Those relating to the existence of free agency in man first considered. elements the individual, the world, and God." Our immediate task is to examine whether the principles on these subjects, necessary to the existence of Christianity, are irreconcilable with the conclusions of existing science. No fact is more suggestive of the intellectual temper of our time than the manner in which the question of man's liberty of action is now discussed, and the grounds on which it is not uncommonly set aside. Relegated on its metaphysical side' to the limbo of unfruitful disputations, it is approached and decided by physical considerations, as a material rather than a mental fact, or as a mental fact capable The pre- of material explanation. Minds occupied only or of science mainly with physical inquiries readily apply the notion of material causation, the nexus between antecedent and consequent, with which they are familiar, to the phenomena of thought and action.3 Uniformity of result, statistically obtained, is taken to prove identity of origin; and moral operations sent aspect material istic, "The questions which belong to natural theology are in substance the same from age to age; but they change their aspect with every advance or supposed advance in the inductive sciences."-Whewell, Indic. of the Creator, p. ix. 2 Sir H. Maine, Ancient Law, p. 354, has pointed out that the problem of free-will arises when we contemplate a metaphysical conception under a legal aspect. Dean Merivale has traced the theological history of the controversy to the expressions of Roman law. 3 Compare Augustine, Ver. Relig., c. xxxvi. "Quoniam opera magis Artificem atque ipsam artem dilexerunt hoc errore puniuntur ut in operibus artificem artemque conquirant: et cum invenire nequiverint (Deus enim non corporalibus sensibus subjacet sed ipsi menti supereminet) ipsa opera existiment esse et artem et artificem." are confounded with material processes.' Thus it is asked, as an inquiry decisive of the matter in hand, whether the actions of men, and therefore of societies, are not governed by fixed laws; or whether they are to be regarded as the result of chance or of supernatural interference. For on this issue depends the desideratum of the Positive School, the possibility of an exact science of man and history. Now chance, it may at once be admitted, is but another name for ignorance of causation. We know nothing in Nature, or, if it may be so said, out of Nature, which is not under the 3 This is, no doubt, the first effect of the enthusiasm and instinct of symmetry which are the just results of the surprising triumphs of physical discovery. Mr. Lecky well remarks, Hist. Rat., I. 322, “In the present day, when the study of the laws of matter has assumed au extraordinary development, and when the relations between mind and body are chiefly investigated with a primary view to the functions of the latter, it is neither surprising nor alarming that a strong movement towards materialism should be the consequence." Leibnitz finely observes: "Il paroît d'abord que tout ce que nous faisons n'est qu'impulsion d'autrui: et que tout ce que nous concevons vient de dehors par les sens, et se trace dans le vuide de notre esprit, tanquam in tabulâ rasâ. Mais une méditation plus profonde nous apprend que tout (même les perceptions et les passions) nous vient de notre propre fonds avec une pleine spontanéité."-Théod., Pt. III. § 296. 2 See Buckle, Hist Civil., I. p. 8 ff. 66 66 con.. 3 "Ne parlons plus de hasard ni de fortune, ou parlons-en seulement comme d'un nom dont nous couvrons notre ignorance."-Bossuet, Disc. sur l'Hist. Univ., III. viii. Tous les sages," says Leibnitz, viennent que le hasard n'est qu'une chose apparente: c'est l'ignorance des causes qui le fait.” Δοκεῖ μὲν αἰτία ἡ τυχὴ, ἄδηλος δὲ ἀνθρωπίνῃ Savoia.-Arist., Phys., II. iv. Mr. Tylor, Hist. Prim. Cult., I. 17, furnishes an admirable illustration. "The Great Spirit," say the Sioux Indians," made all things except the wild rice; but the wild rice came by chance." Here the ambiguity is apparent, which opposes chance not to causation, but to design. ing to bring man's liberty of action Nature. and tend- direction of fixed principles and ascertainable elementary causes.' But when, this correction made, the question is again stated, does it present a real under the dilemma? The will of man, it may be reasonably uniformity of laws of contended, is itself a cause, subject to conditioned action, governed therefore by fixed laws of choice as well as of subsequent operation, yet in its nature motive, and analogous, so far considered, to any simple elementary force or form of force in physics. There is no greater antecedent difficulty in conceiving the agency of the one than of the other." But then the action of man's will, it may be said, is in this view hypothetically different from that of all natural forces. For while the cause of motion to things external to itself, its own movements are 3 1 "The nature of a thing is the answer both of the ignorant and of the philosopher. Search for laws.”