150. Chapter 4: Freedom Of Choice.

Chapter 4 Freedom Of Choice.

I. Rationality Of Choice.

1. Motive and Choice.—Choice is a rational election respecting some end or ends. It is rational in the sense that it is for a reason mentally apprehended and approved. The reason so apprehended and approved is the true motive of the choice. There can be no choice without such a motive. Hence there can be no true freedom in a power of choosing without motive. There is no such power, whatever may be possible in the form of arbitrary volitions. Such volitions cannot be choices, because the necessary motives are wanting. The supposition that without actual motives to the good, or with our stronger motives persistently holding for the evil, a good life is yet practicable through choice, is utterly groundless. There could be no choice of the good in such a state. The assumption of an available and responsible natural ability for the choice of the good in such a state is equally groundless. With this natural ability is placed a moral inability; so that the two co-exist. The latter lies definitely in an incapacity for the proper motive to the choice of the good. If the alleged natural ability, whatever it may be, can command the necessary motives, then the moral inability does not exist; if it cannot, then, respecting the good, it can be nothing more than a power of mere arbitrary volition, and therefore must be utterly insufficient for the choice of the good. No such power, however great, can be adequate to a good life ; for such a life must be chosen from its own proper motives.

Thus motives stand between us and our choices, not, indeed, as determining forces, because in our personal agency we have power over them, but as conditioning facts of choice. This is surely the case within the moral sphere, the sphere in which centers the chief interest of the question of freedom. We allege the necessity of rational or moral motive, not to mere volition, but to volition as choice. Many of our motive states arise in purely spontaneous appetence or impulse. Strong incentives to evil thus arise. This is clearly the case with many. These passionate impulses and appetences are urgent for speedy satisfaction, and therefore for the volitions necessary to its attainment. Such volitions are inevitable unless we can restrain the evil tendencies through the weightier motives of reason and religion. Have we such power? This is a vital question of freedom.

2. Rational Character of Choice.—As choice itself is rational, so there must be a rational element in its motive. A mere appetence or incitement in the sensibilities possesses no such quality; therefore it cannot be the proper motive of choice. Any volition which it may directly induce is merely executive, not elective. Hunger and thirst are immediate impulses toward eating and drinking; but their mere satisfaction is not the true motive of self-government in the case. Otherwise we might always eat and drink just according to our appetence—whenever it craves, whatever it craves, all that it craves. This might do for the life of an animal, but could not answer for the rational life of a man. Were these appetites always in adjustment to our good, then might we always follow them, but only for that reason, and therefore for a rational motive. Only with such a motive can there be self-government through choice. The same rule applies in the entire circle of our spontaneous affections. Sympathy is usually an impulse toward some voluntary action, but not in itself a motive from which we may act with choice. Before the action can be chosen the end of it must be approved as wise or good. This requires reflection and judgment prior to the choice. Parental affection, followed simply as a motive impulse, often leads astray from both prudence and duty. The proper action can be determined only through reflection and judgment. Only for the reason thus apprehended can the action be chosen. The quick resentment against willful injury is an instant impulse toward the infliction of injury in return, but is not such a motive in itself that the retaliation can be chosen. Such a motive could arise only with such reason or reasons as the moral judgment could approve. Thus, in every view of the case, choice is rational in itself, and therefore requires a rational element in its motive. Hence the volitions which spring immediately from spontaneous impulses in the sensibilities are not choices, but purely executive volitions, put forth for the attainment of the ends of such impulses. It is thus manifest that reflection and judgment must come between our motive impulses and our choices. Only thus can they possess the necessary rational quality.

3. Rational Conduct of Life.—Our life is conducted through choice only in the use of our rational powers. An animal has motive impulses and volitional power; but it does not choose the ends of its volitions, nor can it, because it is without the faculties for their rational apprehension. Its volitions are immediately from its spontaneous impulses. The operation is without reason. Such are our own volitions when there is no exercise of reason between them and our motive impulses, whatever their end. The intervention of reason, either as intuitively active or as exercised in reflection and Judgment upon end and motive, is the one fact which can really differentiate rational agency in volition from the operation of mere animal impulse. As between the two, there are widely different powers, different ends, different motive impulses in operation; but, on the omission of a proper use of our rational faculties, mere impulse is equally the determining law of volition in the two cases. Mind thus moves in the sphere of the animal life. Its only possible movement in the higher sphere of a true personal agency is by making reason the law of its choices.

