149. Chapter 3: Free Agency.
Chapter 3
Free Agency.
I. The Freedom In Question. In this discussion it is important to determine, first of all, the freedom in question. If we begin in a negative manner it may help us in that determination.
1. Not the Freedom of Things.—There is no freedom in things, and the term has no proper application to them except in a relative sense. A piece of timber which is desired for use may be held fast by the pressure of other pieces. When relieved of this pressure we may call it free, but only in relation to the agency of those who would remove it from its place. The true idea may be more clearly given with the application of the term to things used as instruments. The freedom of instruments is purely in their relation to our purpose or use. A wheel which we would set in motion may be free to turn under applied force, or it may “be effectually obstructed. In the one case we may call it free, and in the other deny its freedom, but only in relation to our own agency. My hand is free in this writing, but simply as free from all hinderance to my so using it. Both wheel and hand are mere instruments, without any freedom in themselves, and can be called free only in relation to our personal agency. Hence there is no freedom of things which can mean any thing directly for the freedom here in question.
2. Not the Freedom of External Action.—We act externally through our physical organism. There may be the freedom of such action or the contrary. Where there is no exterior restraint, and the bodily organism is in a healthy state, so that every member can fulfill its office, there is the freedom of such action. But if there be an insuperable exterior restraint, or a paralysis of the bodily members which disables them, there is no such freedom. What, then, is the nature of this freedom? Our bodily organism is purely instrumental to our external action, and cannot be free in itself because of its instrumental character. It can be free only as freely usable. Its freedom is simply that of a thing. Such freedom can mean nothing directly for the freedom of choice, and simply concerns our power of giving effect to our choices through external action. With the total absence of such power there may still be the truest, deepest freedom of choice, even as it respects the profoundest realities of morality and religion.
It follows that any definition of freedom which limits it wholly or even mainly to the freedom of external action mistakes the question, and defines a form of freedom never in issue in this great debate of the centuries. Yet such is really the definition of Edwards: “The plain and obvious meaning of the words freedom and liberty, in common speech, is power, opportunity, or advantage, that any one has to do as he pleases : or, in other words, his being free from hinderance or impediment in the way of doing, or conducting in any respect, as he wills. And the contrary to liberty, whatever name we call that by, is a person’s being hindered or unable to conduct as he will, or being necessitated to do otherwise.”[776] It is true that, in addition to external forms of action, this definition may include forms more strictly mental, and therefore more properly internal; but the freedom defined still lies in a power of doing as we please. For instance, if we would profoundly study some great problem of philosophy or religion, and have power and opportunity for so doing, we are free ; but if either is wanting we are not free. But while the application of this law of freedom is thus broadened, the real question in issue is still omitted. The freedom defined has respect solely to our executive volitions, or the power of giving effect to our choices, while the freedom of choice itself is wholly omitted. Yet this is the real question of freedom.
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3. Not the Freedom of the Will.—The will is a mental faculty, and one of the constituent faculties of our personality. By a mental faculty we mean a power of mental action. If the mind acts it must have a power of acting. If it acts in different modes there must be a distinction of faculties answering to these different modes. The mind perceives, remembers, reasons, immediately cognizes primary truths, enters into states of feeling, and we find for each form of action a corresponding mental faculty. We thus classify the multiform facts of psychology and generalize them in the faculties which they represent. The method is purely scientific.
We thus determine the fact of a faculty of will. Volition is a specific form of mental action. We cannot resolve it into any other mode. Consciousness fully recognizes the distinctions of perception, memory, reasoning, intuition, and feeling. Between them there can be no interchange of modes. Therefore they unerringly determine for the mind a corresponding distinction of faculties. There is the very same authority for a faculty of will. Any proper analysis and classification of mental facts must find such a faculty. There are facts which cannot be attributed to any other, and must remain groundless without such a faculty. But there is no agency in the will itself; certainly not in any strict meaning of the term. “We often attribute agency to material things. In this view there is agency in whatever is operative in the mode of force, as in gravitation, chemical affinity, electricity, light, heat. Strictly, however, there is no agency in such things, because they possess no power of self-energizing, and all their action is conditioned on the proper collocations. Only in a figurative or qualified sense can agency be attributed to them. We find the higher, truer meaning of the term only in personality. There we reach the power of rational self-energizing with respect to ends. There is no such power in the will itself. It is simply a faculty of the personal agent. In itself it is without intelligence, motivity, or causal efficience. The will may be individuated in thought, but we cannot think of it as so acting. The will is an instrumental faculty for the use of the personal mind. The mind is a personal agent because it has the faculties of such an agency, with the power of so using them. The will is one of these faculties. All, as so usable, have an instrumental quality, and no one more truly so than the will itself. The hand is organically adjusted to many services, but is a mere instrument for the use of our personal agency. In itself it grasps no instrument of work, wields no pencil or chisel of high art. For any such work the power of the will must be put into the hand. But the will is equally an instrument of our personal agency. It never becomes a power in the hand for any mechanical or artistic work except through the energizing of the personal agent. The same is true of it in all forms of its action. It follows that it is not free except as freely usable. The freedom of the will, therefore, cannot be the true question of freedom. This fact means nothing against the reality of freedom, but points to its true location in our own personal agency, and in the result will make it clearer and surer.