—Faraday, Life, II. 86. Law may be said to be the first announcement of Holy Scripture; when God spake, "Let there be light;" and there was light. 2 Rom. viii. 20. "For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope." 3 The embarrassments attending the notion of Force as a property of Matter are now understood. Thus the terms energy, behaviour, and the like have been transferred by modern physicists from moral phenomena as the best exponents of natural force. See Prof. Tyndall, Fragments of Science, p. 22. Whewell's Indications of the Creator, p. 90. Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus, pp. 376-7, has some good remarks on the bearing of this fact upon a doctrine of materialism. While recognizing to the full the charm of style and language possessed by a Tyndall and a Huxley, I cannot forbear to point out the responsibility attaching to their vast powers in this respect. This has been ably touched by a writer in the Quarterly Review,' No. CCXX. p. 370. Leibnitz has well said, "Souvent les expressions outrées et pour ainsi dire poëtiques, ont plus de force pour toucher et pour persuader que ce qui se dit avec régularité." assumed to be ultimately free, that is, uncaused, however biassed by the conditions and circumstances of acting. Now, the bowl will roll indeed according to its bias, but it must first find elsewhere an origin of movement. This supposition, then, it is urged, is inconsistent with the whole analogy of Nature, and is unsupported by the evidence of facts. free-will tinguished ethical § 9. The question thus stated will be perceived The theological to have no immediate connection with the theolo- tenet of gical tenet of free-will. By this is properly to be discovered the relation of man's will to supernatural from the or Divine interference, the measure, so to speak, of or metaphysical its subservience, the will being assumed, as to itself, question. to be an instance of causation in Nature. At present we are concerned only with the scientific fact of the existence of will in man, as being a fundamental condition of the permanence of our religion. To the mode of its operation the old physical axiom may with reason be applied-" Corpora non agunt nisi soluta." For it needs hardly to remark that to speak of free-will is no better than a tautology, not to rank it among the "question-begging appellatives" of Bentham, a will not free being a contradiction in terms, a conception which excludes itself. There is, indeed, an aspect in which the 1 Mr. Buckle, Hist. Civ., I. pp. 9, 20, has indeed exhibited this subject very differently; yet, as it seems to me, with some confusion. This, it is found, was the view of Spinoza (Ed. Auerbach). Coleridge justly remarks:-"A will, the state of which does in no sense 2 theological dogma is not unconcerned with the The theo- scientific question. Thus, if the assumption of logical dogma not neces compatible with the view of natural science. universal law as a principle of science, or of nasarily in- tural selection and gradual evolution as applications of it, require in regard of human action the reception of a system of fatalism, whether pure or modified, it would not be difficult, by means of a doctrine of predestination, determinism, or even of eternal reprobation, to institute an apparent alliance between some aspects of Christianity and science. This subject it is not within our limits to pursue further, though it has been stirred by some leading writers of the time. I would remark only that among defensive arguments such reasoning is at least not inadmissible. The argument from § 10. Are, then, the grounds on which the human originate in its own act, is an absolute contradiction. It might be an 1 Thus the Leibnitian doctrine of Monads and a Pre-established Harmony, when assailed as involving Fatalism, was defended by its author as not incompatible with the Christian doctrine of Grace. 2 It is suggested by Mr. Buckle in his highly interesting comparison of Calvinism with Arminianism, H. Civ., II. 342; and by Mr. Froude in his most eloquent, though somewhat vague, lecture on Calvinism. See also Mr. J. S. Mill, Exum. of Sir W. Hamilton, p. 492. Sir William (Appendix to Reid, p. 977) is careful to point out that the Calvinist theologian holds to the liberty of man by the side of a doctrine of predestination and foreknowledge of God. |