Two letters on causation and freedom in willing, addressed to John Stuart Mill

Front matter

o o

^aV

.0'

Letter I. On Causation

1. My Dear Sir : In your letter of June 7, 1865,1 understand you to agree with me that volition and choice are different ; and as you do not object to my definitions of Will and of Liberty, I assume that you accept them. You further say, that " on the subject, practically considered, I am at one with you. Your view of what the mind has power to do seems to me quite just, but we differ on the question how the mind is determined to do it." You take position and argue the question thus : " But I do not find that your arguments in any way touch the doctrine of so-called Necessity, as I hold it; you allow that Volition requires the previous existence of two things, which the mind itself did not make, at least directly, nor in most cases at all — a knowledge and a want ; you consider as the peculiarity of a free cause that its determinations do not depend on the past, but on a preconception of the future ; but though the knowledge and the want refer to what is future, the knowledge and the want themselves are not future facts, but present, or rather past facts, for they must exist previous to the volitional act. You seem to admit, not only that the knowledge and want are conditions precedent to the Will, but that the character of the Will invariably corresponds to that of the knowledge and want, and that any variation in either of these determines, or at least is sure to be followed by, a corresponding variation in the Volition. Now, this is all that I, as a necessitarian, require. I do not believe in anything real corresponding to the phrases Necessity, Causal Force, or the like ; I acknowledge no other link between cause and effect, even when both are purely material, than invariability of sequence, from which arises possibility of prediction ; and this, it seems to me, on your own showing, exists equally between Volition and the mental antecedents by which you allow that they are and must be preceded." You then refer me, for further argument, to a chapter in your " Keview of Sir William Hamilton," and in this I find reference again to Chapter XI., Book VI., of your work on Logic. I may have occasion to notice portions of each ; but first, as to your letter of June 7, and the statement in it that you " acknowledge no other link between cause and ejBTect, even when both are purely material, than invariability of sequence " — no " Necessity, Causal Force, or the like." We are here at the very foundation of the question, and if we here really differ, argument upon it may be of no more avail than it would be upon a question of the color of an object, when one man said, to his eyes it was red, and another that it was green, or, perhaps, rather asserted that there not only was no redness, but nothing to be either red or green.

Your expressions, just quoted, seem to imply that change may take place without the action of any power to produce it. This no-eause philosophy precludes all argument as to Cause or Causal power, and of course as to the mind in effort as such a cause or power. It denies, or at least wholly ignores, such power, and of course any exercise of it, free or unfree.

If " invariability of sequence " is the only relation between ilowing or changing events, all reasoning as to how these events come into existence, or why or how conformed to this invariable order, is precluded, and philosophy is reduced to the mere observation of the flow of events and the memory of the observed succession. We have only passively to note the events that occur, and the repetition or non-repetition of the order of their occurring. In this view. Volition or effort is but such an event, and not a mode of power b ON CAUSATION AND

by which an intelligent being originates change, and controls, creates, and modifies the future.

A wise man may perceive that it is best that he should move from a consuming fire, but if there is no causal force, neither the perception itself, nor the perceiving being, can cause either the consequent movement or the effort to move.

Though the expression in your letter admits of such construction, I do not think you mean merely to say that you admit of no Causal Force, as hetween the exercise of the power and the effect of its exercise — no tautology of power — in which I would agree with you ; for the exercise of a sufficient power does not require the addition or action of another power to bring about the effect ; but I rather suppose you to mean that, between the antecedent events and the consequent events, you recognize, outside of the events themselves, no causal power of the difference or change from the former to the latter which constitutes the effect. This view, too, seems to me to be confirmed by portions of your chapter on Causality, which I have just looked into ; while in your attempt to get over the obvious objection that night and day, though invariably and reciprocally antecedents and consequents, are not causes of each other, I think you really postulate efficient causes as existing in " properties of matter," and like phrases ; and in the exception you make when you say, " We could predict the whole subsequent history of the universe, at least unless some neiv Volition of a power capable of controlling the universe should supervene," you appear to admit (though possibly only in deference to the opinion of those who differ from you) that Volition may, or might be, an efficient Cause.