4. The True Question of Freedom.—We reach the true question of freedom only in personal agency. For freedom there must be a power of rational self-action. The mere power of self-action will not suffice; for an animal has such power, and yet it is incapable of free agency. For such agency there must be the rational conception of the ends of our action; a power of reflection and judgment upon ends and motives, and of rationally determining our action in respect to them. Such agency is possible only in personality. It is equally true that the power of such agency is a reality in personality. Freedom lies, not in the constituent faculties of our personality, but in our power of freely using them in personal action. Such power is central to personality itself. Here is the true question of freedom.
5. Importance of the Question.—It will suffice that we present this question in a few of its special relations. The importance of questions of psychology arises from the excellence and value of mind. As a spiritual essence, with high, intellectual and moral endowments, it is infinitely superior to matter. Much of our knowledge has its chief value from its relation to mind. The things known may possess little value for our merely secular life, while the knowledge of them may be of great value in furnishing and broadening the mind. The sciences and philosophies have their special interest for us as the creations of mind, and their chief value in the service which they render to our intellectual life. In all the forms of finite existence, as directly known to us, mind is infinitely superior to every other. It is equally true that in the study and classification of the facts of mind, in their generalization in the faculties which they represent, and the determination of the laws under which they work, nothing so deeply concerns us as the question of our free agency. Are we rationally and morally free, with power over our lives? or are we the passive subjects of some dominating force, just as an animal is subject to a law of instinct? Such questions rise above all others in the study of the mind. The question of free agency is for us the profoundest question of psychology. The supreme importance of this question in ethics is manifest. As than the results of all other forms of action, so for us the question of freedom must have supreme concern. Are the virtues which have such a fruitage of good practicable? Are the sins which have such a consequence of evil avoidable? Questions of weightier concern we could not ask. Freedom of external action, political freedom, intellectual freedom have no such interest. Indeed, there is no place for a moral system under a law of necessity. If God is a moral ruler over responsible subjects, they must be morally free. The logic of this principle now commands a wide assent. Even where the accepted philosophy or theology really denies the freedom it is yet admitted as the necessary ground of moral obligation and responsibility. Thus in any and every view it is manifest that the question of freedom has profound interest from its relation to ethics.
Theology gives importance to the question of freedom. Our position on so cardinal a question must influence our interpretation of the Scriptures as the source of theology, and chiefly determine the cast of our doctrinal system. Under the law of a necessary accordance of the doctrines which compose the system such must be the case. Calvinism is logically determined to a position of necessity by its doctrines of the divine sovereignty, predestination, and monergism. The acceptance of a true moral freedom in man would greatly modify the system, just as the synergism of Melanchthon modified the Lutheran theology, which had been strongly Augustinian. Freedom is fundamental in Arminianism. The system holds accordingly the universality and provisional nature of the atonement, and the conditionality of salvation. In this matter it is thoroughly synergistic. If its doctrine of native depravity involves a moral helplessness it must set over against this the helping grace of a universal atonement. Thus the fundamental truth of freedom requires the system in the definite cast of its doctrines. These brief statements may suffice for the importance of the question of freedom in theology.
