wards says, "We see, hear, feel, love and hate, in the active voice; yet we are, or may be, caused to see, hear, etc. And when we are caused to love or hate, we are indeed the subjects of the agency or influence of some cause extrinsic to our will, and so far are passive. Still the immediate effect of this agency is our act, and in this act we are certainly active," p. 319.Now these modes of expression carry with them an air of plausibility, which disappears upon a close and analytical inspection. They seem to imply that the mind as cause contributes somewhat to the existence of choice. What then is the analysis of being caused to choose?

One construction would be, that the mind is caused to cause the volition or choice. This would make two causes; the mind would be one, and something else would be the other; both causing together, whether simultaneously or successively, would constitute the causation of volition. The mind is the subject of the influence of a cause, and so far is passive; upon that instant it also causes, and is so far active. The supposition, I trust, is understood. Now is this the scheme of Edwards? It evidently is not. According to the reasoning of Edwards, mental causality in reference to the thing in question, would be an impossibility even upon this construction, since his fundamental position is, that an agent viewed as a cause, can cause nothing but what is consequent upon its acting, and therefore cannot be the cause of the acting. This reasoning turns not upon the supposition, whether the agent is caused to cause, or is not; it applies to the question, whether he causes at all? To place another cause before the causation of the agent, does not in the least degree relieve the difficulty. The great argument of Edwards must be given up, before the mind can be cause upon this hypothesis. If a cause causes another to cause, the first produces in the second some change; after which, and in consequence of which, the second produces some other change, but not the one which the first produces. What is the change produced by the first cause in the supposition before us? Volition. Where is it produced? In the mind. What is the change produced by the second cause? Some sequent of volition. What is the question? It is, whether the mind causes volition at all. How plainly the Edwardean system replies in the negative. President Day is right, when he says, " present acts cannot, according to Edwards, be the effect of present agency."4

The other construction of being caused to choose, is, that the

mind is simply the subject in which choice is produced by some cause. If this be the meaning, it is a concession of the very point for which I am contending. Grant this, and it matters not what follows in the train of sequence; the position that the mind causes choice at all, is given up. This comes at once to the ground which Dr. Edwards openly avows, and on which his father equally stood. They may say, that in volition " we are certainly active," if they wish to retain this form of expression. With equal propriety another might say, that a tree in falling to the ground is "certainly active." The one is just as active as the other, and no more so. Volition may be called "an act." It is as much an act in relation to the mind, as the motion of a stone is an act in relation to the stone. To say, that the mind chooses, or a stone moves, is, upon this hypothesis, to predicate of the two subjects kindred relations.

Behind all this philosophical furniture, there is a concealed conception in relation to cause, that deserves a moment's attention. It is, that every cause, when it causes, must be caused to do so. This conception is manifested, when the advocate of necessity for the sake of argument admits, that the mind may cause volition, but asks, why it causes then and thus? This "why" occupies a large place in his field of vision. It is an inquiry after some other cause besides the one he has admitted, and to which he looks to explain the causation of the admitted one. Now this question borrows all its importance from the conception that lies beneath it-the conception just stated. To press this question as an argument, is to assume the truth of the conception. I shall reply to it in a single sentence, which the reader may expand at his leisure: allow the conception, and you have an infinite series, not of modes of a single cause, but of successive causes. The distinction between occasional and efficient causes will not save you from this absurdity, for if you admit them both to be causes, (and if you do not, the distinction is groundless,) you will find yourself upon a road which has no end.

(5.) Finally, it deserves to be considered, whether the question, why this event is, or this rather than some other, in the sense intended by the advocate of necessity, does not transcend the legitimate boundaries of all human investigation. If this be the fact, it would be well to pause a moment and first find out where we are. The question is certainly an ambiguous question; it admits of more than one interpretation.

When proposed in relation to any event, it may mean, who or

what caused that event? An event is; an inquirer asks, why it is? i. e. he asks for its cause, and asks for nothing more. This being discovered, his inquiry having reached its object, terminates. All this is legitimate; it lies within the range of our cognitive powers. This disposition of the question, however, does not meet the design of the defender of necessity, for it does not touch the point he has in view. This being the question, the controversy might very soon be closed up.

