Liberty and necessity; in which are considered the laws of association of ideas, the meaning of the word will, and the true intent of punishment

Front matter

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Preface

All questions in sciences founded on facts, are settled by an appeal to the facts themselves. Hence our knowledge of Astronomy, Optics, Chemistry, Geology and Mechanics, is continually enlarged by the discovery of additional facts, while in the department of Theology, the question of Liberty and Necessity still rests on hypothesis where it stood two thousand years ago.

The disputants on both sides ascribe every action to the agency of a power they call the Will ; but what determines the Will to act, is the point upon which the whole controversy turns.

On one side it is affirmed that nothing determines the Will — that it determines itself — that it is a spontaneity which can act without cause of action, and can choose among motives without reason or preference.

The necessarians do not understand this logic. They affirm that the Will is always determined by the strongest motive, or judgment of the mind, which they say is the only guide of conduct vouchsafed to man.

IV PREFACE.

The difficulty lies in substituting hypothesis for facts, under the belief that facts could not be affirmed of mind as well as of matter, whereas we know nothing of matter but from a consciousness derived through the senses, and from the same consciousness only, do we know what takes place in the mind. The evidence of fact in both cases is the same. There is no true knowledge but in consciousness.

That we feel pity, love, hatred, malice and resentment, are as truly facts as that iron sinks in water, or that rain falls from the clouds, and unless we are conscious of these and all other facts we possess, we could have no knowledge of them whatever.

When a jury is convinced by the testimony of a witness, their conviction is as much a fact, as the existence of the witness himself.

The sensations caused by the light and heat of the sun, are a3 truly facts as the existence of that luminary in the heavens.

That the features of one person do necessarily remind us of those of another, merely by the force of resemblance, is a fact known to every man from his own experience.

So the existence of any judgment, opinion or belief, attested by consciousness,, is as truly a fact as any occurrence in the external world.

All phenomena of mind, therefore, being so many facts, every question in mental philosophy may be settled as in other sciences, by an appeal to the facts themselves. Moreover, the immediate antecedents to these phenomena, are sensations, ideas and their combinations, which can be distinctly traced from their first elements up to those perceptions and judgments of the mind, that are the true and sole causes of action.

I do not pretend to have discovered what wai not known

PREFACE. V

before. My aim has been to direct attention to truths we already possess : and if, as I trust it shall appear, that all phenomena of mind are so many facts ; that ideas act upon the mind, and not the mind upon ideas ; that all their combinations are formed by their own laws of aggregation, and that the mind cannot command or originate an idea for itself, then all further doubt upon the question of Liberty and Necessity must cease.

If I possess any knowledge of my subject, it is mostly the fruit of twenty-five years experience at the Bar, and of observation while on the Bench.

The Bar is one of the best schools for the study of the mind — an argument is but a train of associated ideas ; conviction, judgment, execution are its direct consequences.

For the first just hint on the association of ideas and the true meaning of the word Will, I am indebted to a treatise on the Mind, by James Mill ; and if it should appear that he has fallen into an occasional error, yet there is enough of truth in his work, if followed to its legitimate results, to place him among the first metaphysicians of any age.

Weary of theory and hypothesis, and shut out from the free use of books from a defective vision, I sought and attained the truth in the phenomena of my own mind. Every man possesses the same means of information within himself. All books written on the Mind from the time of Aristotle until now, can teach him nothing beyond what his own consciousness attests to be true. When he is thirsty. he drinks; the desire for water he knows to be the sole cause of action. This is nature. Such an agent as the Will is defined to be, has no place in the human mind.

If in the following pages I have necessarily employed the

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VI PREFACE.

term Will in the sense in which it is used by writers and in common speech, it was that I might show that the true causes of action existed independently of its agency.

Whether or no I have truly stated the phenomena of mind as they occur, is merely a question of fact, to be tested by every man's own consciousness, and not by argument.