6. Theoretical Forms of Necessity.—A very brief statement of some of the leading forms of necessity is all that we here require. The deepest and most thorough of all is fate or fatalism. Of course, there is fatalism in all forms of necessity; yet the term has a meaning of its own. Fate has long been in use for the expression of the absolutest necessity. Otherwise the term is indefinite; so that it expresses the necessitation itself rather than any definite notion of the necessitating force or law. But under the sway of fate all things are absolutely determined; so that they could not but be, nor be other than they are. Fate binds in equal chains of necessity all things and events, all intelligences, thoughts, feelings, volitions, and even God himself—if there be a God.[777] [777]
Materialism must be necessitarian. The forces of matter operate, and must ever operate, under a law of necessity. Even the concession of their evolution of the Cosmos, with mind itself, could not mean any change in their own nature or laws which could lift them into free self-determining forces. If the assumption of their correlation and convertibility, even with the inclusion of mental facts, be true, they must still remain subject to their own necessitating nature and laws.
Pantheism is a doctrine of necessity. In pantheism God is the totality of being, and works from an inner necessity of his nature, without consciousness, intelligence, or aim. Finite existences, including man, are mere modes of himself, and the product of his aimless activity. Hence, man, as the mode of a being subject to a law of absolute necessity, could not have freedom of action in himself.[778] [778]
Divine predestination involves necessity. Many predestinarians deny this; others, however, avow it, and are logically the more consistent. Much, however, depends upon the nature of the predestination or the interpretation of the terms in which it is expressed. Absolute decrees must have their effectuation in the divine agency. If human deeds are so decreed, they must be so effectuated. It is not here assumed that the Calvinistic doctrine means such a decreeing of all human deeds, whether good or evil. We simply state the implication of an absolute predestination with respect to all events or deeds so decreed. If there is a predestination which does not require the divine agency for its effectuation it cannot be in accord with the determining principles of the Calvinistic system, and may be consistent with freedom and the principles of Arminianism. This brief statement will here suffice, as we have elsewhere considered the question of predestination. We have here presented it simply as a prominent form of necessity. That motives determine our volitions or choices, and that choice must go with the stronger or strongest motive, is the doctrine of many. It is the doctrine of philosophical or moral necessity, or of moral inability to the good. Some have held it as a doctrine of real necessity. However, it is now mostly held as a doctrine of the truest, highest freedom. We regard it as one of very real necessity. The question must be more formally treated.
II. On The Domination Of Motive.
We have named the domination of motive as one of the theoretical forms of necessity. That our motives determine our choice is a doctrine much in favor with the Calvinistic system. There are obvious reasons for this fact. One is, that it frees our choices from all contingency and gives them the fixed order which is in such complete harmony with that system. Another is, that it may be so interpreted as seemingly to be in accord with freedom, or at least to avoid the more serious objections that must beset an open avowal of necessity. It is maintained that the motive state which determines the choice is our own, and for which we are responsible. We choose from our own motive impulse, and for the satisfaction of our own appetence or disposition. Much that is plausible may thus be said, but not enough to conceal the necessity that lies in the determining power which the theory assigns to motive.
1. Choice as the Stronger Motive.—This is the doctrine as usually expressed. The deeper principle is, that motive determines the choice. It is no longer simply the occasion or reason the deeper of the choice, but its cause. It follows that the choice principle. is as the stronger or strongest motive. In the case of two opposing motives of exactly equal force the mental state would be practically the same as a state of indifference, though psychologically different; that is, there would be no free motive force for the determination of any choice. In the case of a stronger or strongest motive all the excess of strength would be so much free, active force, and the only force which could be causal to any volition. Accordingly, the whole doctrine is this: Motive causally determines the choice: hence, in the case of a single motive, it determines the choice; and in the case of two or more opposing motives the stronger or strongest determines the choice.
There is little need of verifying this statement of the doctrine by the citation of authors. To the question, What determines the will? Edwards answers: “It is purpose to say, it is that motive which, as it stands in the view of the mind, is the strongest that determines the will.”[779] We cite a few more words to the same point. “It is also evident, from what has been before proved, that the will is always, and in every individual act, necessarily determined by the strongest motive; and so is always unable to go against the motive which, all things considered, has now the greatest strength and advantage to move the will.”[780] These positions are elaborately maintained, while opposing views are elaborately controverted. “If objects of desire have no tendency to move the will in a particular direction, they are not, properly speaking, motives. If they have such a tendency, they must actually move the will, provided there is nothing which has a tendency to move it in a different direction. When on one side there is no influence,any influence on the opposite side must turn the scale. Whatever does not do this has no influence in the case.”[781] Here is a repetition of the doctrine of Edwards. Two principles are specially obvious in the citation: one, that motive determines the choice; the other, that the choice mast be as the stronger or strongest motive.