2. Before proceeding further, it may be well to inquire into our notion of Cause.

But first, as to the origin of this notion to which portions of your chapter on Sir William Hamilton's theory of Causation have called my attention. In saying, "But there is another theory : . . . . that we acquire both our notion of Causation, and our belief in it, from an internal consciousness of power exerted by ourselves, in our voluntary actions ; that is, in the motions of our bodies, for our Will has no other direct action on the outward world," you approach most nearly to a statement of my views ; but there is still a wide difference. You add, " To this doctrine Sir William Hamilton gives the following conclusive answer.

" ' This reasoning, in so far as regards the mere empirical fact of our consciousness of Causality, in the relation of our Will as moving, and of our limbs as moved, is refuted by the consideration, that between the overt act of corporeal movement of which we are cognizant, and the internal act of mental determination, of which we are also cognizant, there intervenes a numerous series of intermediate agencies, of which we have no knowledge ; and consequently, that we can have no consciousness of any causal connection between the extreme links of this chain, — the volition to move, and the link moving — as this hypothesis asserts. No one is immediately conscious, for example, of moving his arm, through his Volition. Previously to this ultimate movement, muscles, nerves, a multitude of solid and fluid parts, must be set in motion by the Will ; but of this motion we know, from consciousness, actually nothing. A person struck with paralysis is conscious of no inability in his limb to fulfil the determination of his Will ; and it is only after having willed, and finding that his limbs do not obey his Volition, that he learns by this experience, that the external movement does not follow the internal act. But as the paralytic learns after the Volition that his limbs do not obey his mind, so it is only after the Volition that the man in health learns that his limbs do obey the mandates of his Will.'

" With this reasoning, borrowed, as our author admits, from Hume, I entirely agree." *

Now, admitting all Sir W. Hamilton says, I do not see that it is a conclusive answer, or even an answer at all : the question here is not what or

* Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, Chap. III. Vol. II. p. 40, Am. ed.

FEEEDOM IN WILLING. 9

how we cause ; nor what is the action of Cause : nor on what does it directly act ; but how we " acquire both our notion of Causation, and our belief in itr Even if it could be shown, not only that there are intermediate movements which escape our observation, but that we are mistaken in the whole phenomena of muscular movement from beginning to end, it would not prove, nor even tend to prove, that we do not get our notion and belief from the deceptive appearances. It might, in such case, be plausibly argued that the notion and belief, being founded upon erroneous assumptions, would be fallacious ; but even thi& reasoning would not be valid, there being no necessary or real dependence of the genuine notion and belief upon the correctness of the particular observation which suggested it. If I should say that I got my notion and belief of motion from the movement of the sun around the earth, it would hardly be deemed a disproof either of my assertion, or of the correctness of my notion and belief as to motion, to say, that the sun in fact did not move around the earth at all ; and even if it should be proved that motion was absolutely impossible, it would not follow that we had not thus acquired our knowledge and belief of it. Some idea of motion must precede any demonstration of its non-existence.

This argument of Sir W. Hamilton, then, does not touch the theory as you have stated it, and if it had refuted that theory as effectually as you suppose, there was still another intrenchment to be overcome before the positions I have taken in " Freedom of Mind in Willing," &C.5* would have been disturbed. For it might have been shown that we could not by experience get our notion and belief of Cause from a mistaken or partial, or even from a full and correct observation of the influence of our efforts in producing change; and yet this would not have proved that such notion and belief were not the result of an innate knowledge of a faculty of effort, and of its relation to muscular movement, or even from such knowledg;e of the two extreme links of the chain of phenomena, — the effort and the muscular movement, — which is what I assert.

