past has been a tedious conflict of desires, becomes by touches of imagination at successive moments of anticipation idealized, sketched out vaguely in grand proportions, and tinted with warmest colours. The supreme aims of life, those that occupy most thought, that revert in greatest power to the mind when removed from immediate excitation-some life-dream of youth, perhaps, often obscured by the shadow of the many pressing objects of later yearsare apt thus to make use of the future as a canvas on which they may paint pleasing and ravishing pictures. The ethical, æsthetic, and religious emotions most frequently induce this kind of reverie. This ideal mode of satisfaction often solaces men, as has been well said, for the unworthiness of their actual endeavours. The common supposition that the determinist's theory is destructive of all that is dignified in human nature may not improbably be referred to this latent source of disbelief. Although the doctrine has, properly conceived, nothing of the depressing effects which have so often been attributed to it, it does certainly tend to the restraining of unbounded ideal longings within proportions commensurate with the real facts of life. While all science does this to some degree, that of the human mind does so in a special and eminent degree; and in this way probably much of the intense opposition offered to the doctrine of uniformity in volitions is to be accounted for.

Out of these and perhaps other shades of emotional impulse there grows a habit of imagining all kinds of future activity without any recognition of the limits imposed by the actual order of things. It is possible for us, at any moment of enthusiasm or of proud complacency, to conceive ourselves as accomplishing extraordinary deeds, involving the highest thinkable degrees of active force as well as of emotional incentive. And by thus vividly imagining these possible futures we seem to transform them into momentary realities. For example, I can so intensely imagine myself achieving some grand moral purpose that I am ready to believe myself actually entering on the lofty endeavour at the present moment. As we have seen in the past essay, all intense conceptions tend thus to simulate the form of present realities. And in this way feeling, calling up ideas in a different order from that of experience, com

subject to the conception of indeterminateness generally. First of all, it is only another step in the direction of deviation of belief from actual experience; and secondly, the idea of an exclusive dominion of certain feelings is very difficult to be sustained, and easily becomes merged in the larger idea of universal indeterminateness.

pletely transforms our conceptions of future possibility. Not only so, but even when we look back regretfully on some unalterable actions in our past life, we are apt in imagination to recolour that past, giving it the moral tint which our present wishes suggest. And by vividly imagining to ourselves the aspect it would wear if it could be so transmuted, we easily lapse into the illusion that it might have been other than it was without the interference of any new impulse.

So large a space has been devoted to these two great roots of the belief in free-will, the intellectual and the emotional, because they re in their nature least allied to the objective facts with which the question directly concerns itself, and consequently have had but little prominence given to them in the body of the dispute. They are too by far the most interesting among the various causes of the belief; for they illustrate certain tendencies of the human mind which seem to manifest themselves universally in connection with all branches of inquiry. And the department of human volitions here considered appears to afford, from its importance and from the intensity of the speculative activity bestowed upon it, one of the best illustrations-a sort of "instantia prærogativa "—of these universal tendencies.

It must not be thought, however, that the belief in free-will is only nourished by these two great streams of influence. As before said, there is much to encourage misconception in the peculiar character of the phenomena themselves. Even in the case of modern supporters of the doctrine, one may frequently trace the effects of the ambiguities arising from those first crude conceptions of voluntary action which have been so fully dwelt on at the commencement of this essay. In proof of this the reader need only refer to those repeated transitions from the conception of indeterminateness to that of absence of restraint which mark the whole course of the discussion. And there are other intricacies in the phenomena which have doubtless contributed much to the acceptance and retention of the belief, especially by less acute metaphysicians. To these we may now turn; yet if our notice of them seems rather scanty, this may be attributed to the fact that they have naturally had a fuller treatment at the hands of writers whose direct intention it was to support and defend the doctrine. These difficulties, springing from the complexity of the higher voluntary action, would not, it may be presumed, of themselves have begotten the idea of an undetermined will, but they serve to give

apparent arguments to those who, through the sway of the influences already described, are disposed to entertain it.

First of all, then, it is evident that human actions are among the most complex of phenomena, produced often by the joint operation of an indefinite number of forces. This feature, as has been seen, must have struck the first undisciplined inquirers into the subject, and it appears to give a certain plausibility to the doctrine of freewill still maintained. Owing to this fact of complexity we are rarely able to predict an individual's actions in any remote period; and we are often unable to account for all the concurring and opposing forces in conduct actually witnessed by us. To any one, accordingly, who does not know the à priori grounds of belief in causality as applying to human volitions, and has not studied the actions of masses where the variable elements do not interfere with the observation of invariable laws, there seems much that contradicts the doctrine. And when once the mind is already inclined, from other influences, to reject the belief in uniformity, anything in the facts seeming to support this view will naturally assume exaggerated proportions.