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2. Ascertainment of the Stronger Motive.—If proof be demanded For the position so positively asserted, that the choice must always be according to the comparative strength of the motive, all that can be given is that, as motive determines the choice, so the determination must be according to the law of comparative strength. The motive acts as a causal force and immediately produces the elective volition as an effect. Under such a law the stronger or strongest motive at any given instant must inevitably determine the choice, just as the heavier weight determines the action of the balance. But the theory cannot return with the strongest motive so found to prove that motive determines the choice, because, in the inevitable logic of the case, it must make good this position before it can find the strongest motive in the determined result. Further, it must prove that the domination of motive is absolute, just as the domination of the weight is absolute over the turning of the balance, before it can find the strongest motive in the determined result. With such a domination of motive there is no possible escape from the absolutest necessitation of choice.
3. Necessity in Motive Domination.—The domination of motive used to be held as a law of necessity, at least of moral necessity, while now it is not only held to be consistent with freedom, but is even proclaimed as the highest law of freedom. The truth is in the former view. To deny necessity is to concede the contingency of choice, or a power of alternative election; for such a contingency or alternative power is the only contrary to necessity; yet it is against this very contrary that the domination of motive is maintained.
Most that concerns us just here is, to point out the fact of necessity in this theory. Hereafter the freedom of choice will be formally treated, and in that treatment the proper relation of motive to choice will be shown.
It is claimed in support of the theory, that if the choice does not go with the stronger motive, then it must not only be without motive, but against motive, as it must go against all the excess of the stronger above the weaker. This claim must assume that motive causally determines the choice, and that choice is an immediate effect of the motive force. But if choice is so determined there can be no escape from necessity. The theory cannot admit any power over motives, or any intervention of personal agency whereby the elective decision may be delayed, while the motive state may be changed. Any motive state at all consistent with the theory must be purely spontaneous, and must immediately determine the volitional result. But such a result must be necessitated.
Necessity lies in the very notion of the causal relation of motive to choice which the theory maintains. Choice must have a cause; but motive is the only possible cause ; therefore motive must determine the choice. Choice takes one direction rather than another because the motive so determines: this is the only possible account of the particular direction; therefore motive must causally determine the choice. Some, while holding substantially these views, deny that motive is the efficient cause of choice. “Motives are not the efficient cause of volitions. They furnish the material, the occasion, and the end or object of the action; and are absolutely necessary for this. The will furnishes the efficiency, and the form of choice. But the form is to be filled with contents ere volition can be consummated.”[782] All, however, that is thus excepted from the causal force of the motive is the will in the act of choosing. But no theory of the domination of motive could mean that the motive force acts directly upon the will to cause the choice. The motive determines the personal agent to such use of the will. Hence the exception of the will from the immediate causal action of the motive brings in no freedom of choice. If the motive causes the agent to choose just according to its strength or bent, the necessitation is just as absolute as though motive causally acted directly upon the will.
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4. A Law of Universal Necessity.—If motives dominate our choices, there is for us no freedom of choice. The theory can admit no power of our personal agency over our motive states. If we would attempt to control or modify these states we must choose so to do; but we cannot so choose, except as we are determined thereto by a motive. The motive must arise spontaneously. We have no power to cast about for reasons against a present impulse unless we are so determined by the power of a motive which must be on hand, if on hand at all, without any agency of our own. Necessity lies in such subjection to motive. It is the same, whatever the motive, or however it may be designated. A law of necessity has determined all human volitions. Not a single choice could have been avoided or in the least varied; not one could have been added to the actual number. We are the passive subjects of spontaneous impulses, and without any true personal agency, rational or moral.
There must be the same determining law for all finite intelligences, and even for God himself. In all the realm of mind a law of necessity reigns, has reigned, and must forever reign. Of all actual volitions, good and evil, none could have been avoided; nor could one have been added. It must be in the future as it has been in the past. Necessity is the universal and eternal law.
