the mind, and the mind's preferring, seem scarcely distinct.” We have taken the liberty to emphasize his words. ”

“ The question of the liberty of the will is the one which has more than any other cosmic problem occupied the time of thoughtful humanity, the more so that in this case the great philosophic interest of the question was enhanced by the association of most momentous consequences for practical philosophy—for ethics, education, law, and so forth. ”

“ In this case, it would be no more true that he ever acts, than it is true of a ball, that it acts when struck by another ball. To prove that a self-determining power belongs to the will, it is urged that we ourselves are conscious of possessing such liberty. We blame and condemn ourselves for our actions ”

“ In other words, the good wished by the will is necessarily good in so far as it is known by the intellect; and this the more, because in
138 HUMAN LIBERTY.
all voluntary acts choice is subsequent to a judgment upon the truth of the good presented, declaring to which good preference should be given. No sensible man can doubt that judgment is an act of reason, not of the will. The end, or object, both of the rational will and of its liberty is that good only which is in conformity with reason. ”

“ 'and do you know what can give a man liberty?'
'What?'
'Will, his own will, and it gives power, which is better than liberty. ”

“ When I say only himself, I mean directly, and in the first instance: for whatever affects himself, may affect others through himself; and the objection which may be grounded on this contingency, will receive consideration in the sequel. This, then, is the appropriate region of human liberty. ”

“ I believe there is room everywhere for thought, and the more liberty you give away the more you will have. ”

“ The right to make the will confers the privilege coveted by both men and women to speak into the universal ear ‘the last word.’ The sum of man’s moral sense, and his exact ethical tone, is not infrequently concentrated in his last will. ”

“ C. When the free will is the substantial will, made actual in the subject and conformable to its concept and rendered a totality of necessity,—it is the ethics of actual life in family, civil society, and state. ”

“ Now, as on the part of the intellectual apprehension we have intellect and reason, so on the part of the intellectual appetite we have will, and free-will which is nothing else but the power of choice. ”

“ Unfortunately, few of those who champion the freedom of the will think it worth while to trouble their readers with a clear definition of what they mean by it. The orthodox definition of the will as "a faculty of the soul" tells us nothing. ”

“ Throughout the controversy as to free will that has been carried on among English psychologists this is the way in which the question has been commonly dealt with. The freedom, claimed or denied for the will, has been claimed or denied for it irrespectively of those objects willed, on the nature of which the goodness or badness of the will depends. ”

“ I ought'--we have within us a moral judge, to whom we feel ourselves subject, and who points out and requires of us our duty. 'I can'--we are conscious of power to do that which we perceive we ought to do. 'I will'--we determine to exercise that power with a volition which is in itself a step in the execution of that which we will. Here is a beautiful and perfect chain, and the wonder is that, so exquisitely constituted as he is for right-doing, error should be even possible to man. ”

“ We ask, How can the mind be free? and they tell us, When the body may be so! We inquire about an attribute of the spiritual principle within, and they turn us off with an answer respecting an accident of the material principle without! An ignoratio elenchi more flagrant—a mistaking of the question more palpable—it is surely not possible to conceive. Yet this definition of the freedom of the will, though so superficially false, is precisely that which has found the most general acceptance among necessitarians. ”

“ How wonderful it is to do your will! For that is freedom. There is nothing else that ever should be called by freedom's name. Unless you do your will you are not free. And would God leave His Son without what he has chosen for himself? God but ensured that you would never lose your will when He gave you His perfect Answer. Hear It now, that you may be reminded of His Love and learn your will. God would not have His Son made prisoner to what he does not want. He joins with you in willing you be free. And to oppose Him is to make a choice against yourself, and choose that you be bound. ”

“ As, for example, should the Will Almighty Permit the Free-will of particular man To break the meshes of else strangling fate— Which Free-will, fearful of foretold abuse, I have myself from my own son fore-closed From ever possible self-extrication; A terrible responsibility, Not to the conscience to be reconciled Unless opposing almost certain evil Against so slight contingency of good. ”

“ I said, “about conscience, about moral responsibility, about free will. To ninety nine out of a hundred there is no such thing. Only the hundredth has a will that is free, and, for good or evil, he makes slaves of the wills of the ninety and nine. ”

“ We see that certain means must be used, in order to gratify the passion, desire, affection, or feeling, which we intend to gratify; and we act accordingly. In all this, we form our designs or intentions free from all influence whatever: nothing acts upon the will: we fix upon the end, and we choose the means to accomplish it. ”

“ When we proceed to inquire after the characteristics of human volition, we bring in the idea of right and wrong; we look at the relations of the reason and the sensitivity. But when we inquire why the will now obeys reason, and now passion ”

“ The will is, therefore, by the terms of its original definition and by the original feeling which the soul experiences in regard to it, limited in its freedom. The problem resolves itself, therefore, if once we grant the existence of the will, into the question of how much freedom the will has or how far it is limited. Is it, for instance, when we know all the conditions of its activity, entirely limited? Is the freedom of the will an illusion? ”

“ Why, if the will is not distinguished from the affections, we shall have the will acting upon itself; a doctrine to which the necessitarian will not listen for a moment. And if they are distinguished from the will, we shall have two powers of action, two forces in the mind, each contending for the mastery. But what do we mean by a will, if it is not the faculty by which the mind acts, by which it exerts a real force? And if this be the idea and definition of a will, we cannot distinguish the will from the affections, and say that the latter exerts a real force, without making two wills. ”

“ To proceed immediately to concrete examples, cast a glance at the belief in 'free will,' demolished with such specious persuasiveness recently by the skilful hand of Professor Fullerton. [Footnote: Popular Science Monthly, N. Y., vols. lviii and lix.] When a common man says that his will is free, what does he mean? He means that there are situations of bifurcation inside of his life in which two futures seem to him equally possible, for both have their roots equally planted in his present and his past. ”

“ There is no absolute constraint upon our volitions, and we feel and know that we are not bound, as by a spell, with reference to our actions. It would paralyze all desire of excellence were we to think otherwise. The entire business and conduct of life, with its domestic rules, its social arrangements, and its public institutions, proceed upon the practical conviction that the will is free. ”

“ And here is the line which divides the effective from the non-effective people, the great from the small, the good from the well-intentioned and respectable; it is in proportion as a man has self-controlling, self-compelling power that he his able to do, even of his own pleasure; that he can depend upon himself, and be sure of his own action in emergencies.
How the Will operates.--Now, how does this autocrat of the bosom behave? Is it with a stern 'Thou shalt,' 'Thou shalt not,' that the subject man is coerced into obedience? ”