Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/712

690 690 thus presented to us the spectacle of a mystic endeavouring to expound his belief by a mere process of reasoning, almost mathematical in its cold and definite precision and in its rigour. It is quite possible that his strong pre possessions would in any case have prevented him from estimating at their proper importance the new problems that were beginning to appear on the horizon of con temporary thought, but, so far from having given these problems the attention necessary in order to understand them, he was scarcely aware of their existence. The impulse he received from Locke s Essay on the Human Understanding did not lead him to seek full acquaintance with the whole circle of the philosophical speculation of his time, partly no doubt because his circumstances prevented him from doing so, but partly also because he had a strong bias towards the pursuit of solitary trains of thought. In his essay on the Freedom of the Will hs confesses having never read Hobbes ; and although he mentions in a letter having read one of Hume s works, this would appear to have been subsequent to the publication of the essay on the Freedom of the Will, and its perusal does not seem to have impressed him with any idea of its author s exceptional metaphysical ability, for he merely says of it and of some other books, &quot; I am glad of an opportunity to read such corrupt books, especially when written by men of considerable genius, that I may have an idea of the notions which prevail in our country.&quot; He was scarcely conscious of the presence of the new influence which was then stirring the stagnant waters of speculation ; but it certainly influenced him unconsciously, and compelled him to check his vague unrest by more stedfastly clinging to his old convictions. He succeeded in doing so, but not without the exercise of constant watchfulness, for, apart from any immediate external influence, his strong and eager logical faculty seems often as if bent on carrying him beyond the bounds of traditional opinion, and requires frequently to be pulled up with a certain measure of abruptness. The theological system of Edwards emphasized all the sterner features of Calvinism and revealed them in strong relief. Calvinism in its original form was founded on extreme statements regarding &quot;God s sovereignty&quot; and &quot;man s depravity by nature,&quot; but the inferences implied in these statements are set forth by Edwards in their terrible and repulsive aspects with a thoroughness and a logical completeness not previously attempted. The argu ment he employs to establish his propositions is unanswerable as against the Libertarians of his time, for he shows conclusively thattheir plight is, if anything, rather worse than his owiv$ but when he seeks to go beyond this very circumscribed sphere he involves himself in a labyrinth of scholastic quibbling, where all that seems to present itself is only a choice of two evils, either to remain for ever utterly bewildered by the contradictory paths which open up before him, or by selecting one of them to wander irre vocably beyond the bounds of what he recognized as orthodox. We have an example of this when he endeavours to prove that though men are born utterly depraved, God is not the author of their depravity. His theory is that Adam was originally possessed of two principles, one which may be called natural, being the mere principles of human nature, or as it is called in Scripture the flesh, and another called the supernatural principle, or as in Scrip ture the divine nature. When Adam ate of the tree of forbidden fruit the divine nature was withdrawn from him, and thus his nature became corrupt without God infusing any evil thing into it. &quot;So,&quot; says Edwards, &quot; does the nature of his posterity ; they come into the world mere flesh, and entirely under the government of natural and inferior principles.&quot; Here it will be seen, not only that Edwards appears to very little advantage as a reasoner, but that he is in imminent peril of overthrowing the central position of his own system ; for, first, if to represent sin as a merely negative quality in any degree solves the difficulty of God being its author, it; docs so at the expense of denying to it a real existence ; and secondly, to re- pv&amp;gt;sent men as born into the world &quot;mere flesh&quot; entirely destroys the distinction, so essential to Edwards s system, between &quot;moral and natural inability.&quot; He soon, however, escapes back to his old position although not by the way he set out, &quot;If any,&quot; he says, &quot; should object to this that, if the want of original righteousness be thus according to an established course of nature, then why are not principles cf holiness, when restored by divine grace, also com- municated to posterity, I answer, the divine law and establishments of the Author of nature are precisely settled by Him as He pleaseth, and limited by His wisdom. The moral theory of Edwards is but a corollary from his theolo gical system. Virtue he places in love or benevolence towards being in general, or more accurately in a &quot; disposition to benevolence towards being iu general,&quot; for he does not mean to affirm that &quot; every virtuous act must have universal existence for its direct and immediate object,&quot; but merely that &quot; no affections towards parti cular persons or beings are of the nature of true virtue, but such as arise from a generally benevolent temper.