In support of this view, I have there stated that we could not obtain this knowledge by observation of movement by others, either of their muscles or our own, the connection of such movement with the effort of others not being open to observation ; nor yet from reflection, no rational connection having ever yet been discovered between them; and further, we could not have acquired such knowledge by our own experience, in moving our own muscles, because we

* " Freedom of Mind in Willing; or, Every Being that Wills a Creative First Cause." Published in 1864. " Creative First Cause " here signifies one that of itself begins and effects change, and not one that is prior to all others, as some of the reviewers have supposed.

must have had the knowledge before any case of such experience could have arisen • we could not make effort to move the muscles, and especially with design to move any particular muscle, till we knew that effort was the mode of doing it. The very statement of the case precludes the supposition that it could be done by accident, without such pre-existing knowledge. The making of effort, with the design to produce a specific effect, is the antithesis of accident, and wholly excludes it. This reasoning, with the observed facts in regard to the earliest actions of all active beings, indicates that this knowledge is innate. Any proof that we cannot obtain this knowledge by experience, goes to confirm my position, rather than to subvert or weaken it. Both you and Sir William Hamilton, however, assert that this knowledge of our ability to move our muscles is acquired by our experience in moving them. In the concluding sentence of the argument, as above quoted, and approved by you, he alleges this, and even asserts that it is acquired in the same way as any bystander obtains it, by outward observation (I take your statement of it). You both hold that all our knowledge of Cause is derived from experience. But, before there can be any experience of muscular movement by effort, there must be effort — before " the man in health learns by experience that his limbs do obey the mandates of his

Will," there must have been " the Yolition," — • the mandate, the effort, to move the limbs ; and to this end there must have been prior knowledge of the mode of making the effort, and especially of directing that effort to the 'particular muscular movement designed. There must also, prior to this experience, have been that "prophetic anticipation" which can inform us, prior to experience, that the "Volition will be followed by an effect ; or, at least, that there is such a relation between the two, that this is sufficiently probable to justify the effort, and which "prophetic anticipation" you say you agree with Hamilton and Mansel in rejecting. I confess that upon this subject I should have expected to find whatever three such profound thinkers, looking at the subject so differently, agreed in, invulnerable on all sides ; but, for the reasons already given, I am constrained to dissent even from such authority.

There either must have been self-action, — ef fort before we knew how to act, or there must have been knowledge of the mode of self-action, of making the effort, prior to any experience of it. Of these two alternatives it seems to me the latter must be adopted as the only one which is conceivable, and, in that case, the knowledge of the mode of making effort, and that effort is the mode of producing muscular movement, must be innate — ready for us whenever the occasion arises.

Without some such " prophetic anticipation " of the effect of effort prior to all experience, effort never would be made, and experience as to effort never could begin to be. No rational being would put forth effort without some prior expectation that a desirable effect would be produced, though it may be only by experience that he could ascertain that his expectations were well founded, and his future confidence in them confirmed.

But all the phenomena of Instinct indicate not only that this knowledge of the mode of making effort, and that it is the mode of producing muscular action, is innate, but that from this central point, in which action has its start, there diverges the innate knowledge of the plans or series of actions, and of the order of the succession in each series, by which certain ends are reached.

That complicated series of muscular movements by which the child transfers the milk from the maternal breast to its own stomach, is as well known to it at birth as after long experience. It even knows where to find this nutriment. I hold that the distinguishing characteristic of all instinctive action is, that it is made in conformity to a mode or plan which is innately known,* while rational actions require preliminary effort to design the plan, or the series of

* Freedom of Mind in Willing, Book I. Chap. XI.

efforts by which the end may be reached, and that when, by frequent repetition of the same series, we come to follow it out by memory, each act in turn being suggested by that which. preceded it, rather than by reference to the future end designed, the action becomes habitual ; and thus the instinctive actions, which are our first, and prior to experience, are like the habitual (which can only be after much experience) in this, that in both we act in conformity to a plan which is already in the mind, ready formed, requiring no effort to form such plan.

This similarity has found expression in the vulgar adage, " Habit is second nature."

From what I have already said, it will appear that I do not deem it essential to our rudimental notion of Causation, that we should be conscious of all the intermediate steps, from the first action of a Cause, or Power, to its ultimate effect, however necessary this may be to the completeness of our knowledge of the phenomena which result from its action. I would, however, remark that in view of the exposition I have given of Instinct and Habit, it may be possible that we do know, or may have been conscious of, the intermediate effect of effort upon the nerves and fluids by which muscular movement is reached. We know that when, by long practice, we habitually perform series of actions with little thought about the order of their succession, portions of them are immediately obliterated, leaving no trace in memory, and that this obliteration increases with the acquired facility which habit engenders. In reading we forget that we saw the particular letters, recollecting the final result of the combination of words, or more generally only the ideas, forgetting even the words by which they were conveyed to us. It would not be strange that we should, early in life, acquire the same habit in regard to the intermediate steps in a process which was perfectly known to us at birth, which at no period ever required effort or even observation to learn, and which we are constantly repeating in every moment of our conscious existence, or that, under such exaggerated conditions, these intermediate steps should wholly cease to be the subject of memory.