It does not hence follow that on every instance of a new motive impulse, even where morality is concerned, a season of reflection is necessary. Life does not thus fall into separate deeds, but is conducted according to some principle or law. A good life must be conducted on moral principles or in obedience to a recognized law of duty. A good man may have a sudden impulse toward some wrong volition or deed, but reflection and judgment have gone before and settled the principle to which his present action must conform. With these facts, the instant application of this principle answers for all the requirements of reason in choice.

Personal agency itself is a nullity if without power over our motives and volitions. We have no such power unless we can subject them to reflection and judgment. In no other way can life be conducted through choice. There can be no other rational self-government. The only alternative must be a succession of volitions and deeds in immediate and necessary sequence to our stronger spontaneous impulses. In any motive state other impulses may arise to influence a pending volition or deed; but, unless responsive to the call of our personal agency and subject to its control, they must be powerless to release us from the absolute domination of our spontaneous impulses. If there is no place for reflection and judgment between the motive impulse and the volition which it determines, no life can be rationally conducted through choice.

II. Rational Suspension Of Choice.

1. Meaning of Rational Suspension.—Choice, with all volition toward the attainment of the motive end, may be suspended when we are under motive influence. The suspension is rational when for the purpose of reflection and judgment upon end and motive, that the election may be prudent, or wise, or responsive to duty.

What is rational agency, or what can it avail for the higher ends of life, if, under the laws of mental action, there be no place for the proper use of its powers? Where can this use be so important as in the control of mental states which vitally concern the power of self-government? Life is worthy of man only as it proceeds from his personal agency. As such, it must be rationally chosen. Our choices are our most important volitions. Through them we determine the ends of our life and the deeds for their attainment. But if there be no power of suspending choice when under motive influence there can be no place for the reflection and judgment necessary to rational self-government. Our spontaneous impulses must be the immediate causes of our volitions. Hence, the power of rationally suspending choice, with all volition toward the attainment of the motive end, is necessary to choice itself, and the proper use of it a necessary mode of conducting life rationally.

2. Omissions of the Suspension.—In the habits of human life many omit this suspension, and mostly act immediately from spontaneous impulse. They do this when the conduct is profoundly important, morally responsible even, and the call loud and urgent for the most deliberate action. Their conduct is simply executed, not chosen. This is possible, though not consistent with the proper use of our rational powers. These powers are not self-acting, but simply an investment which as personal agents we may and should use. If self-acting they could not be the powers of a proper rational and moral agency. Without their use our life is not from our own agency. Without their possession we are incapable of choosing our life or of conducting it rationally and morally. The fact that many live with little reflection or rational self-control, and act merely from the impulses of spontaneous appetence or desire, is often alleged in their reprehension. They should not be reprehended if without the power of postponing all volition toward the end of their appetences when under such influences; for if without this power they are utterly incapable of conducting life rationally.

3. Power of Suspension Manifest.—It is a fact that often under motive influence all volition toward the end is deferred and held under deliberation. How shall the fact be explained? On a denial of rational deferment there are only two modes in which an explanation can even be attempted. One is to account the delay to a mental state of indifference. But this is inadmissible, because the motive state is manifest in the deliberation. No one deliberates on questions of indifference in order to a judicious election. The other is to account the delay to an exact balance of opposing motive influences. Such a state would be practically the same as a state of indifference, though psychologically different. The view is hypothetically admissible on the theory that volition or choice is absolutely determined by motive force. On the denial of rational deferment motive influences are the only forces practically operative in the mind. There is an impulse toward a given volition or choice; and the only force which can prevent this result is a counter impulse. Hence, the continuance of the delay requires for all that time an exact balance of opposing motive forces. The slightest preponderance of either would at once determine the volitional result, just as the heavier weight immediately preponderates the scale. Is this, then, a rational account of the case? The mental state of interested deferment runs through hours and days, sometimes through months and even years. Can the fact be explained simply as the result of an exact balance of opposing motive forces? Such is the only possible account, if we deny the power of rational deferment. Its utter insufficiency concludes the reality of this power.

4. Only Account of Noble Lives.—The denial of this power involves the assumption that all great and worthy lives in the various spheres of human activity and achievement, in science and philosophy, in statesmanship and patriotism, in philanthropy and piety, are the formation of volitions in immediate sequence to motive impulses or tendencies, and without any power of personal agency in the proper choice of ends ; that all the truer and nobler lives wrought in patience and self-denial, in an ever-enduring fortitude and the loftiest moral heroism, are thus formed. But no true philosophy of such lives is possible with the notion that they are the creation of purely spontaneous motive forces, no one of which, as it may be the stronger, will submit to any restraint or delay under the immediate power of personal agency, but must of its own force go at once to the volitional result of its own impulsion. In truth, reflection must be the habit, and the highest practical reason the guide, of every such life. Its formation is possible only as the spontaneous impulses may be subject to the personal agency. Over all the exigences of weakness and trial and wrong tendency this agency must be sovereign, and have in command the weightier motives of reason and conscience, which may ever re-enforce the high purposes of a great and good life. Hence, the power of rationally suspending all volition toward a motive end, when under the motive influence, must be a power of personal agency. The philosophy of every great and good life is a conclusive witness to its reality.