III. On Choosing As We Please.
1. As a Formula of Freedom.—In the use of such a formula we express a doctrine of freedom in much favor with many who hold the domination of motive over choice. To choose as we please is to choose freely and responsibly, no matter what the moral necessitation. The aim of the doctrine so formulated is to bring into harmony certain principles which, at least seemingly, are in contrary opposition. For instance, a moral inability to the choice of the good underlies a responsible freedom to such choice. How can such freedom accord with such inability? Clearly, there is here a perplexing contrariety of principles. Inability is a reality, not a mere word. If we qualify it as moral, it is still a reality, just as any mental or physical inability is a reality. If it be with respect to some doing, any form of inability is a real impotence to such doing. A moral inability to the choice of the good is a real inability which renders the good impossible. This is necessity. It is very real necessity according to the philosophy which makes so much account of our choosing as we please, for the inability lies in an incapacity for any actual motive to the choice of the good, which yet this philosophy holds to be an absolute necessity to such choice. Further, the choice of the evil is the only alternative to such inability. The reconciliation of moral necessity with a responsible freedom is attempted on the ground of our choosing as we please. If we choose the evil it is because we are pleased to choose it. The only bar to the choice of the good is that we are not pleased to choose it. Thus our choices are our own; and it is enough for our responsible freedom that they are made according to our own pleasure. In so choosing, no matter what or why, we choose freely and responsibly. But what if the good be impossible, and the evil a necessity? It matters not, since it is only a moral inability or necessity, and lies in our own disposition. It is still true that we choose as we please, and that we could choose otherwise if we so pleased. Even if we cannot so please, the facts remain the same: we choose as we please, and therefore freely and responsibly.
If really consistent principles seem discordant, it is proper, and may even be laudable, to set them forth in the light of their harmony; but it is not laudable, nor even proper, to attempt the reconciliation of really contradictory principles. Such we think the attempt to reconcile a moral inability to the good with freedom to the good, on the ground of our choosing as we please. There can be no freedom to any doing without the requisite ability. So there can be no freedom to the choice of the good in a state of moral inability to that choice.
2. A Nullity for Freedom.—This formula is a nullity for freedom, because it simply means an immediate choosing according to the motive state. It cannot mean any thing more, because the philosophy which so expresses its doctrine of freedom admits no other mental fact which can hare any direct part in choice. It allows no place for a proper personal agency which may act above any given motive state and rationally determine the choice. If in any instance it may seem to admit such an agency, yet it cannot do so in fact because it really denies such agency. Any seeming delay for reflection and judgment must arise from the presence and action of some spontaneous motive impulse over which we have no control. Choosing as we please means an immediate choosing in accord with our inclination: simply this; nothing other or more.
Such a choosing means nothing for freedom. Nor can it mean any tiling, since it gives us no other fact of choice than a motive state and an immediate elective decision in accord with it. As these facts mean nothing of themselves for the freedom of choice, neither can this formula mean any thing, since it gives us no new fact of choice, nor any new office of facts previously known, but leaves us in the old position of choosing immediately from the motive impulse, and without any power to prevent or modify the result. Such a choosing as we please is indeed a nullity for freedom.
3. Consistent with Determining Inclination.—All the freedom claimed or claimable under this formula must lie in the fact that the choice goes with the inclination. Any restraint to such choosing or constraint to a contrary choosing would be necessitation, but so long as the inclination determines the choice there is true freedom. Such is the doctrine. But such a freedom must be consistent with the most necessitating inclination. It is easily conceivable that an inclination might be so strong as absolutely to dominate the mind. There is no power to resist its force. By its own strength it instantly and irresistibly determines the mind to the choice of its end. Is this a choosing as we please? According to this philosophy no choosing could be more so. Indeed, the stronger the inclination, the more thoroughly it draws into itself all thought and feeling; and the more resistless its force, the more completely is it a choosing as we please. Is such a choice in freedom? Yes, according to this philosophy, and in the very highest freedom. “He that in acting proceeds with the fullest inclination does what he does with the greatest freedom.”[783] If this be true of any other form of action it must be true of choice. It follows that such freedom is consistent with the most absolute necessity. But freedom and necessity are intrinsically contrary to each other, and never can be coincident in the same volition. Hence there is no freedom in such a choosing as we please.