&quot; He shows that this love cannot be primarily a &quot;love of complacence,&quot; that is, a love having any regard to excellence in the object, for that &quot;would be going in a circle, and the same as saying that virtue consists in love to virtue,&quot; and that it cannot consist in &quot;gratitude, or one being benevolent to another for his benevolence to him,&quot; because &quot;this implies the same inconsistence; &quot; consequently that &quot;the first object of a virtuous benevolence is being simply considered, and, if being simply considered, then being in general.&quot; There is, however, &quot;a second object of a virtuous propensity of heart, namely, benevolent being, for one that loves being in general will necessarily value good-will to being in general.&quot; True virtue must, therefore, chiefly consist in love to God, for &quot;he that has true virtue, con sisting in benevolence to being in general, and in benevolence to virtuous being, must necessarily have a supreme love to God both of benevolence and complacence. This theory he applies to support the theological dogma that no one whose virtuous acts are not the result of real conscious love to a personal God can possess any true righteousness, or be in any other moral condition than that of utter depravity. As to the merits of the theory in itself, these are not helped by the form in which it is stated. Being in general, being without any qualities, is too abstract a thing to be the primary cause of love. The feeling which Edwards refers to is not love, but awe or reverence, and, moreover, necessarily a blind awe. Properly stated therefore, true virtue, according to him, would con sist in a blind awe of being in general, and a love of complacency to those who possess a blind awe of being in general only this would be inconsistent with his definition of virtue as existing in God. In reality, as he makes virtue merely the second object of love, his theory becomes identical with that utilitarian theory with which the names of Hume, Bentham, and Mill are chiefly associated ; but it is utilitarianism necessarily expressed in very awkward terms, because these are hampered by its derivation from certain theological principles, and its necessary connection with a theological belief. Unlike Hume and Mill, he deduces his theory primarily from certain scholastic propositions regarding God s purpose in the creation of the world. He accepts the Scripture statement that God makes himself his own chief end, and he endeavours by scholastic reason ing to snow the &quot;reasonableness &quot; of his doing so. He is, however, unable to proceed a step in his argument without committing him self to such pantheistic statements as that &quot; God s existence, being infinite, must be equivalent to universal existence,&quot; and that &quot; the eternal and infinite Being is in effect being in general, and com prehends universal existence. &quot; He is, therefore, obliged to confess that &quot;there is a degree of indistinctness and obscurity in the close consideration of such subjects,&quot; and to fall back &quot; on revelation as the surest guide in these matters ; &quot; although affirming at the same time that, in his endeavours &quot;to discover what the voice of reason is so far as it can go,&quot; he has been successful in &quot; obviating cavils insisted on by many.&quot; The fame of Edwards is associated chiefly with his treatise on The Freedom of the Human Will. The will is defined by him as that by which the &quot;mind chooses anything.&quot; By &quot; determing the will &quot; he means &quot;causing that the act of the will or choice should be thus and not otherwise.&quot; And, &quot;with respect to the inquiry, What determines the will ?&quot; he answers, &quot; It is that motive which as it stands in the view of the mind is the strongest.&quot; Liberty, according to him, belongs not to the will itself, but to the person, and the liberty which any one possesses is merely liberty to act as he wills. Any other kind of liberty, he affirms, implies three supposi tions: (1) &quot;A self-determining power in the will,&quot; (2) &quot; Indiffer ence, that previous to the act of volition the mind is in a state of equilibrium; &quot; and (3) &quot; Contingence, that events are not necessarily connected with their causes.&quot; These suppositions, as involving in different forms denials of the law of causality, are severally shown to be ; absurd. That Edwards demonstrates the position of his opponents to be utterly untenable must without the least qualifica tion be admitted ; but he is unconsciously equally successful in overthrowing his own theological position. Accordingly Edwards s theory of the will, like his ethical theory, is now held only by those who, in regard to the supreme power, are agnostics. His theory differs in no respect from that of John Stuart Mill, except that his statement of the law of causality is a little confused, and that he gives a different account of the origin of our knowledge of causality. He so far anticipated Hume as to recognize that by cause is often meant &quot; any antecedent with which a consequent event is so connected that it truly belongs to the reason why the