Contents

ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

Chapter I. Page

Elements of knowledge are few, but capable of almost endless combinations 9

Inventions are simply combinations of ideas familiar to all 11

We think from necessity * 11

Ideas and sensations undefinable 12, 13

The soul, the percipient of all knowledge, can give no account of

itself 14

Immutable laws inferred from a succession of like phenomena. ... 15, 16, 17

Delegated laws 19

Laws of thought : Ideas precede volition, and not volition ideas.. . 19, 20, 21 They are active in dreams where there is no volition, and are governed by inherent laws 21, 22

Mental philosophy an induction from facts ; true causes of association first known to Mr. Hume 22, 23

Chapter II. Contiguity, Cause Of Association

Ideas bound up in words 25, 26, 27

Every definition must contain the precise number of ideas that

enter the word 27

Ideas bound up in words, continued 28

Ideas suggested by the position of objects 29

Ideas suggest one another, illustrated by conversation 30, 31, 32

Geography, history, mere associations of ideas 32

Contiguity, source of tedious stories and long harangues 33, 34, 35

Why a concise style pleases 85

Do sensations and ideas make different impressions among themselves 36

Vlll CONTENTS.

PAGE.

Chapter III

Resemblance, fertile source of associations — comparison 37, 38, 39, 40

Mind, passive under resemblances, as under sensations 41

Classification is altogether from natural resemblances — is made for

us and not by us, we do not accept or reject 41, 42

CHAPTER IV. Associations from cause and effect 43, 44

The past becomes the interpreter of the future in physics and

Science propagates itself, as in geology, astronomy, gravitation,

Ideas are the offspring of our wants, never of the will. 50, 51, 52

Genius, what 53, 54

Spontaneous associations, vagaries 54, 55, 56

Imagination, no such faculty exists 57, 58

Chapter V

Attention is not in the power of the will — it is measured by the interest felt in the object — ideas cannot be viewed separately and detained in the mind 59, 60, 61, 62, 63

CHAPTER VI. Memory never under the control of the will 65

To remember or forget is not in our power 66, 70

The mind essentially passive until aroused by sensations or ideas. 71, 72

To reason, is to perceive, unavoidably, the forms and relations of ideas as they arise to the mind. Illustrations — instructions to representatives, lawyers and j udg6s — no opinion can stand still in philosophy, laws or creeds of religion 73, 77

WILL.

CHAPTER VII. The qucHtion of liberty and necessity of easy solution 81

A ut horn di.sagreo in their definitions of the will 82

Edwards' opinions examined, and shown to be contradictory 82, 83

His doctrine of moral necessity 83, 84

CONTENTS. IX

PAGE.

COUSIN

Places motive or preference on the same basis with. Edwards 84

BIELFIELD

Affirms that the understanding errs, and the will embraces the

errors 85

LOCKE

Thinks that the power of the will is limited to action — that it obeys

the determination of the j udgment 85

MALEBRANCHE

Thinks that it is the province of the will to reason, and of the understanding to perceive 85

Say that the will is the last dictate of the understanding 86

Gall and Spurzheim adopt the same opinion 86

DR. BROWN

Says that action follows immediately upon desire alone, and that

he is never conscious of such a power as the will 86

Payne and Young are inclined to the same opinion. 86

HUME

Ascribes the power of new perceptions to the will — his opinion examined 87, 88

AIME MARTIN

Has revived the Manichean notion of two wills, spiritual and animal SS

Cousin's perplexity increases at every attempt to define the will. . S9

After making it every thing and nothing, he proceeds to define its

powers 89, 90

A disciple of Mr. Cousin, a professor in an American University, gives a still more fearful account of the will, it acts because it

is able to act, and always without cause 90, 92

When a Freewiller is pressed for proof, he retreats behind his consciousness, as an enthusiast does for inspiration 91

They nevertheless act from motives as other men 92

If motives move the will to move the man, as the necessarians say, why not let motives act directly ? nature never employs two causes for one effect 93

CONTENTS.

PAGE.

By choosing the weaker motive, the will acts against the cause of

action 94

The power that chooses must judge, hence the will becomes the

" I," the "me," the "man" 95

That men could have done otherwise than they did, under the

same circumstances, is a delusion often exposed 95, 96

TRIAL AND DEFENCE OP THE GUILTY BARBER FOR MURDER, BEFORE A TRIBUNAL, WHOSE JUDGES, JURY AND ADVOCATE WERE ALL FREE- WILLERS.