III. Immediate Power Of Suspension.

1. Denial of the Power.—We here face the chief objection to this vital law of freedom in choice. It is very easy to affirm that the position maintained gives no release either from an absolute dependence upon motive or from its determining influence upon our volitions. But most that may be thus said must be mere assertion, without possible verification in the facts of psychology or the laws of mind. Such assertion may be met with counter assertion equally broad and plausible. So far, if nothing is gained, neither is any thing lost. However, we shall not thus rest the question, but maintain our position on the ground of both psychology and a true personal agency. The result will give us the rational suspension of choice, not as choice, but as immediately from our personal agency. The contrary assumption is that the suspension of all volition toward the end of any motive impulse for the purpose of reflection and judgment must itself be a choice. Some reason operative as a motive to the suspension is necessary to its rationality. If a sufficient motive be present to the mind it must pause and reflect. Such are the plausible assertions in the case. Their meaning is that any rational deferment of elective or executive volition, with all the intervening rational action, is absolutely dependent upon motive and necessarily determined according to its stronger impulse. On the truth of this assumption the mind, when under motive impulse, cannot pause and reflect, nor take account of any relative fact or principle which might influence the pending volition, except another motive intervene to determine the rational action. But such motive must be assumed to arise spontaneously, if at all. There can be no delay and no casting about for any reason counter to the present inclination, simply as the rational action of the personal agent. If so conditioned by spontaneous motive influence, why should he, or how can he, pause and reflect whether there be any reason against following a present inclination, except some spontaneous impulse so determine his mental action?

2. A Denial of Personal Agency.—If such be the law of mental action in this case, our volitions are not in any true sense from our own agency, but are immediately determined by our purely spontaneous motive states. Indeed, the mind is no longer a rational agent, because without the power of rational action. The fact is not other because some spontaneous impulse, opportunely arising, may determine the mind to pause, or even turn it away to reflection and the apprehension of reasons counter to the present inclination. There is still wanting the essential power of rational self-movement. The mind cannot act from itself as a rational agent, but is absolutely conditioned by its spontaneous impulses. The irrational soul of an animal is not more dependent upon the impulse of instinct, or passive under its dominance. That the mental movement determined by the spontaneous motive is to reflection and the apprehension of reasons counter to the present inclination brings no relief, because even in such facts the mind is none the less dependent upon the spontaneous motive or passive under its power. This is the fact of necessitation in the case, and the fact exclusive of a true rational agency, whatever the mental action induced.

Thus a proper rational agency is excluded. There is something far higher and other in such agency than is possible under a law of absolute dependence upon purely spontaneous motives. It consists in an intrinsic power of immediate self-movement, a power to pause and reflect when under e impulse of motive, a power whereby the mind may turn itself to such facts or principles as may concern the present inclination, or call them up and hold them under deliberation. For all this there is required no other power or reason than what is ever at the command of a rational agent, so long as his proper agency remains. But an absolute dependence upon spontaneous motive impulse for any reflection or judgment, while under such impulse, utterly precludes this power, and leaves us to be driven helplessly onward in an endless succession of motive states, while our volitions are as determinately swayed by these states as are the orbital movements of the planets by the forces of gravitation. We have no power over such states; no power against them, or to modify them; and, therefore, no power to avoid or in the least modify any volition which they may induce; but if we have not such power we have no true rational agency; it is really and utterly excluded. Now any position which denies to personal mind such an agency, or any power necessary to it, must be a false position. Hence rational agency is, and must be, independent of spontaneous impulses for its rational action when under motive influence. The rational deferment of all volition toward the motive end when under motive impulse is, as previously stated, for the purpose of reflection and judgment upon impulse and end, that the action in the case may be judicious or wise. It is the proper course for an agent rationally constituted and responsible for his volitions. Often the instant application of a principle previously settled may answer for the law of rational conduct. In many cases the proper action may be intuitively or instantly clear. But when it is not clear, as often it is not, our conduct is rational only as we take time and give the question such reflection as may be requisite to a proper judgment.

