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372 in which volition, if it actually took place, could not be explained except by the will's own initiative. It would be exactly the condition described by the incident of the ass of Buridan. But we shall not go so far as to maintain this supposition admitting it to be a possible one. It is sufficient to show what is implied by hesitation between alternatives. This is the interruption of the causal agency between stimulus and volition and the consequent denial of causality to certain mental conditions going by the name of "motives." Let us examine, therefore, the problem as the terms of the case require.

In the first place, the law of mechanical causation, which the fatalist opposes to freedom, supposes an immediate production of the effect whenever the conditions are present. Now "motives" are either the causes of volition or they are not. In the latter alternative their presence is not opposed to freedom, as the nature of the case would imply. On the other hand, if we assume them to be causes of volition, this effect must occur immediately upon their occurrence in consciousness, unless, in order to explain the fact of deliberation, we admit either or both of two assumptions; first, that an equilibrium is possible from the conflict of equal and opposing "motives," or second, that there are distinct kinds of "motives" which are differently related to the law of causation. With either of these two presuppositions freedom is established. The Necessitarian is therefore reduced to the position of assuming that all "motives" are one in kind, the so called "external motives," and that they are the immediate causes of volition, or of denying the existence of deliberation. For, as long as we suppose deliberation to be hesitation between two conflicting "motives," we cannot attach immediate causation to all of them, and not affirming it of all of them is paramount to the admission of freedom. This is clear from the above two alternatives. The first of them, assuming an equilibrium between conflicting motives to be possible, must imply either that volition never takes place under such circumstances, or that if it does occur, the motives are not its causes. That is, those who assume it must either deny the fact of volition under those conditions, or admit the possibility of freedom,