The address of counsel in defence, sets out fully their practical doctrines 97, 106

Charge of the court ; acquittal of the barber 106, 107

VOLITION, CHOICE, FACULTY.

If choice lie in the determination of the mind, it cannot lie in a faculty of the mind — it is the mind itself that chooses, reasons, hears, sees — faculty is thus made an entity 108, 109, 110

Though Mr. Locke warns us that by faculty he means only a mode of thinking, yet he relapses into the same error with Edwards — metaphysicians seldom fail to treat the will as an agent dwelling in the inner man, and such is their belief 110, 111, 112

The power exerted over the mind by sensations and ideas, the true

and direct causes of action 112, 113, 114

SENSATIONS, CAUSES OF ACTION.

Every one knows that his mind, when passive, is suddenly aroused by sensations, &c, the progress of sensations until they terminate in action — among sensations the strongest always prevails , 114, 115

IDEAS, CAUSES OF ACTION.

Their power perceived on our features as well as in action 115, 118

CHOICE CONTINUED.

Choice, nothing more than an agreeable impression made necessarily upon the mind, through the senses or from information derived from others — various illustrations — choice implies necessarily the best — it is made for us and not by us — as in the perception of the greatest apparent good in which the will has no concern 118, 125

15 1 LI I B»j OPINION.

Absurd notion on this subject — belief, not in our power — it is an

oli'ect, testimony the cause 126, 127, 128

CONTENTS. XI

Varies its aspect with the progress of evidence — it is necessarily

to every man what it appears to be 128, 129

CAUSES OF ACTION — CONTINUED.

Every one knows the causes of action on the minutest occasions — on subjects of magnitude, he pauses for further light which the subjects themselves are sure to bring by their own associations 13

PURPOSE.

When a man acts directly from the force of conviction, that is what

is meant by the will in common speech 131

A fixed purpose carried into effect, cannot be explained by a rapid

succession of volitions 131, 132

Succession of actions explained by a succession of thoughts 132, 133

The opinions of Locke and Edwards would have been unassailable, had they ascribed all action to the power of sensations and

ideas — the interposition of the will does not vary the effect 133

Change of action, illustrated by change of opinion in a voter 134, 135, 136

PRACTICAL METAPHYSICS

Between a necessarian, a Freewiller, a lesser motive man, and a

disciple of Dr. Brown at a dinner table 136, 137

FACTS — PHENOMENA.

The only forces that can disturb the mind are sensations, ideas, and their combinations; these are so many facts through which alone the truth can be known 13S, 139

The best book on metaphysics is every man's own mind — Descartes,

Hobbes 139

GREATEST APPARENT GOOD.

The desire of pleasure, whether virtuous or vicious, is the motive

power — it is as gravitation to matter, inseparable 140

Pleasure and pain are our masters — opinion of Jeremy Bentham. . 140

Will and pleasure, convertible terms 141

Pleasure, sole spring of action ; but philosophers, unable to conceive how it could produce action, have contrived an auxiliary agent, the will, which renders the subject still more obscure 142, 143, 144 If we substitute desire for will, we shall perceive it to be the necessary cause of action in all breathing things 144

Xll CONTENTS.

PUNISHMENT.

CHAPTER VIII. According to the Freewillers, punishment would he mere revenge

for an act in which motive had no part 147, 148

Just among necessarians, since the motive can be changed 148

SIN AND CRIME EXIST OP NECESSITY.

The best solution of the question of liberty and necessity found in the history of man

That he sins from necessity, we have the same proofs as of any fixed law of nature

Upon this known principle of human nature, legislators enact penalties against crime before committed

Freewillers enact no penalty, for motives do not govern the will. .

All physical and moral evil exist of necessity, and must therefore have entered the providence of God at the creation

Idle speculations of theologians on the existence of evil

The innocent are confounded with the guilty in all the dispensations of Providence, whether physical or moral — errors of judgment, fatal to the innocent

Presumption of divines in an attempt to apologize for evil.