3. Suspension of Choice not Choice.—This deferment is not choice. The mental action is not the same in the two cases. The question may be appealed to consciousness or tested by the most searching analysis of all the mental facts concerned, and the result will verify our position. Choice has its own mental form, well known in consciousness, but really known only there. Simply as an elective volition it is the act of an instant. The pre-elective rational action is of the choice simply as the prerequisite of its rational quality. Yet the relation is vital to choice itself. But in no sense do our views identify the one with the other as mental acts. They are not the same. In the light of consciousness they are distinct and different.

4. The Immediate Power Manifest.—Consciousness is witness to the fact that this pre-elective rational action is immediately from the rational agency itself. The power so to act is intrinsic and necessary to such agency. It is an ever-usable power so long as the agency remains. We assert only the same truth when we affirm that a rational agent can act rationally. With this true and simple statement, our position scarcely requires illustration or proof; for to admit the reality of such an agency, and then deny its necessary power, is a contradiction. Who would attempt a philosophy of choice or pretend to build up a doctrine of responsible freedom on the denial of a true rational agency to the mind? But with the admission of this agency it must be admitted that the mind can act rationally. Hence it must have the power of so acting immediately from itself.

Objections may be urged against the reality of this power in view of the blindness of ignorance, the perversion of error, the enervation of vice, the thralldom of evil habit ; but these are incidental questions or side issues which in no sense antagonize our position. There are such instances, as many facts witness. Hence it is clear that rational agency may be greatly enfeebled, or, possibly, entirely overborne, by the force of evil habit and vicious tendency; but this does not affect our position, for it is affirmed of a true rational agency, and not of a mind in such a state of thralldom from a wrong use of its powers that its proper agency no longer remains. There are results of benefit to freedom from proper rational and moral conduct, as well as results of evil from wrong conduct. By a right use of the powers of our personal agency—a use just according to its constitution and our own obligation—we may reach the highest measure of self-command and moral freedom.

We are not constantly in some special motive state, or under some strong impulse, urgent for the volition which will carry us to its end. In the hours of mental quietude and self-command, duty in all its relations and requirements may be calmly considered and rules of right conduct settled. We may thus give to the purpose of a reflective and upright life the strength and persistence of habit. We may so make it a law of life always to pause and reflect under any doubtful solicitation, that this law shall become an immanent state of our mind. It will thus be easy for us, even when suddenly brought under strong impulse or temptation, to pause and reflect and so take to ourselves strength from the weightiest reason against the wrong action to which we may be solicited. For so doing we need only the power which is intrinsic to rational agency.

Thus the proper rational action when under motive impulse, the reflection and judgment upon end and impulse which should precede any volition toward the end, and must precede it if life is to be conducted rationally, is from an immediate power of rational self-action. The denial of this power is the denial of rational agency itself. Logically, the consequence must be a helpless passivity of life under an absolute law of purely spontaneous motive impulse.

IV. Power Over Motives. With an immediate power to postpone all volition toward any motive end, and to take end and motive into reflection and judgment, we have power over our motives. Power over motives is power over choices. Power over choices is true freedom in choice. An analytic presentation of the laws and facts of mind with which this power is vitally concerned will evince its reality, and also conclude its sufficiency as a law of freedom in choice. It is proper, therefore, to treat, severally and in order, motive states of mind, laws of motive states, power over laws of motive states, power over motive states and motives.

1. Motive States of Mind.—Any form of conscious interest operative as an incentive toward any volition in order to the attainment of an end is a motive state. The fact is the same whether the interest arises in any one of our manifold sensibilities or in the rational or moral part of our nature. There is no motive state without some form of conscious interest in some object or end.

2. Laws of Motive States.—There are certain laws of motive states. The same laws are common to all such states. Their place and value in the question of freedom will appear as we proceed with the discussion.

Motive states of mind are under a law of objective relation. They can possess no motive quality except on the cognitive view of their object or end. There are purely spontaneous appetences, which spring from our constitution, and would spring all the same were we without any notion of objects which might satisfy them. But in such case they could not, in any proper flense, be motive states, because without tendency toward any volition or deed in order to their satisfaction. Such a tendency is impossible without the notion of something satisfying. The same law applies to truths or conceptions of the reason, whether philosophic, moral, or religious. Such truths, however ideal or impersonal as conceived, are often truths of the profoundest conscious interest and the most forceful .practical tendency, but only with the notion of some end to be achieved. All objective motivity is powerless over the subjective in any practical sense, except as in mental conception and with the notion of an end. Such is one law of motive states of mind.

