Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/404

388 (ratio essendi) of the mind's independence of external impressions. Hence it is not the presence or absence of a nexus between motive and volition that determines the question, but the source of the agency acting as a motive. If that agency be ideational the will is free, and in order to reach that stage of complete freedom involved in the dominant influence of ideational centres inhibition must break the natural connection, strengthened by habit, between sensations or emotions and volitional action.

This brings us to our conclusion in which a word must be said about responsibility. The nexus between motive and volition being complete, and the motive being determined by the nature of the ego or ideational centre — this being due to experience, heredity, or creation — it would seem that whatever is done is unavoidable; that is, the agent has no choice. This is construed as conflicting with freedom. We do not, however, regard it so. Freedom consists only in self-initiative and independence of external causes, whether there be any choice between alternatives or not, and we have shown how inhibition and deliberation bring about both of these circumstances. But this ability to choose otherwise than we do, while not essential to freedom, is essential to responsibility, which must not be regarded as convertible with freedom. If at any time we are able to choose otherwise than we do, the fact proves our freedom, but it is not the condition of it. But it is the condition of our responsibility, which will be proportioned, on the one hand, to the extent of our liberty including the degree of inhibition we possess, and on the other hand to the extent of our knowledge of alternatives. This view may diminish the importance of the doctrine of freedom by making responsibility the problem of ethics. But each problem has its place, and we care here only to point out the confusion between freedom and responsibility, on the one hand, and their ratio cognoscendi and ratio essendi, on the other. If we have succeeded, the problem will present fewer perplexities for the future than it has for the past.

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COLUMBIA COLLEGE.