3- Having said thus much of the origin of our notion of Cause, we may next inquire what the notion itself is, of which we find ourselves possessed. If we should attempt to go back of this fact of the possession of a notion which is innate, we should encounter the same difficulties which attend our inquiries into the origin of matter. We have not witnessed its creation ; to us it has had no beginning, and hence the circumstances of that beginning are as inscrutable as if it were an eternity ago.

This notion as it originally exists, I think, is that of ability to do something — of power to do — to change what is, and thus bring about what as yet is not. It may be originally confined to the knowledge of particular cases, or even to the one case of muscular effort by movement, which, as before shown, must be innate or intuitive in every being that Wills, and furnishes the type of the idea of Power, than which no idea is more distinct, isolated, peculiar, and fundamental. If, however, my analysis of instinct is correct, this innate or intuitive knowledge, as I have already stated, extends far beyond this genesis of action, and embraces that of series of actions to reach an end.

It is not essential to our idea of Cause or of Power, that we should know that we can by any means extend the effects of our efforts beyond our own muscles, or beyond the moment of effort* Having this genetic knowledge of effort, we may subsequently learn from experiment the modes of extending it, as, for instance, that by the use of a rod we may extend it in space, and that by throwing a ball we may extend it in time also. We do not thus reach the essence of Power, or of Cause, any more than through sensation we reach the essence of matter or of its properties. But even though we never get at this knowledge of it, we may still, in the study of phenomenal ef' fects, and of that order of their succession which is so important to us, derive advantage from finding what existences have the property of power, and under what conditions it is manifested, as we may be aided in the study of natural philosophy by investigating the phenomena of weight, and finding what substances possess it.

That this knowledge of our ability to produce change by efibrt, was the original type of our idea of Cause seems to be very generally admitted. Even Comte, while ignoring all causative power, virtually admits that Cause was originally predicated only of spirit power. I am far from supposing that a notion being general, or even universal, is conclusive proof of its correctness. A large part of our progress in knowledge consists in finding that such notions require to be modified or discarded. Still they have the advantage of actual possession, and from the necessities of the case should hold till discredited, either directly, or by producing others with a better title to our credence.

4. Assuming these positions, we have still to inquire what Cause really is, and whether the notion of it which arises from our conscious efforts in connection with the effects anticipated, and subsequently observed, has been properly superseded.

In this discussion, I might have expected to

find a leader, or at least an ally, in Sir William

Hamilton. But upon the question of the origin

of our idea of Cause, he is against me ; and on that of the idea itself, he does not appear to have even found the battle-field. His theory is embraced in the formula, The cause is equal to the effect, by which his subsequent reasoning and examples show, that he means the antecedents are equal to the consequents. Had he only used the word adequate, which in some senses is the equivalent for equal, it would have been the common expression for one of the relations of cause to its effect; but this would have pointed the thought in a different direction. Grant the equality in any and every sense, and what is gained ? The question is not as to the equality of antecedents and consequents, but how, or by what agency or means, the antecedents come to be converted into the consequents; and upon this their equality or inequality has no bearing whatever. Equal or unequal, the question how or by w^hat converted, remains the same. That a cask of brandy is in any respect the equivalent of a ton of grapes, in no way enlightens us as to how or by what the grapes were converted into the equivalent, brandy. His saying, " This, then, is the mental j)henomenon of Causality, — that we necessarily deny in thought, that the object which appears to begin to be, really so begins ; and that we necessarily identify its present with its past existence," with his argument upon it, seems to me only to assert that, when Cause has produced or made something, we cannot concelve that it made that something out of nothing, but that there must have been something, and a sufficient something, to make it of.

I have defined Cause to be, " that which produces change." *

The word " produces," here, is important. Under your view, the corresponding expression would perhaps be, that which invariably precedes change.

