Part 17

I have said, that we are not conscious that there is no producing cause of volition. No man can be conscious of that which does not exist. Hence, it is highly absurd to require us to furnish the evidence of consciousness that there is no such cause of volition. It cannot testify to any such universal negative; and one might as well require a mathematical demonstration of the point in dispute, as to demand such evidence from us. And yet, President Edwards declares, that by experience he knows nothing like the doctrine, that "any volition arises in his mind contingently;" that is to say, he was not conscious that a volition has _no producing_ cause of its existence. Did he expect that we should prove the non-existence of a thing by the direct evidence of consciousness? All that he could reasonably expect in such a case is, that we should not be conscious of any such influence; and this President Edwards himself admits. He admits, that we do not see the "effectual power of any cause," or feel its influence, operating to produce a volition: he merely infers this from the assumption that volition is a produced effect.

He also says, I find "that the acts of my will are my own; i. e. that they are acts of my will--the volitions of my own mind; or, in other words, that what I will, I will; which, I suppose, is the sum of what others experience in this affair." Surely, no one was ever so silly as to deny that what a man wills, he wills; and if this is all that consciousness teaches on the subject, its information can throw no light upon this or upon any other controversy. This proposition, that a man wills what he wills, is independent of all experience and all consciousness. It is an identical proposition, which experience can neither shake nor confirm. We may see, nay, we must see, that each and every thing in the universe is what it is, without any reference to consciousness or experience.

Indeed, it is as absurd to appeal to experience or consciousness for the truth of such a universal and self-evident axiom, as it is to appeal to universal and self-evident axioms, to ascertain and determine the _nature_ of our mental phenomena,--of the states and processes of the mind. Edwards has done both: he has deduced the truth of the proposition, that a man wills what he wills, from the evidence of consciousness or experience, as the sum of all its teaching; and he has established the fact, that a volition is produced by the operation of an effectual power, by an appeal to a universal axiom. He has submitted a truism, which declines every test of its truth, to the tribunal of consciousness; and he has determined the nature of a volition, as well as the manner of its production, by the application of a similar truism, which contains no conceivable information respecting the nature of any thing in the universe.

Edwards says, "I find myself possessed of my volitions." He was conscious of his own acts. This is a sufficient foundation for the doctrine of liberty; for such a consciousness is utterly irreconcilable with the supposition that those acts are produced by the operation of efficient causes. To say that they are "my acts," and yet to say that they are produced by the action of something else, is, as we have repeatedly seen, to say that they are my acts, and at the same time to say that they are not my _acts_, but _effects_ produced upon my mind. This very admission, therefore, lays the foundation of the doctrine of liberty. And hence, it has been supposed that Edwards himself was an advocate of this doctrine; because he has spoken of the soul as exerting its own volitions. From such an admission, it has been concluded by some of his admirers, that he really regarded the mind as the "efficient cause of its own acts," and "motives as merely the occasions on which it acts." But such an admission only proves, that his consciousness cannot be reconciled with his theory. His consciousness lays the foundation of liberty; but he does not build thereon. On the contrary, he lays the foundation of his system in universal abstractions, and not in observed facts; and hence, as it is not derived from an observation of nature, so it can never be brought into harmony with the dictates and operations of nature. It is altogether a thing of definitions and words; and as such it must pass away, when men shall cease to construct for themselves, and come forward as "the humble servants and interpreters of nature," to study the world of mind upon the true principles of the inductive method.

Edwards did not observe the intellectual world just as it has been constructed by the Almighty, and narrowly watch it in its workings; he only reasoned about it and about it; and hence, he was necessarily devoted to blindness. With all his gigantic power, he was necessarily compelled to go around, eternally, upon the treadmill of a merely dialectical philosophy, which of itself can yield no fruit, instead of going forth to the harvest upon the rich and boundless field of discovery. Why should the failure of other times, resulting from such a course, inspire us with despair? We hope for better results, not from better minds, but from better methods. Socrates dissuaded the men of his time from the study of nature, alleging that "the wonderful art" wherewith the heavens had been constructed, was concealed from their eyes; and that it was displeasing to the gods, that men should so vainly strive to pry into mysteries which are so far above their reach. Faint-hearted sage! Though Bacon had beheld the genius and labour of two thousand years after Socrates had been laid in the dust, wasted upon the same great problem, yet did not the unconquerable ardour of his hope droop for a moment. Rising aloft, even from the wild waste which men had made of their powers in all times past, he poured down the floods of his indignation upon those who are thus ready and willing to devote mankind to darkness and despair. Inspired by his philosophy, and pursuing his method, the more than immortal Newton did not fear, cautiously yet boldly, humbly yet hopefully, to pry into "the wonderful art" wherewith the Almighty has constructed the heavens; and the great problem which Socrates had so timidly, yet so rashly, pronounced to lie beyond the reach of man, did this humble student of nature most triumphantly solve; showing, to the admiration of the world and the glory of God, that that wonderful art is infinitely more wonderful than any thing which had ever been dreamed of in the philosophy of antiquity. How great soever, then, the failure of times past may have been, we should not despair. Nor should we listen, for a moment, to those who are ever ready to declare, that the great problem of the intellectual system of the universe is not within the reach of the human faculties.

_Note_.--The edition of Edwards' works quoted in this volume, is that by G. & C. & H. Carvill, New York, 1830.