Motive states are spontaneous on their proper objective relation. With a subjective and objective motivity in correlation, then on the perception or conception of the motive object there arises an impulse or tendency toward some volition or deed answering to the motive state. Thus the sense of hunger and thirst, with the notion of food and water, immediately tends toward eating and drinking. The sense of moral obligation and responsibility, with the notion of some deed required as a duty, becomes an impulse toward its performance. The principle is the same in all forms of conscious interest in motive ends, whether of the sensibilities or the reason. Thus motive states spontaneously arise and remain with the proper conception of their objects or ends. We have no immediate will-power either to prevent or repress them. They are necessary facts under their own law. This is no concession to the theory of the domination of motive over volition or choice. Our position is not broadly that we have no volitional power over these motive states, either to prevent or repress or change them, but qualifiedly that we have no such immediate power. This is because they are spontaneous and necessary states under their own law. That they are such will be found wholly to the advantage of a true freedom in choice. The third law of motive states is not so much a distinct law as a special fact of such states consequent on the first law. If motive states are under a law of objective relation and possible only on the mental conception of their proper object or end, then by consequence they must terminate with this conditioning relation. So soon as the motive object or end of these states is dismissed from thought they must cease to have any motive quality or tendency.

3. Power over the Laws of Motive States.—Power over the laws of motive states is simply power over the practical relation of the mind to motive objects. If a present object must, of its own nature and force, so occupy the mind and fix the attention that we can neither dismiss it nor call into thought and reflection any other, we have no power to determine the relation of our mind to such objects; but if we can dismiss a present object, or replace it in the mind with another, or call another into thought and reflection, then the power is real and sufficient. Have we such a power? This is really the question, whether, as rational agents, we can use our mental faculties according to their own nature and office. But, as correctly so stated, the question determines for itself an affirmative answer.

Rational agency requires a certain complex of usable faculties. There must be a synthesis of rational intelligence, sensibility, and will. Of course there can be no such agency without intelligence. Sensibility is necessary to a conscious interest in the ends of action. Without such interest there could be no personal action; all possible action would be purely spontaneous or automatic. Neither angel nor archangel, however removed from the lower forms of human sensibility, nor even God himself, could be a rational agent without a capacity for conscious interest in the ends of volition or choice. There must be such an interest if only in the purest philosophic or moral reason. Of course there must be a will, without which there is no proper agency, much less rational agency.

Man is a rational agent with these three forms of attribute. But the intelligence is not the agent; the sensibility or emotional nature is not the agent; the will is not the agent. Man himself, as so constituted, is the agent. He is a rational agent because with such faculties he can act rationally. While a rational agent only by virtue of these faculties, yet is he above them with power to use them. They have in relation to him an instrumental quality and function, and he can use them for their appropriate ends, just as he may use any bodily organ or any implement or tool. Mental faculties, in the very nature of them, are usable faculties. Without the power of using them the proper notion of rational agency is utterly excluded. The will, as a usable faculty, is most proximate to the agent, and is immediately at his command. This does not imply an absolute power of volition any more than my voluntary use of a pen in this writing implies an absolute will power over it. Volition, in the lowest sense, is conditioned by some spontaneous mental state; as merely for the attainment of the end of some appetence or impulse, by the notion of the end; as elective, by the apprehension of a reason for the choice. But nothing so conditioning volition is inconsistent with an immediate power of the agent over the will. On the proper occasion he may so use it, and through volition control or use whatever is subject to him as an agent.

Thus he may use his intellectual faculties. Thinking is often spontaneous, or, at least, not consciously voluntary. It is none the less true that through the will we have the voluntary control of our mental faculties and may freely use them according to their own nature and office. Thus we may select the subject of thought and give it conscious attention and profound study. We may dismiss one subject and take up another. Every rational agent can do this; every one who .conducts life rationally must do it. The question of this power may be appealed to the facts of consciousness, and they will verify its reality. The achievements of rational thought conclude the case. There are only two modes of mental activity: one spontaneous, the other by intentional origination and direction. Will the former answer for a philosophy of thought, as manifest in human history? Is not the latter a necessity to that philosophy? Whence the civilizations of the race? Whence the facts of the higher civilizations, the arts and inventions, the sciences and philosophies, the literature, the high achievements in the sphere of aesthetic art, the masterly statesmanship? Not from spontaneous mental reverie, but from the voluntary use of mental faculties. These marvelous achievements were possible only as men could freely determine their mental activities. This is conclusive of the power which we maintain. With such a power in the use of our mental faculties we can direct attention and thought to one object or another, or dismiss one and call up another. Thus we can determine the relations of our mind to motive objects; whether a present object shall hold its place and engage the entire attention, or what other shall come into attention with it or entirely replace it; whether one object or another shall be in the mental apprehension, with its immediate power over the subjective motivity. But in these very relations are the laws of our motive states. Hence, power over these relations is power over the laws of motive states, and, therefore, over these states. With a motive object in conception there is a spontaneous motive state in correlation with it ; with a dismission of the object from thought, a termination of the motive state; with its replacement by a different object, a change in the motive state. Thus, with power over the relations of our mind to motive objects, we can determine our own motive states. The result is just according to the laws of these states. Such a power we have, however metaphysical speculation and subtlety may seek or even seem to obscure it. The power itself is intrinsic to personal agency, original and simple, indefinable and inexplicable, yet none the less real and manifest.