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4. Indifferent whence or what the Inclination.—If we are free in our volitions, and responsible for the same, because they are determined by our own disposition, and none the less so even when they are necessarily determined, it matters not what the origin or character of our disposition. The freedom and responsibility rest purely upon the ground that the disposition or inclination is our own, and determinative of our choice. “The truth is that there is no inconsistence between the most efficacious influence in moral necessity and accountableness. Let the influence be ever so great, still the man acts voluntarily, and . . . he is accountable for his voluntary actions.”[784] “The moment that the disposition is seen the moral sense is correspondingly affected, and rests its whole estimation, whether of merit or of demerit, not on the anterior cause which gave origin to the disposition, but on the character which it now bears. . . . How the disposition got there is not the question. . . . It is enough for the moral sense that the disposition is there.”[785] [784]
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Such is the philosophy of our freedom and responsibility, on the ground of our choosing as we please. If our own disposition determines our choice, whatever its origin or however necessitating its determining power, we are thoroughly free and responsible. The disposition which absolutely determines our choice might be wrought in us by some exterior agency against which we are utterly powerless, or might be some native idiosyncrasy without in the least affecting our responsibility; for in the deepest sense of this philosophy any choosing in such a state would be a choosing as we please. Here, then, is a choice which no intelligent and upright judicatory would pronounce free and responsible, nor could without execration in the common moral judgment, which yet this philosophy must pronounce free and responsible in the deepest sense of the terms.
IV. Mental Facts Of Choice.
1. Freedom of Choice a Question of Psychology.—In saying that freedom of choice is a question of psychology we do not mean that it is exclusively such. Many other facts have weight in the proof of freedom, a few of which may be stated. Such is the fact of a common sentiment or consciousness of freedom. We feel that we are free in our choices and executive volitions. There is no sense of either an interior or exterior constraint, while there is the sense of an alternative power. If there be not the reality of freedom this common consciousness is deceptive. If it may be so in this case, so may it be in others. Consciousness would thus be discredited, and no ground of assured knowledge could remain. But consciousness is trustworthy, and its testimony to the truth of freedom remains sure against all opposing subtleties. The sense of moral responsibility is a sure witness to the truth of freedom. We attribute ethical quality to our personal acts, and have a sense of merit or demerit for the same, as they may be good or evil. Underlying this sense of merit or demerit is the consciousness of freedom in our personal deeds. The notion of justice must include the notion of freedom. In its strictly distributive offices justice rewards men according to their desert. If sin deserves its penal infliction there must be freedom in the sinning. This is the common moral judgment. Hence it is that the notion of justice cannot be complete without the idea of freedom.
These facts, which witness so strongly to the truth of freedom, are mental facts, and, therefore, belong to the facts of psychology; but they have no direct part in choice as a personal act. Therefore they do not belong to the class of facts which, as concerned in the very act of choice, directly witness to the truth of freedom. As choice is purely a mental act, or an act of personal mind, it must be open to psychological study. In mental science we study the operations of the mind, what it does, and the different forms of its action. Many of these forms are complex. Few personal acts are solely from one power; and it is only by study and analysis that we find the elements of any complex form of mental action. This method is legitimate in the study of choice. We may treat choice as a single, isolated volition, but such a treatment can never shed any light upon the question of freedom. Nor can it give us the true sense of choice. The specific elective volition is but the completing fact of choosing, while choice itself is a complex act and includes other mental facts. A psychological study of the question of freedom requires a knowledge of all the mental facts which have any part in choice itself.
2. Need of All the Mental Facts.—Whether choice is an immediate effect of the spontaneous motive state, or whether it is an act of our personal agency through reflection and judgment, must be decisive of the question of freedom. If the former be the true and whole account of the nature of choice, necessity must be the result; bat if the latter be the true account, freedom must be the result. As the mental facts of choice are intrinsic to its very nature, they are all necessary to a right conclusion respecting its freedom. With a part of the facts the elective decision must be an immediate effect of the spontaneous motive state, and, therefore, without freedom; while with all the facts that decision must be from our personal agency in the rational use of our personal faculties, and, therefore, in freedom.
3. Deficiency of the Usual Analysis.—In a simple and seemingly complete statement of the mental facts of choice three are given: an end, a motive state, the elective decision. This analysis, however, is utterly deficient. By the omission of a vital mental fact choice itself is placed in immediate sequence to the motive state. In this case there cannot be a. proper choice. There might be a higher intelligence in the voluntary action of a man than, in that of an animal; that is, the man might apprehend in thought both the end and the motive impulse, which the animal cannot do; but this would make no vital distinction between the two in the case of choice. The three facts of an end, a motive impulse, and a volition toward the end may all be affirmed of an animal. What is distinctive of personal choice arises from the rational use of our intelligence. This is a vital fact of choice additional to the three previously named. Its omission is the fatal error of this deficient analysis. The error might still be corrected by the interpretation of choice, but only as the interpretation supplied the omitted mental fact. But with those who omit this fact in their analysis there is no reason to supply it through an interpretation. It is not required by the philosophy which can so give the mental facts of choice.