God can do no wrong ; he can commit no sin — no standard above himself.

Punishment causes a change of motive, therefore, a remedy for sin and crime

Upon this principle rests the codes of all nations and the denunciations of Scripture

Upon the same principle all children are disciplined and educated.

LAWS ARE REMEDIAL.

Lawgivers aim at the prevention of crime by countervailing motives 161

If the disease of mind be not cured, the wrong doer is cut off from

society as a patient is by bodily disease 161

The Egyptians treated ignorance as a disease of the mind — education was the cure. The moderns aim at the same result by more ample instruction 162, 163

Jf evils come by the dispensations of Providence, let us not complain, He has provided the remedy 164

Conclusion 165

151,

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154,

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156,

159,

,160

OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

Chapter I. Of The Elements Of Knowledge

Writers agree that external objects act of necessity through the senses, and that all the elements of knowledge are thus forced upon the mind by laws it cannot resist.

Impressions from without are called sensations, and when revived in memory, are called ideas ; and although the original stock may be small, yet will it appear inexhaustible when we consider that colors, sounds, and tastes, afford gradations almost without end ; that there is no limit to the variations of form which are but the inflections of aline; that all the varieties of plants on the globe are composed of four constituent gases; that the multiplied modes of architecture, of machinery, or of the vehicles in which we traverse sea or land, are shaped of timber cut from the forest, of marble from the quarry, or of iron dug from the earth; that the continual addition of an unit will measure the dis- 2 tance to the sun ; that of twelve digits only, four hundred and seventy millions of combinations may be formed; that the varied sounds of all languages, all the wisdom and learning of man, can be expressed by the combinations of the letters of the alphabet; that twenty-four bells would yield a greater number of sounds than could be struck in the longest life ; that the science of geometry is reared upon a few definitions, each succeeding problem standing on its predecessor, and however lofty the fabric, that the same elements are discoverable at the summit that entered at the base ; that the profoundest investigations of the mathematician or astronomer, the highest conceptions of the poet or orator, those ever varying modes and forms of speech that instruct and delight, may all be traced to a few primary thoughts, common alike to the ignorant and the wise. From the same humble sources, genius continues to draw new and elevated beauties, although Ovid complained that preceding poets had appropriated all the graces of speech to themselves, and left none for their successors.

COMBINATIONS NOT INVENTIONS.

A clock or telescope is said to be an invention; but when examined in its details, the combination only turns out to be new, while the component ideas were as familiar to the age of Solomon as now.

" There is nothing new under the sun," is as true of ideas as of things ; and he who first applied the power of steam to machinery, could no more create a thought for himself than he could the metal of which the engine was made ; and if our descendants should hereafter contrive the means of travelling on the winds, it would nofrbe an invention, but a new arrangement of ideas already in store, as a new order of architecture may be devised out of materials already in possession. Hence science and art will ever continue to advance, since their constituent elements must, by their own movement, present other combinations, unexhausted and inexhaustible to the latest generations to come ; and when complex ideas, which become elemental by use, shall enter the associations, they must accelerate the development of new and lofty truths that shall as far transcend the wisdom of the present age, as the Principia of Newton did the astronomy of the Egyptians or Greeks.

WE THINK FROM NECESSITY.

Every one is conscious of trains of ideas that pass across his mind in unbroken succession, independently of his will. They come unbidden, often unwelcome, guests, that take possession of the mind, where they continue to combine, dissolve, and depart, from the moment we are awake until we again subside into sleep. To think, is to perceive the forms and relations they present; and as we cannot refuse to perceive them, so are we made to think in spite of ourselves.

IDEAS AND SENSATIONS INDEFINABLE.

What are sensations and ideas? If, as is said, they exist only in consciousness, how shall we explain their re-appearance after they cease to exist? They can be neither matter nor spirit ; and it is inconceivable how they can be attributes of either.

