every action must have a cause, the will must be controlled by motives, for nothing can be without a The will cannot be free because of this

causal principle. Yes, answers Martineau, if causality means that different effects must have different causes, then the will is not free. But it is not true that different effects must have different causes. The will is not determined, because different effects need not have different causes. They need not have different causes, because in the will we have an example of a cause which has the power to determine an alternative, i.e., a free cause. This amounts to saying, The will is free because it is free.

(3) We observe, then, that a free will in this sense is wholly inconceivable; it violates the law of causality. The psychological investigation has already shown that it contradicts the facts. We must now also insist that, if the will is free, it is utterly useless to attempt to determine it. And yet everybody acts on the conviction that this may be done. If nothing can determine it, what is the use of education, of laws, of arguments, of entreaties, of moral suasion, of punishment, and all those means employed to determine conduct? How can an utterly groundless willing be in any way held responsible? The voluntary activity has been initiated without being caused. Hence nothing can be done to affect it. Like a deus ex machina, the free will enters upon the scene of action, and in the same

mysterious manner disappears. How can it be approached, this guilty party? Why offer it motives if these have no influence? Besides, if the will does not come under the causal law, why speak of its development during the various periods of race and individual life? If it cannot be determined, how explain the influences of disease and stimulants on it? Why should it ever degenerate? What becomes of it in sleep? Where is it in the hypnotized state?

What would morality be to a person absolutely free? “Indeterminism," says Riehl, "would subject our moral life to contingency." The free will cannot be impelled by reason to act; it can in no way be determined to adopt the more reasonable course, but acts groundlessly. Nor can conscience be of avail, nor remorse, nor any other ethical feeling. A person acting without cause would be utterly unreliable; in fact, the ideal free man's actions would resemble those of the lunatic. To desire such freedom would, indeed, as Leibniz exclaims, be to desire to be a fool. Or, in Schelling's words: “To be able to decide for A and nonA without any motives whatsoever, would, in truth, simply be a prerogative to act in an altogether irrational manner."

I also fail to see in what respect the cause of libertarianism is helped by granting that the will cannot act without motives, but that it is, in some cases, able to choose one motive to the exclusion of the

other, and that, too, without cause. The same fallacy obtains in the reasoning, whether you extend or limit this faculty of the will to begin a new causal series. When Martineau asserts the will to be a cause which terminates the balance of possibilities in favor of this phenomenon rather than that," he maintains absolute freedom of volition, and lays himself open to all the objections urged above.

9. The Consciousness of Freedom. - There are, it is said, certain facts which make for free will. “I hold, therefore," says Sidgwick, “that against the formidable array of cumulative evidence offered for Determinism, there is but one argument of real force; the immediate affirmation of consciousness in the moment of deliberate action.”1

(1) Now, if it were really true that we have a consciousness of being free in the sense in which this term has been used, this feeling would have as little weight as a scientific proof as the feeling that the sun moves around the earth has for astronomy. Where a man accepts this "immediate intuition of the soul's freedom" as a proof of its actuality, he is simply asserting that his soul is free because he feels. it to be free.2

(2) And even granting that such a feeling can prove anything, must we not show (a) that it exists, and (b) what it tells us? Libertarians claim that men are conscious of being free, and see herein a proof of their thesis. But the all-important ques2 Dr. Ward.

1 Methods of Ethics, p. 67.

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tion is, whether men really say and believe themselves to be free in the sense in which these philosophers claim that they are free. The libertarian is apt to throw into this consciousness of freedom his entire doctrine, thereby garbling the facts to suit his theory.

It is necessary, therefore, to analyze this consciousness of freedom. Before the volition takes place there may be present in consciousness a feeling that I can do either this or that. In the moment of willing no such feeling exists, while after the act has been willed and executed I say to myself, I might have done otherwise. Now all the possibilities of action occur to me, my mind is in a different state, certain ideas and feelings that formerly exerted an irresistible influence are no longer present, or only dimly remembered. All the conditions being changed, I feel as though I could have acted differently. And so I could have done, if only I had willed differently, and so I could have willed differently, if only the conditions of willing had been different. I can do what I will to do; I am free to get up or sit down, free to go home or stay here, to give up all my prospects in life, if only I will to do so. Never does my consciousness tell me that a volition is uncaused, that there was no reason for my willing as I did will, that the will is the absolute beginning of an occurrence, that at any moment any volition may arise regardless of all antecedent processes. Least of all does it tell me that I am the

manifestation of an intelligible self which I feel to be free.

Against those who so strongly emphasize the sense of freedom, we may urge the deterministic standpoint generally accepted in all the affairs of life. We regard the actions of men as necessary functions of their character. In all historical sciences, we invariably seek for the causes of events; we analyze the characters of the actors, and show the influences of their times and surroundings. Our entire social life is based on the conviction that under certain conditions men will act in a certain way. That this is so, let the methods of education and government attest.

10. Responsibility. The feeling of responsibility is also urged against determinism, and accepted as a proof of liberty. This, however, proves nothing but that acts and motives depend upon character or flow from the will of the agent. The person regards every voluntary action of his as the expression of his personality, which, in truth, it is. The act is his, willed by him and acknowledged by him, the product of his own character. He does not regard his character as something outside of himself, as something forcing him in a certain direction, pushing him now hither, now thither, but identifies himself with it. In fact, he is his character, and therefore holds himself responsible for his acts and motives. And because he feels himself as an agent, the acts as his acts, he sees no reason why this self from which