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544 good, which it may appear to give to that activity, cannot be owing to any original or underived power it possesses, but must depend upon its natural construction, just as a prism has no power in itself to refract this way or that the rays of light which pass through it, but is determined to this refraction by the particular angles into which, without being consulted, it was at first cut by the hand of its artificer. In point of fact, the activity of such a being is no activity at all, but pure passivity; for a derivative act is not properly action, but passion. In merely receiving and passing on an act, a creature is not an agent, but a patient. Such a creature, bringing nothing original into the field, cannot, in any sense, be said either to operate or co-operate. All its doings being derivative, are done for it or necessitated; therefore it is free in nothing, and, by the same consequence, must remain devoid of morality and responsibility.

The usual reasoning on this subject, therefore, being utterly fatal to the cause of Human Liberty, we have endeavoured, in the foregoing chapter, to lay the groundwork of a new line of argument; the only argument by which, in our opinion, the conclusions of the Necessitarian can be met and disproved. In clearing away the weeds by which the premises of the question were overgrown, and in bringing them under our close and immediate inspection, we found that these premises, when viewed and tested as facts (as all premises ought to be, if we would ascertain their exact truth and value), are directly the reverse of those usually laid down, and allowed to pass current. We found, in a word, that an act is the substratum of man's proper existence, and not vice versâ.

But this draws the controversy respecting Liberty and Necessity to its extremest or narrowest point. For it may here be asked, and indeed must be asked—Whence comes this act? We have divided man's existence into two distinct species, one of which, that, namely, which we may now call his natural existence, was found to be given and to precede the act of consciousness. Now, does not this act naturally spring out of that existence? Is it not dependent upon it? Is it not a mere development from a seed sown in man's natural being; and does it not unfold itself, after a time, like any other natural germ or faculty of humanity? We answer, No. It comes into operation after a very different fashion. It is an act of pure will; for precisely between the two species of existence we have indicated, Human Will comes into play, and has its proper place of abode; and this new phenomenon, lying in the very roots of the act of Consciousness, dislocates the whole natural machinery of man, gives a new and underived turn to his development, and completely overthrows, with regard to him, the whole law and doctrine of causality; for Will (as contradistinguished from, and opposed to, wish or desire) is either a word of no meaning and intelligibility at all, or else it betokens a primary absolute commencement—an underivative act. But as the Necessitarian may admit the former of these alternatives, and may hold Will, when applied to man, to be an unmeaning word, it will be proper to postpone any discussion on that subject at present; and, without involving ourselves in what, after all, might be a mere skirmish of words, to do our best to go more simply and clearly to work, by addressing ourselves as much as possible to facts, or the realities of things.

But lest it should be urged that man, although perhaps really free, is yet incompetent to form a true and adequate conception of Liberty; and that, therefore, his freedom must, in any event, be for him as though it were not; lest this should be urged, we deem it incumbent upon us, before proceeding to establish Human Freedom as fact, to endeavour to delineate a faithful and correct representation of it; in short, to place before our readers such a conception as would be Liberty if it were actualized or realized in fact. Before showing that Liberty is actual, we must show on what grounds it is possible.

The ordinary conception of liberty, as a capacity bestowed upon a given or created being, of choosing and following any one of two or more courses of action, is no conception at all, but is an inconceivability. It is, in truth, so worthless and shallow as hardly to be worthy of mention. On account, however, of the place which it holds in ordinary philosophical discourse, we must contribute a few words to its exposure. It arises out of a miserable attempt to effect a compromise