Any one may readily test and verify the reality of this power. Some motive object comes into your perception or mental conception. It matters not how it comes, but only that is there. Being there, it moves upon the correlate appetence or affection, and draws you into a motive state. This state, spontaneously arising under its own law, is itself an impulse toward some volition or deed for the attainment of the motive object, or the satisfaction of the appetence or affection which it has awakened; but no law of your mind binds you to this state or to any volition or deed toward which it may tend. You can separate yourself from the motive object or dismiss it from thought, and thus put it out of the relation to your mind which is necessary to its motive influence; or you can take into thought and reflection some fact or truth of counter motive influence, and the former will yield to the latter. You may suddenly become the subject of a spontaneous impulse or tendency which you would not follow. Your state of mind against it may be simply a cool judgment, while the motive state is full of fiery impulse; but, however intense the impulse or cool the judgment, you can take time to reflect. This you can do as a rational and responsible agent. Then you can summon into thought and conscience the weighty reasons of prudence and piety against the indulgence of the present impulse. These reasons, so apprehended and meditated, will give you a counter motive state. This state may have far less intensity than the former, and yet be infinitely weightier in the view of reason and conscience. You are called to some duty. Your mental apprehension of it may be lacking in clearness and vigor, while there is but slight response of moral feeling. Other feelings may be strongly adverse. In this state you can take time and call into meditation the weighty reasons of obligation and spiritual well-being which urge the duty. These reasons, so meditated, will bring the responsive disposition.

4. Power over Motives.—We thus have power over motives. As motive is something more than a mere spontaneous appetence or impulse, and includes a rational element, power over motives is more than power over mere motive states. Yet the laws are the same in the two cases. Both classes are spontaneous under the same law of objective relation. This relation is determined for both simply by taking the motive object into proper mental apprehension. As we thus apprehend a rational or moral motive object we realize in experience a rational or moral motive. Through such higher and more imperative motives we have power over the lower appetites and desires. We are free, or have the power of freedom, from a dominating law of spontaneous appetence or impulsive passion. A far higher and better life must be within our power as rational and moral agents.

If without power over motive states, and over motives as requisite to the choice of the rational and the good, our life must be spontaneous and flow with the current of our lower tendencies; while with this power we may subject it to rational and moral control. Over the impulsions of appetite and passion we may enthrone the rational and the moral. How this may be done has already been explained. We are not helplessly passive under any one spontaneous impulse or any stronger or strongest impulse in the coincidence of two or more of opposite tendency. We have no immediate power of volition to prevent or repress such a motive state; but we have immediate power to defer any volition or deed toward its end. Then through reflection and judgment we may realize the motives of reason and conscience, and direct our life from them. Is this power ever used? So it may be asked in objection. We have previously recognized the fact of a widely prevalent omission of its use. The question, however, or the objection which it clothes, is irrelevant. For the present we are simply maintaining the reality of this power, not its use. But, as a question of fact, it has been used, and in instances innumerable. If once used it is a common usable power of personal agency. If never used, then never in all the history of the ages has any man in a single instance rationally determined his own conduct. Such is the implication of that irrelevant objection to our doctrine of rational agency. There is no need of further refutation or reply; else we might again array the great facts of civilization, as practicable only through a rational use of the faculties of our personal agency, and the many instances of rational and moral self-direction in the formation of great and good lives, as forever concluding the reality of this power, and also its very frequent use.

V. Sufficient Motives For Required Choices. For required choices there must be sufficient motives. We cannot otherwise have true freedom. This is consequent to the rational nature of choice. We choose for a motive rationally apprehended. When the requisite motive is not present to the mind, or within its power to command, there is no proper sphere of choice. With alternative ends of equal interest simply to the sensibilities, we may decide for either or against both, but by an arbitrary volition, not a choice. If we may combine with either a rational element, or a higher rational element with the one than with the other, then may we choose it. If against the impulses of the sensibilities or the motives of secular interest we may command a motive of duty, then we may choose the end of this motive.