I notice that you use the word produce in connection with the advent of phenomena, but I know it is difficult to conform the language to changes of thought and belief We still speak of the sun's rising, and even of its going round the earth. In such cases much latitude must be allowed ; and hence when, in reference to certain Permanent Causes, you say, " these have existed,, and the effects or consequents they were fitted to produce have taken place," I interpret the expression as meaning that certain permanent phenomena are fitted to be the invariable antecedents of the consequences which have taken place ; and so of some other similar statements. But as to being fitted, if power to produce is ignored, I cannot see why a tornado, a horse race, or a bonfire are not each or all as well fitted to invariably precede an eclipse of the moon as anything else is. Leaving out this idea of power, all phenomena may be conceived of as

* Freedom of Mind, &c., Chap. V.

happening in any assignable order of succession, or of co-existence.

The phrase I have adopted still seems to me to express the popular, perhaps I might say natural idea of Cause, and that which is nearly universal, the exceptions being in those whose reasonings have led them to other views, and other expressions, which, were they general and uniform in this class, might properly avail against the notions of the large majority who have not investigated. I see, however, no reason to change this, definition, though further elucidation and extension of it are needed.

The knowledge of our ability to make effort, and that it is the mode by which we should seek to produce muscular movement, perhaps, gives us the notion of Power, rather than of Cause ; but with this notion of Power that of Cause is very closely allied, though not identical with it.

Cause is always the correlative to effect, and effect implies a change ; Powder always has some change, as the object or tendency of its exercise; but it may be insufficient to overcome the inertia, passivity, or resistance of the present subsisting conditions, and in that case does not act as Cause.

If this distinction does not obtain, I see no difference between the idea of the exercise of Power and that of Cause.

Cause, then, may be said to be power in suecessful action; i. e., the exercise of a sufficient power ; power then produces a change — an effect — of which its sufficient exercise is the cause.

This using Power as the generic term for the primitive idea, and Cause to designate this sufficient apphcation or exercise of power which produces an effect, is a mere question of definition to be settled as may be found most convenient and useful in expressing and advancing thought. The balance of advantages seems to me to be in its favor.

Adopting this distinction, I would say that our notion of Power, and also of Cause, is derived from our innate knowledge of effort and of the effects anticipated from it ; but that we can only know our ability to be the actual cause of any specific effect by experiment — by testing the sufficiency of our power in effort.

The change sought or tended to in the exercise of power — the effect to be produced or attempted — ■ is always in the future. In the past, what was, cannot be obliterated or made to be what it was not; and in the present instant, what is, cannot in the same instant be what it is not.

5. Cause, then, always implies effect, and effect implies change. This change may be within or without us, and may arise from the variation in what before existed, or in entirely new creation.

In regard to some changes within ourselves, as variations in the arrangement of our ideas, or in the portions which we make the objects of attention, we attribute them to our own direct agency. In regard to the external, we are not conscious of the possibility of creating matter out of nothing, or out of anything else, and hence attribute all changes in it to a change in that which already exists ; and this again to motion of it in some form. Even change of color we come, by experience, to look upon as taking place under this necessary condition of material change.

So far then, at least so far as relates to material phenomena, the statement that for every effect there must be a cause, is equivalent to saying, that for every change there must be motion or activity, and through this expression of it the law is resolved into the truism, that for every activity there must be something capable of acting. If that which changes has in itself the faculty of activity, we do not look beyond it for the cause of the activity, but only for the reason why it put forth its self-active power; but if it does not possess this faculty of acting, but has only a susceptibility to be moved by being first acted upon, we still seek to connect it with a self-active power or cause, which moved or put it in motion.

We know only one such Cause, and that is intelligent being, with the faculty or power of effort ; with wants, the gratification of which requires the exercise of this power ; and with knowledge to direct its efforts to this end.

Such a being has every attribute essential to a first Cause, is obviously fitted to act as such Cause, and could do so in the absence of every and all other power ; could of itself produce effects and changes, though everything else in the universe tended to be passive and changeless.

That which acts as it perceives an occasion or opportunity, acts from knowledge, and may itself exist in a passive state, till it perceives a reason or occasion for acting; till, in its own view or judgment, action is better than inaction.