Again, the fact that the conduct of individuals varies, and that similar situations in life do not produce similar actions even in the same individual, seems at first sight to lend support to this belief. Many who hear of the doctrine of causality in human volitions suppose it to mean that a given set of external circumstances, offering certain prospects and inducements to an individual, must always lead to the same result. They do not see that causes may act just as strictly in order through the character of the individual himself, so as to alter its degree of susceptibility to different kinds of external solicitation. And they forget that even when no permanent change of character has been effected temporary variations in the mental tone, consequent often upon variable physical conditions, as exhaustion or recovery of health, will considerably modify the volitional effect of any given prospect in the same individual mind.

Not only is the number of motives entering into a voluntary action often such as to exclude precalculation, but some springs of conduct have a special subtlety and complexity which render them peculiarly liable to be unrecognised as proper volitional forces. In

* Mr. Mill has very ably set this part of the argument in its true light, showing that though the fact disproves necessity or irresistible sequence unsusceptible of counteraction or modification, it does not touch the question of causality.Logic, book vi., chap. ii., § 3.

proportion as any present motive is simple in its composition, and immediate in its realization, it stands prominently forth as an inducement distinct from the rest of one's mental structure, and seems to invite observation. The analogy between motives and physical forces is probably seen by all to apply in this case. Thus, for example, the attraction of a glowing fire to a man entering a room from a cold exterior atmosphere is easily recognised by the least philosophical as the result of a proper volitional force.*

When, however, the ends to be attained are of a highly composite character, requiring to be represented by an elaborate intellectual process, and consisting largely of emotional as distinguished from sensuous gratifications, they do not thus stand out in bold relief. As distinguished from immediately pressing and simple ends, they may be said to involve a good deal of the individual's collective mind, namely, those feelings and thoughts which enter prominently into his own and his friends' conception of his intellectual and moral nature. Of this complex character is much of the conduct regulated by enlarged prudence and thoughtful conscientiousness.† And just because the determining influences are here so subtle and impalpable, people readily come to look upon the action as the result, not of motives, but of the ego, the collective individual itself, conceived as a substance underlying all particular mental phenomena; or, allowing that actions are directly prompted by motives, they maintain that the motives themselves are first of all moulded and fixed by the conscious reflecting ego.

It is a necessary consequence of what has been said, more particularly in the first part of this essay, that many forms of expression should have arisen in conformity with primitive and unscientific modes of viewing volitional phenomena. And these distinctions preserved in our ordinary speech seem still to give a colour of reality to the doctrine we are considering. The bulk of our language

* That men have actually regarded such actions as determined seems shown by those forms of speech which assimilate them to the effects of external coercion. "I was forced to flee" (from an impending danger), “I could not help seizing it" (e.g., some tempting prize), are examples of this.

A curious and interesting instance of such semi-latent volitional stimulation is seen in many cases of actions done in defiance of the threat of social disapproval from apparently no other motive than a love of individuality. The various elements entering into this impulse, such as the pleasures of unfettered spontaneity, the gratification of the emotions of power and superiority, of selfcomplacency, and of the ridiculous-perhaps, too, the delights of sympathy with an honoured few-give it a very subtle character.

was built up long before science had an existence. The forms of speech were designed accordingly to express only the more obvious distinctions and agreements in phenomena. And by the subsequent progress of knowledge much came to be distinguished which was at first united, and vice versa. Besides the misleading expressions which seem to owe their origin to erroneous views of things, there are a large number which represent partial and inadequate aspects of objects, such as are required in every day conversation, and which, when taken apart from other expressions supplementary to them, easily lead to error. Both these forms of speech being still retained for common and extra-scientific purposes, another apparent basis is supplied for the free-will theory.

Thus, for example, in ordinary life men do not always need to specify with scientific fulness or exactness the conditions necessary to the production of a phenomenon. As Mr. Mill has well pointed out, they leave many to be understood, and particularize sometimes the most prominent, at other times the one least likely to be presupposed, most frequently perhaps the one of greatest interest to themselves and their hearers. Conformably with this habit men seem to have always directly attributed the interesting and important phenomena of human action to some personality, this custom having been supported as well by the primitive conception of indwelling souls. The reason of this seems to be that the first and most important thing to be known in the case of any action which is a subject of inquiry, is, to whom we are to ascribe it. Special reasons may sometimes exist for inquiring into the precise circumstances and feelings which brought about the action; but the fact which will certainly be of interest and practical value is that it was done by A and not by B or C. Hence the retention of the convenient forms of speech by which we predicate all voluntary actions of individuals as subjects. But this interposition of a personality in every case of human conduct, though most convenient for every-day purposes, easily leads to the supposition that the action, viewed as a phenomenon, is strictly the effect of the whole individual mind, or that the agent expressed by the subject of the verb is the adequate This mode of thought seems to be specially countenanced by the forms of speech which ascribe to a person the act of choosing between contending motives. Such phrases are supposed to imply, not only that there exists quite apart from the processes of volitional stimulation some substantive ego, but that this ego has a perfect controlling power over these processes. In other words, people are

cause.