Hence the law of freedom is this: for the required choices of prudence and duty we may command the proper motives. The principles of this law have already come into the discussion; most of them sufficiently so. Therefore we further require little more than the proper application. Yet a present analytic statement of the cardinal facts of the question will be helpful to clearness of view. The law of freedom, as given, requires: 1. Sufficient objective motives for the choices of prudence and duty; 2. A capacity for the actual motives of such choices; 3. Power to place the mind in such relation to the objective motives that we may realize in experience the actual motives.

1. Objective Motives.—The reality of the requisite objective motives none will question. A life conducted with prudence or reason is, with all who think, far higher and better than a life determined by spontaneous appetence or passion. Duty asserts its own superiority of excellence and authority. These facts clearly mean the requisite objective motives.

2. Rational Motives.—A capacity for the rational motives of life will scarcely be questioned. It cannot be without questioning the fact of rational agency itself. Agency, in whatever grade, must have every capacity or faculty necessary to it. We are rational agents only as we have the ability to conduct life rationally. But, as previously shown, life can be so conducted only as it may be chosen. It can be chosen only from its own rational motives. These motives are such, not simply as objective, but only as realized in experience. This requires something more than a mere intellective conception of the rational ends of life. It is still true that there can be no actual motive without some form of conscious interest in the end of choice. Hence the rational ends of life, as mentally conceived, must be realized in a conscious interest therein. Only with such interest can they be rationally eligible. As a question of fact such ends of life have with many minds a consciously realized eligibility. One instance of a life rationally conducted must conclude the subjective capacity for these rational motives. There are innumerable instances of the kind.

3. Moral and Religious Motives.—We here reach the profoundest issues of this question. It is here, too, that objections will be most strenuously urged against our position. We firmly and confidently maintain it. There must be a capacity for the motives of morality and religion, else there can be no actual motive to the choice of either. Without the proper motive neither can be chosen. Without the choice neither is possible. In this case certain rational ends of life, as below the moral and spiritual, would be the limit of our agency. It could not rise into the moral and religious sphere. No agency can rise a grade above its capabilities. As the agency of rational mind is impossible to mere animal instinct, so would moral and religious agency be impossible to man if without a capacity for the necessary moral and religious motives. There must be this capacity, either as native or gracious, else we cannot be under obligation to the choice of either. As mere animal instinct cannot be answerable to the laws of a rational life, no more could we be answerable to the laws of a good life if without a capacity for the necessary motives to its choice.

We are not unmindful of the relations of this question to Christian theology. It is easy to array the doctrine of a native depravity against this capacity for the motives of morality and religion. There is truth in both; and neither is less a truth for the reason of the other. The capacity for moral and religious motives is none the less sufficient for a proper moral and religious agency because of its gracious original. It is a gracious endowment of fallen humanity through a redemptive economy.

We appeal the question of this capacity to the moral facts of human history, and none the less confidently because of the prevalent facts of moral darkness, stolidity, and vice. The moral life of humanity is double—a life within a life. With all the facts of evil there are the more widely prevalent facts which evince the common sense of moral obligation and responsibility, and the common appreciation of obedience to the duties of morality and religion as the supreme excellence and wisdom of human life. These facts require, as their necessary source, a subjective state which constitutes a capacity for the motives of morality and religion, and hence conclude its reality. As for the question of moral freedom, it is indifferent whether this capacity be native or gracious. For the consistency of Scripture truth it must have a gracious original. The motives of morality and religion are the paramount motives of human life. They are such, not only in intrinsic quality, which few question and the moral consciousness of humanity affirms, but also as realizable in experience, The possibility of this realization lies in our actual capacity for these motives as previously shown. Hence, in the realizations of experience the good may have for us the highest eligibility and be chosen against the enticements of evil.

