Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 044.djvu/559

1838.] liberty and necessity; and the result is a direct and glaring contradiction. This doctrine endeavours to hold forth an act, as at once original and yet derived, as given and yet not compulsatory or necessitated, as free and yet caused. No wonder that human liberty, embodied in an act of this kind, should halt upon both feet, and harbour in the dingiest lurking-places of a perplexed and vacillating metaphysic—a thing not to be scrutinized too narrowly.

But since we are examining it, let us do so as closely and narrowly as possible. What, then, does this conception of liberty amount to, and what does it set forth? There is, in the first place, the being in question—man—a derivative creature, we are told, from the alpha to the omega of his existence. In the next place, there is the power with which he is said to be invested, of choosing between two or more lines of conduct. In virtue of this power, he is at first indifferent, or equally open to all these courses. He must follow one of them, but is not constrained to follow any one of them in particular: and precisely in this indetermination it is said that human liberty consists. In the third place, when the choice is made, there is the practical following out of the course fixed upon. Such are the three elements usually noted in the process. But, allowing the dust occasioned by this language to subside, let us see whether nothing has escaped us in the confusion. We observe, then, that the power of choice said to be given, is, at first, undetermined; that, indeed, it is on this openness or want of determination that the essence of the liberty here described is placed. But while this indetermination continues, the power of choice of course remains inoperative. Before any of the courses laid down can be followed, this power must be determined to the particular course fixed on; that is to say, an act of determination (the choice itself) must intervene between the undetermined power of choice, and the course chosen. Here, then, we have a new element an element seldom specifically or rigidly noted in the usual analysis of the process. The statement now stands thus:—1st, The given being. 2d, The undetermined power to choose—the power as yet open to several courses of conduct; 3d, The act of determinate choice—the power now adstricted to one course; 4th, The actual performance itself. Now the third element of this statement—the one usually passed over without notice, is the only step which we would raise any question about. We ask what adstricted the power to the course selected? Whence comes this act of determination? Is it, too, given, or is it not? If it is, then what becomes of human freedom? The act of determination being given or derivative, the being in question was of course determined to the conduct adopted, not by an original act, but was determined thereto out of the source from whence his act of determination proceeded. It was therefore absurd to talk, as we at first did, of several courses having been open to him. In truth, his act of determination being derived, or compulsatory, no course was ever open to him except the one which he followed, and was necessitated to follow in obedience to that act. On the other hand, is this act of determination not given or enforced?—then here has a new and underived act started into light; one which plays an important part, and forms an essential ingredient in his composition; and what now becomes of the assumption upon which this modified conception of liberty proceeded, namely, that man is throughout a derivative creature? The conclusion is, that human liberty is impossible and inconceivable if we start with the assumption that man is, in everything, a given or derivative being; just as, on the other hand, the conception that man is altogether a derivative being is impossible, if we start with the assumption that he is free.

But our present object is to realize, if possible, a correct notion of human liberty. Nothing, then, we remark, can be more ineffectual than the attempt to conceive liberty as a power of choice, resting in a state of indetermination to two or more actions; because this state would continue for ever, and nothing would be the result, unless an act of determination took place in favour of some one of these actions; so that, between the undetermined power and the action itself, an act of determination always intervenes; and therefore the question comes to be—not, whence comes