Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/178

168 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 realise, 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