Again it may mean, how came the cause of the event to cause? It assumes, that the reputed cause of the event must have something going before it, as the proper explanation of its own causation. I have just said, that this assumption involves an infinite series of successive causes; but let us waive this objection; let us give the question a hearing in this sense of it, and ascertain whether in the last analysis philosophy is competent to give any answer. What is this something preceding and explaining the causation of the cause supposed? It is some other cause. Upon its discovery the advocate of necessity rests his inquiry, having solved, as he supposes, the whole problem. He stops just in season to conceal the difficult point in his own question. Now I propose to take it up where he leaves it, and institute another question still more ulterior. Granting the whole hypothesis, it still remains to be answered, How comes it to pass, that the cause in view did commence the process of causation even upon this hypothesis? Give me an explanation of this. If some other cause be proposed, then the question may be renewed in regard to that, and so on forever. If it be said, that the cause, whose causation is to be explained, is in fact no cause, then the whole question is given up, its meaning is changed; we in fact have no question, and come back at once to the ground charged upon Edwards. How plain is it, that the ultimate how and why of a cause must forever escape human discovery? Here the advocate of necessity has no advantage over his opponent; he at last leaves the question just where he found it, and there every man must leave it. He may state the when, the historical circumstances both before and after the event; and so can his opponent do the same; but when they come to the ultimate how and why, they are lost, and lost forever. The system of necessity has gained much by starting this question; and then it has gained more by not following it out to its last analysis. In the latter respect it has been very wise by being cautious, and thus saved itself from the reactions of its own inquiry.

SECOND SERIES, VOL. IX. NO. II.

5

It may be said, that the definition of cause given by President Edwards is a very broad one, so broad as to include the historical antecedents or circumstances, which go before an event, whether they have "any positive influence or not," and that the question, why is this volition rather than that one? may refer to these antecedents. It is not pertinent to my present design to give a critique on this definition. Were it so, it might easily be shown, that it is not sufficiently broad to reach the proper idea of cause; neither is it sufficiently narrow, to exclude that which cannot be cause. Passing this point, however, I wish to advert to a marked discrepancy in the movements in the mind of Edwards on this subject. In giving his definition of cause his language is so general, as to include motives, whether they be causes in fact or not. Motives may be all that his opponent allows them to be, and no more, and yet be causes according to his definition. He sets out with a very ambiguous and defective definition of the term. This he felt himself, for he says, " and agreeably to this, I sometimes use the word effect for the consequence of another thing, which is perhaps rather an occasion than a cause, most properly speaking."Agreeably to what? To his definition. Well, in following out his definition he "sometimes" confounds an occasion with a cause," properly speaking." Is a discussion upon the difficult problems of human agency the place for improper speaking and vague phraseology, where the looseness of a term may be the garb which conceals a thousand fallacies? Mark, also, that he tells us that he "sometimes" uses the word thus and so. Now when he entered upon the discussion of the subject, he has not in a single instance informed us, that the term included in the general idea of "sometimes" has come; he speaks of motives, he describes them, and reasons upon them as causes all through his essay; but not once does he put the reader on his guard by informing him, that he uses motive as cause, understanding cause not in its true sense "properly speaking." This is not all, his reasoning assumes the causality of motive in the true sense of cause. Speaking of motive and volitions he says, that it is "the cause of their existence." He follows this statement by saying, that, "motives do nothing as motives or inducements, but by their influence; and so much as is done by their influence, is the effect of them. For that is the notion of an effect, something that is brought to pass by the influence of something else." Part II. Sect. X. He criticises Mr. Chubb

severely for speaking of motive as a passive occasion of choice; and did he mean to use motive under the title of a cause in the same sense, and thus make himself an object of his own criticisin? The truth is, the "sometimes" of President Edwards, never came in the course of his logic. Motive is really and properly a cause in his whole system; you reduce it to a mere occasion, and the scheme of Edwards is gone. He never intended to allow that motive is a mere occasion, while the mind is the efficient, the real cause of volition. When he put the question, Why does the mind choose thus rather than otherwise? he understood both the question and the answer. He meant a cause by the "why" and he gave motive as that cause. The guarded sentence in question, has been a convenient refuge for his disciples, but it served no purpose in his own system. To infer that he may have meant by motive, when spoken of as cause, nothing but a mere occasion, leaving the mind to be the efficient cause of volition, is to teach a very different system from his.

The issue with Dr. Edwards may be considered as fairly stated; mind is excluded altogether from the category of cause in the production of volitions. The language of President Edwards is less marked and definite; but he stands substantially on the same ground. This position will now be made the subject of the following observations.

1. It is not consistent with the definition of cause which he adopts. According to this definition, a cause is," any antecedent with which a consequent event is so connected, that it truly belongs to the reason, why the proposition which affirms that event is true; whether it has any positive influence or not," p. 343. This is borrowed from President Edwards; and it is a little remarkable that its author should have contended that motives are causes of volition, only as they have influence to produce it, when he allows, that an antecedent may be a cause even though it has no positive influence. Can the mind be a cause by this definition? To be such, it is not necessary, that it should have" any positive influence" in the production of the 66 consequent event." It must however be an antecedent to that event. Volition is the event; and is not the mind an antecedent to this event; before the mind wills, does it not exist ? So far then it may be a cause. It is farther necessary, that it should be an 66 antecedent with which a consequent event is so connected, that it truly belongs to the reason, why the proposi