keep the same, the same effects will follow, men draw out statistics of voluntary acts, which turn out to be quite as correct as statistics of the weather, or of the mortality of man. The number of thefts and murders that will be committed in a country next year, and the number of letters which will be posted, can be determined as accurately as the number of births or deaths. The facts cannot be denied, and they proceed on the principles of a sameness of causes producing a sameness of effects, which causes embrace voluntary acts. To avoid these difficulties, I am inclined to admit that antecedent circumstances do act causally on the will. But, at the same time, I maintain that cause operates in a very different way upon the will from that in which it acts in other departments of nature. The mind has and must have the power of free choice: so says consciousness. But consciousness does not say, and cannot say, 1 Dr. Mansel, in Prolegomena Logica, App. D, has examined my views from the standpoint of his own doctrine of cause, which is, that "we have only two positive notions of causation ; one, the exertion of power by an intelligent being; the other, the uniform sequence of phenomenon B from A," the latter being experiential. I have given a different account (supra, pp. 110-112, 140, 160), and my readers must judge for themselves. Dr. Mansel endeavours to get rid of the argument derived from the statistics of voluntary actions thus: “The resemblance, however, between statistical averages and natural laws fails at the very point on which the whole weight of the argument rests. A natural law is valid for a class of objects only because and in so far as it is valid for each individual of that class: the law of gravitation, for instance, is exhibited in a single apple as much as in an orchard; and is concluded of the latter from being observed in the former. But the uniformity represented by statistical averages is one which is observed in masses only, and not in individuals" (Aids to Faith, Art. Miracles, p. 19). There is no doubt a point of difference here, but it does not affect the question at issue. In the one we know what are the precise agents working in the individual case, in the other we do not, but in both there is causation. Averages can be struck, and predictions uttered, in regard to such phenomena as human mortality, simply because there is a set of causes in operation which produce uniform results, and there is uncertainty to us as to a particular case, simply because we do not know what causes have been at work. A chance event is not an uncaused one, but simply one whose cause is unknown to us. It lies with Dr. Mansel to show how general predictions could be uttered as to voluntary acts if there were no causation operating. I have given the view which seems sanctioned by our constitution. But on so tangled a subject I shrink from controversy. I must ever hold most resolutely to the fundamental doctrine of the freedom of the will. But I will listen most willingly to any one who can give a better account—that is, more in accordance with our constitution -of the expectation that the thoroughly good being will continue good, or of the possibility of giving statistics in anticipation of voluntary actions. what antecedent circumstances of an internal character have swayed the will. These causes certainly do not operate as causes operate in physical nature, or as causes operate in our intellectual being. I have shown that cause in the mind is not of the same character as cause in physical nature. I believe that cause, as operating on the will, is of a different character from cause as acting in the intellectual or emotive parts of our nature. It is here, I believe,—that is, in the peculiar nature of cause as operating on the will,-that the means of clearing up this subject, and effecting a reconciliation between the seeming incongruities, are to be found. But I do not say that man can find them, for I am convinced he cannot penetrate this region, and determine the nature and mode of operation of the power which sways the will. We can point to the place where lies the means of clearing up the mystery, but then we cannot reach that place. It is the region where operate the agencies which come between God and the will of His rational and responsible creatures. Well may we pause here, and lay our hands on our mouths, as we say in our hearts, "Once have I spoken, but I will not answer; yea, twice, but I will proceed no further." BOOK I. METAPHYSICS. CHAPTER I. METAPHYSICS, GNOSIOLOGY, AND ONTOLOGY. The phrase Metaphysics is believed to have taken its rise from the title given to one of the treatises of Aristotle. There is no reason to think that the name was given to the work referred to by the author. It does not even appear that it was meant to denote the nature of the contents. Andronicus, it is said, inscribed on the manuscripts, Τὰ μerà và vóinά, to intimate that these books were to follow the physical treatises. In the writings of Aristotle this department is called, not Metaphysics, but the First Philosophy. Metaphysical speculation is usually supposed, and I believe correctly, to have originated with the Eleatics, who flourished four hundred and fifty or five hundred years before our era. Separating from the physiologists, that is, physical speculators, of the Ionian school, they directed their attention to the dicta of inward reason. Going far below what they represented as the illusion of the senses, they sought to penetrate the mystery of being. With them all things were one, and thus incapable of motion or of change. Metaphysics are treated, along with all other topics, by Plato, under the somewhat unfortunate name of Dialectics, which has nearly the same meaning as Speculative Philosophy has in modern times, only the former meant discussion in conversation, the 1 On the title, see Bonitz, "Commentarius" appended to his edition of the Metaphysics. See also M'Mahon's translation of the Metaphysics, p. 1, where Clemens Alexandrinus and Philoponus are quoted as understanding the phrase to denote the supranatural. |