Plato thought they were coeval with matter ; Malbranche and Berkley ascribed them to the immediate agency of the Deity ; Leibnitz imagined they were a part of the harmonies of nature, subsisting independently of mind or body ; Hobbes, Priestly, and Cooper, thought they arose from the mere organization of matter ; Kant discovered them slumbering in the reason ; Victor Cousin supposed them to be real existences; Locke confounds them with sensations; Mill defines them to be copies of impressions received from objects without; and, since the time of Dr. Brown, most of the Scotch and English writers consider them as so many states of mind, no matter from what source derived. Whatever they may be, atoms or attributes, species, forms, images, phantom or shade, something or nothing ; by whatever name they are called, sensations, ideas, thoughts, conceptions, or perceptions, they are the disturbing forces that arouse and direct every movement of the soul. We are conscious of their existence — and here all inquiry must end. To define them is impossible, since every definition must consist of terms previously understood, or the definition itself will be unintelligible. Nevertheless they are the vehicles of all the knowledge we possess; they instruct us in the past, the present, and the future, in the forms and qualities of bodies, motions and magnitudes of the planets, measure time and space, solve the mysteries of the tides, but reveal not themselves. Though the most subtle and evanescent of all things, yet are they made obedient in speech, bound up in books, engraven on brass, rendered visible in the productions of art, in the steam engine, in the construction of fleets and cities, temples and palaces — reason, judgment, opinion, imagination,

creed, religion, law, and philosophy, are but so

9* many different forms of thought ; as we think, so are we gay or sad, virtuous or vicious, wise or foolish, Jew or Gentile, Mahometan, heretic, infidel or Christian. In thought only do we seem to exist, for when we lie down in sleep we become extinct to ourselves and the world around us.

THE SOUL.

The soul too, the passive recipient of thought, is as ignorant of its own nature as of the thoughts themselves. It can perceive the manner in which its ideas are required, but when interrogated, What art thou ? it makes no reply. It cannot explain its own organization, or whether it be organized or not; whether it be a mere point, or composed of parts, is an attribute or subject.

It can give no account of its beginning or end, or define that consciousness by which it measures its own duration. It takes cognizance of its own properties as it does those of matter, but is equally ignorant of the basis in which they reside. Physiologists say it inhabits the head, but they have not fixed its precise locality. The Greeks supposed it to be a compound substance ; the Chaldeans, a lucid fire diffused through the body; while Phrenologists assign its faculties to distinct compartments of the brain. It can settle none of these questions for itself. It perceives from necessity, and impels to action according to its perceptions, and when exhausted by fatigue, its functions are restored by sleep, which is a suspension of them all. It is equally at fault when it looks into the body, its temporary home. It finds itself provided with organs of hearing, seeing, tasting, touching and smelling, but knows not how they convey tidings from without. The heart beats, the blood circulates, the lungs respire, the stomach digests ; it observes these phenomena, but perceives not their causes. There is but one cause, that great Incomprehensible Being who created and governs the Universe according to his own good pleasure; whose laws extend throughout the whole compass of matter and mind, ever and immutably the same.

IMMUTABLE LAWS.

From the uniform course of phenomena in the material world, we infer the existence of immutable laws : for the same reason we are bound to infer their existence in the department of mind. The tides uniformly obey the moon, heavy bodies continue to fall to the earth, rivers to flow to the sea, heat to revive vegetation, to raise vapor into clouds, lightning to explode, rains to descend, plants and animals to multiply, decay and die, from the beginning as now.

As in matter, so in mind; the elements of knowledge continue to come to us, as to our ancestors, through their appointed channels; ideas combine and form images now as in the minds of Homer and David, numbers and figures in geometry, present the same relations as they did to Euclid ; and in similar circumstances men have uniformly thought and acted alike in all ages of the world.

The history of man is but the history of his mind; action is the offspring of ideas; Alexander conceived the conquest of Asia, before he embarked in the enterprise ; all those plots, wars and revolutions that overturn kingdoms and states ; all the actions, pursuits and works of man, whether for good or for evil, are but the outward expression of thoughts within. If, therefore, our thoughts were not regulated by uniform laws, mankind could not become the subjects of government, human or divine ; or, if their actions were the offspring of a self-determining will, they would be equally beyond the control of the Deity, whose foreknowledge lies only in His power to execute what Himself had decreed should come to pass.*

SPECIAL PROVIDENCE.