4. Power of Commanding the Requisite Motives. —Then the power of rational and moral agency, as previously explained, gives us the command of these paramount motives of life. It is simply the power of placing the mind in practical relation to the great truths which embody these motives. We can determine our profound attention to these truths and study them just as we do in the case of secular questions. Our moral motivities will answer to these truths when so apprehended and meditated. Conscience and moral reason are realities with every one yet under a law of moral probation. They only wait for the proper reflection to rise into activities of a profound conscious interest in the ends which they concern. In these activities shall thus be realized in experience the actual motives to the choice of the good. Thus, the thoughtless can pause and reflect, while moral duty and the interests which hinge upon it shall rise into view as of all things the most imperative and important. The worldly mind can deeply concern itself with heavenly things. The sensual can apprehend the higher and diviner law of temperance and purity. The covetous and selfish can ponder the duty of charity and realize its imperative claim. The hard and cruel can yield to the pathos of kindness and sympathy. This is no doctrine of instantaneous self-regeneration, nor of self-regeneration in any sense. It is simply the law under which we can realize the paramount eligibility of the good. The power is a gracious endowment. Also the divine Spirit is ever present for our aid, and often active as a light in the moral reason and a quickening force in the conscience. Here is the deeper source and the sufficient source of a true moral agency, with a capacity for the motives of duty. The prevalent habits of evil are no necessary result of an impotence of the moral nature. Nor are they consequent simply to a non-use of its powers, but mostly from a persistent resistance to the spontaneous apprehensions of the moral reason and the impulsions of conscience, especially as enlightened and quickened by the divine Spirit. These facts render it the more manifest that through the proper and obligatory use of the powers of our moral agency we can realize the paramount eligibility of the good and choose it against the evil. This primary choice of the good is not the realization of a new spiritual life in regeneration, but is only, and can only be, the election of its attainment. The choice of such an end and its attainment are clearly separable facts. A new spiritual life in regeneration, if chosen as an end, still has its own mode of effectuation, and in itself must be entirely from the divine Spirit. The sphere of synergism lies back of this, where, through the help of grace and a proper use of the powers of our spiritual agency, we may choose the good; while that of the divine monergism is specially in the work of moral regeneration. Here the doctrine of the most rigid monergist is the reality of truth; while synergism within its own sphere is equally a truth.

Whoever, by private entreaty or public address, seeks to persuade others from an evil to a good life, must assume the very law of freedom which we here maintain. In such an endeavor he can allow no plea of indifference or moral insensibility, or the dominance of propensities to the evil, or the want of actual motives to the choice of the good, to close the case, but must urge any and all such to pause and think, to take into thought and reflection the profound obligations and interests of morality and religion, on the apprehension of which, with the divine help, the paramount motives to the good shall be realized in experience, when the good can be chosen against the evil. Every earnest moral and religious worker does this. The true evangelists of the Christian centuries, and without respect to theological creed, have so entreated and persuaded the thoughtless and vicious. Thus prophets and apostles and the Master himself entreated evil men. So shall we continue to do. But it is all groundless and without possible result, except as the evil have a capacity for moral and religious motives, and a power of personal agency whereby they may place their minds in such relation to the good that it shall be apprehended in the moral reason and in a profound conscious interest as supremely eligible.

5. True Freedom of Choice.—This is the doctrine of a rational and a real freedom. It rests upon no false ground, and is constructed with no irrelevant or irreconcilable principles. Every vitally related fact of psychology and personal agency has its proper place and office.

It is not the freedom of arbitrary volition, nor the liberty of indifference. A life without interest in its chosen ends must be utterly forceless and useless. Indeed, it could have no chosen ends. It is the sheerest assumption that either the primary choice of the good or the maintenance of a good life is possible, with indifference to goodness and its blessedness as ends. The theory of a valid and responsible freedom under a law of moral inability is of all theories the most irrational. It requires that the good be chosen, not only without actual motive, but also against the dominance of inevitable counter motive. By so much does it sink below the liberty of indifference or the freedom of mere arbitrary volition. The doctrine here maintained is clear of all these errors. Personal agency is the ground truth. This agency must be a reality, else there can be no place for the question of freedom. If a reality, it must have all requisite faculties. Then freedom should no longer be a question in issue. Its denial involves a denial of personal agency in man. Personal agency and free agency are the same. For required choices sufficient motives are within our command. This is a rational freedom.

It is not the freedom of moral impotence, impotence in the very seat of the necessary potency. It is the freedom of personal agency, with power for required choices. It is sufficient for the sphere of our responsible life. Spontaneous impulses often tend toward the irrational and the evil, and the more strongly in many instances from previous vicious indulgence; but as rational and moral agents we have a gracious power against them. We can summon into thought and reflection, and into the apprehension of conscience and the moral reason, all the counter motives of obligation and spiritual well-being as they may arise in the view of God and redemption and the eternal destinies. With these resources of paramount motive, and the light and blessing of the Holy Spirit, ever gracious and helpful, we may freely choose the good against the evil. This is the reality of freedom in choice.