If the elective volition is in immediate sequence to the motive impulse, it must be a necessary effect of that impulse. There can be no intervention of our personal agency whereby the result can be prevented or modified. A motive can act only in one of two modes: either as a solicitation or inducement to the mind as a personal agent, the end of which he may either accept or refuse; or as a causal efficience immediately determining the mind to the end. In the latter case there can be no personal agency in the resulting volition. The causal force of the motive determines the action of the mind, just as the weight determines the action of the balance.
If the choice is in immediate sequence to the motive, then it must be in instant sequence—instant either to the single motive or to the stronger or strongest at any given time. If the motive be a sufficient cause to the choice, then, from the nature of the mental powers concerned, the choice must be an instant effect. Remove the support of a weight and it will instantly begin to fall; but it has space through which to fall, and this requires time. It cannot be so with the action of mind in choice if motive be the cause of its action. Here there can be no appreciable time, and at most only its logical conception. What in the case of the weight is only an instant beginning, in such mental action must be an instant completion. If motive be a cause to the choice it must have entire sufficiency for the effect. Hence, in such a case, if it be not an instant cause to a complete effect it never can cause the choice. The immediate and instant sequence of the elective decision must involve its necessitation. There can be no place for any counter-force which can in the least measure control the causal force of the motive or modify the volitional result. There is no time for the intervention of reflection and judgment. Our personal agency cannot assert itself and act in the case. All is precluded by the instant sequence of the choice to the motive impulse. Hence the resulting volition is the necessary effect of the spontaneous motive state. There can be no freedom under such a law of choice. Such is the inevitable result of placing choice in immediate sequence to the motive state. There is no place for personal agency under such an order of the mental facts of choice.
4. The Facts in a Complete Analysis.—For a complete analysis of the mental facts of choice we require the addition of only one to those previously named, but it is well here to present all in their proper order and with a fuller treatment. For any choice we require the conception of an end. We use the term end in a sense comprehensive of all objects of choice. Choosing is choosing something: it may be a deed of charity or a deed of fraud, some new pleasure or new form of business, a good life or an evil life. Whatever it is it must be mentally apprehended in order to be chosen. Mere instinct may lead to its end without any mental prevision, as when a bird builds its nest or a beaver its dam, but rational mind cannot so move. It must take into thought the end to be chosen. This preconception of the end belongs to the mental facts of choice, and the logical order of these facts must assign it the first place. The mind must be in a motive state respecting the end to be chosen. We use the words motive state in a sense comprehensive of all forms of inducement to the choice. There must be some form of elicited interest in the end to be chosen. This interest may arise from our appetites or affections, or from our rational or moral nature. Only in some form of conscious interest in an end can there be any reason for its choice. But choice is a rational act, and therefore impossible without a reason. Hence the motive state which embodies this reason must be included among the mental facts of choice, and the logical order places it second.
If personal agency is a reality, the elective decision must immediately follow, not the motive state, but the judgment respecting the eligibility of the end. This judgment is reached through proper reflection. Such reflection and judgment are necessary to a proper personal agency in choice, and therefore necessary to choice itself. In the logical order of the mental facts of choice the rational judgment is the third. The rational judgment does not include the elective decision. In the light of consciousness the mental action is not the same in the two cases. In the judgment we estimate the character and value of the end, while in the elective decision we determine our action respecting its attainment. The act of judgment is complete before the elective decision is made. The judgment, however, is necessary to the rational character of the choice, and therefore to choice itself, which in the very nature of it must have a reason for itself. Thus in a scientific order of the mental facts choice immediately follows the judgment.
5. The Facts Conclusive of Freedom.—In respect to the question of freedom, the difference between the two sets of mental facts, as previously given, is as wide and deep as personal agency itself. In the former analysis there is no place for this agency, while in the latter it has full place. In the former the elective decision is immediately from the motive state, and therefore under a law of necessity; in the latter it is directly from the personal agency. In this agency there is the power of rational self-action. In the exercise of this power ends and motives are taken up into reflection and weighed in the judgment. The choice is made in the light of prudence or duty. It is a personal act. As personally constituted, we have the power of such action. There is freedom in such action. Thus the mental facts of choice, as given in a complete analysis, conclude for freedom.