That class of waiters who resolve all phenomena of mind or matter into the immediate act of God, will hardly affirm that He prompts men to the commission of crime ; yet such must be their doctrine, as it is incredible that a part of the same mind should be governed by a particular providence, and the rest left to some antagonist power; that all rivers should flow to the sea; that heavy bodies and light should sink or swim by a particular providence; that the specific gravity of gold, silver, iron or lead, and of all things else sold by weight, should be the exact measure of the Divine power, exerted upon each towards the centre of the earth, or that a special providence should fashion every drop that falls from the clouds ; trace the lines and colors of every blade of grass ; superintend the flight of every insect at the tropics or the poles — a doctrine not in harmony with the greatness of God, since it denies Him the power to

* Hence John Scotus, who is greatly lauded for his wisdom, affirms that God could not foresee the existence of sin, since he had not decreed it, and consequently there could be no predestination of the wicked, who could not be known until after the offence committed.

impart necessary laws for the government of His own creation.

Whatever may be the theories of philosophers, the course of events proclaim the existence of invariable laws which, every man's own experience compels him to believe. In practical life no one supposes that fire burns wood, or cooks his food; that the blood circulates, or the stomach digests by a particular providence ; that men defraud each other; that a mother loves her children ; or that the blow of the assassin is by the agency of a particular providence. Nor do we ever ascribe the actions of animals to a particular providence, but suppose the dog barks, the horse neighs, the bird sings ; that the lamb is gentle and the tiger ferocious, each by a law appointed to their kind. The artisan never ascribes the motion in the wheels of a watch to the special act of Providence, but to the mainspring, in which he knows the power to reside. The physician never imagines that opium causes sleep, that arsenic poisons ; or the chemist that oxygen rusts iron, that alkalis neutralize acids, or that the mercury rises in the sun, or falls in the shade by a special providence. No advocate supposes he ever gained a bad cause or lost a good one, or that the jury pronounced a verdict, or the judge his decree, by a special providence ; nor does the law-giver enact penalties against the act of God, but against crime, which he believes to come of a propensity inherent in the constitution of man.

DELEGATED LAWS.

All changes in matter and mind do, no doubt, take place in obedience to the will of Grocl ; not by particular acts, but by delegated laws, as a clock continues its motion under the pressure of weights in the absence of the mechanic, or the decrees of a monarch are enforced without his immediate agency.

But it is said that the effect would be the same, whether the world were governed by uniform laws, or by a series of particular acts. Not so j for under a government of particular acts, no rule of conduct could be prescribed, or law violated, since none could exist.

LAWS OF THOUGHT.

Tired of conjecture, metaphysicians begin to regard the phenomena of mind as so many facts, from which to infer the existence of uniform laws ; and enough is already known to encourage the belief that the laws of thought will soon be as well understood as the fall of bodies or motion of fluids.

Ideas take forcible possession of the mind as soon as we are awake; we cannot deny them admission, arrest their progress, or expel them, if we would. We know not whence they come or whither they go ; whether they expire or depart, are revived or return. Nevertheless, most writers are persuaded, and the masses of mankind universally believe, that their thoughts, like so many slaves, come at their bidding. Nothing can be further from the truth ; for ideas not present to the mind cannot be perceived ; and what is not perceived cannot be the subject of command. A man cannot command his hat or his cloak, unless the idea of his hat or cloak were already in his mind ; the idea must precede the command, and not the command the idea, as truly as light must precede vision, and not vision light. Ideas are always first in the order of time, they precede volition, and not volition ideas ; hence we have no power to choose what ideas shall enter the mind.

They come to us as travellers arrive at an inn, or people pass along a street, we know not the next man until he appears ; so we cannot perceive the next idea in the train, until it is actually in the mind, when it is too late to forbid its entrance there.