Read Ebook: The Feeling by Aycock Roger D Gaughan Jack Illustrator

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"The ship," Coordinator Erwin said sharply. "Walraven, you did put her into orbit?"

"Yes," Walraven said. "We put her into orbit and turned on the telemetering equipment--they'll be picking up her signals by now--and then we turned our backs on each other and we let go. There wasn't any feeling of motion or speed, but I felt a fresh breeze on my face and when I opened my eyes I was standing beside a familiar stone fence on a hill above the house where I was born. You haven't told me, but the others came back, too, didn't they?"

"He wasn't left behind," Walraven said with certainty. "Ragan has no family, but he has a home. We're standing on it."

An orderly came in with an envelope for Costain, who opened it and handed the paper to Erwin. To Walraven, Costain said, "It's a cablegram from North Ireland. Ragan is back."

Erwin was still gripping the paper in his hand when he walked with Costain out of the hospital into the bright airiness of a spring day. He glared at the warm, blue sky.

"We'll find a way," Erwin said. "We've proved that we can put men on Mars. With the right conditioning, we can keep them there."

"You're a dedicated and resolute man, Coordinator," Costain said. "Do you really suppose that any amount of conditioning could fit you to do what those boys failed at?"

The long moment of considering that passed before Erwin answered left a fine sheen of sweat on his face.

"No," Erwin said.

The younger Edwards declares, that President Edwards did not regard "motive as the efficient cause of volition," p. 66, but only as the "occasion or previous circumstances necessary to volition;" in this respect "most exactly agreeing with Dr. West" himself; and yet he tells us, in another place, that "every cause of volition is included in President Edwards' definition of motive," p. 104. Now, does not every cause of volition include the efficient cause thereof? Does not this expression include that which is the cause of volition in the real, in the only proper, sense of the word?

Again. Edwards frequently says, that "if this great principle of common sense, that every effect must have a cause, be given up, then there will be no such thing as reasoning from effect to cause. We cannot even prove the existence of Deity. If any thing can begin to be without a cause of its existence, then we cannot know that there is a God." Now, the sense in which this maxim is here used is perfectly obvious; for nothing can begin to be without an efficient cause, by which it is brought into existence. When we reason from those things which begin to be up to God, we clearly reason from effects to their efficient causes. Hence, when this maxim is applied by Edwards to volitions, he evidently refers to the efficient causes of them. If he does not, his maxim is misapplied; for it is established in one sense, and applied in another. If it proves any thing, it proves that volition must have an efficient cause; and when motive is taken to be that cause, it is taken to be the efficient cause of volition.

In conclusion, if Edwards really held, that motive does not produce volition, but is merely the occasion on which it is put forth, where shall we find his doctrine? Where shall we look for it? We hear him charged with destroying man's free-agency, by making motive the producing cause of volition; and we see him labouring to repel this charge. Truly, if he held the doctrine ascribed to him, we might have expected to find some allusion to it in his attempts to refute such a charge. If such had been his doctrine, with what ease might he have repelled the charge in question, and shown its utter futility, by simply alleging that, according to his system, motive is the occasion, and not the producing cause, of volition? Instead of the many pages through which he has so laboriously struggled, in order to bring our ideas of free-agency and virtue into harmony with his scheme; with what infinite ease might a single word have brought his scheme into harmony with the common sentiments of mankind in regard to free-agency and virtue! Indeed, if Edwards really believed that motive is merely the condition on which the mind acts, nothing can be more wonderful than his profound silence in regard to it on such an occasion; except the great pains which, on all occasions, he has taken to keep it entirely in the background. If the younger Edwards is not mistaken as to the true import of his father's doctrine, then, instead of setting it forth in a clear light, so that it may be read of all men, the author of the Inquiry has, indeed, enveloped it in such a flood of darkness, that it is no wonder those who have been so fortunate as to find it out, should be so frequently called upon to complain that his opponents do not understand him. Indeed, if such be the doctrine of the Inquiry, I do not see how any man can possibly understand it, unless he has inherited some peculiar power, unknown to the rest of mankind, by which its occult meaning may be discerned, notwithstanding all the outward appearances by which it is contradicted and obscured.

Here the issue with President Edwards is joined; and I intend to hold him steadily to it. No ambiguity of words shall, for a moment, divert my mind from it. If his arguments, when thoroughly sifted and scrutinized, establish this doctrine; then shall I lay down my arms and surrender at discretion. But if his assumptions are unsound, or his deductions false, I shall hold them for naught. If he reconciles his scheme of moral necessity with the reality of virtue, with the moral agency and accountability of man, and with the purity of God; then I shall lay aside my objections; but if, in reality, he only reconciles it with the semblance of these things, whilst he denies their substance, I shall not be diverted from an opposition to so monstrous a system, by the fair appearances it may be made to wear to the outward eye.

THE INQUIRY INVOLVED IN A VICIOUS CIRCLE.

THE great doctrine of the Inquiry seems to go round in a vicious circle, to run into an insignificant truism. This is a grave charge, I am aware, and I have ventured to make it only after the most mature reflection: and the justness of it, may be shown by a variety of considerations.

In the first place, when we ask, "what determines the will?" the author replies, "it is the strongest motive;" and yet, according to his definition, the strongest motive is that which determines the will. Thus, says Edwards, "when I speak of the strongest motive, I have respect to the whole that operates to induce a particular act of volition, whether that be the strength of one thing alone, or of many together." If we ask, then, what produces any particular act of volition, we are told, it is the strongest motive; and if we inquire what is the strongest motive, we are informed, it is the whole of that which operated to produce that particular act of volition. What is this but to inform us, that an act of volition is produced by that which produces it?

If this is what the Inquiry means to establish, surely it rests upon unassailable ground. Well may President Day assert, that "to say a weaker motive prevails against a stronger one is to say, that that which has the least influence has the greatest influence," p. 66. Now who would deny this position of the learned president? Who would say, that that which has the greatest influence has not the greatest influence? Surely, this great doctrine is to the full as certain as the newly discovered axiom of professor Villant, that "a thing is equal to itself!"

Again. If we suppose there is a real strength in motives, that they exert a positive influence in the production of volitions, then we concede every thing to President Edwards. For, if motives are so many forces acting upon the will, to say that the strongest will prevail, is simply to say that it is the strongest. But if motives exert no positive influence, then when we say that one is stronger than another, we must be understood to use this expression in a metaphorical sense; we must refer to some property of motives which we figuratively call their strength, and of which we suppose one motive to possess a greater degree than another. If this be so, what is this common property of motives, which we call their strength? If they do not possess a real strength, if they do not exert an efficient influence; but are merely said, metaphorically speaking, to possess such power and to exert such influence; then what becomes of the self-evidence which President Edwards claims for his fundamental proposition motives exert a real force, of course the strongest must prevail; but if they only have something else about them, which we call their strength, it is not self-evident that the motive which possesses this something else in the highest degree must necessarily prevail. Hence, the great doctrine of President Edwards is either a proposition whose truth arises out of the very definition of the terms in which it is expressed, or it is utterly destitute of that axiomatical certainty which he claims for it. In other words, he has settled his great doctrine of the will by the mere force of a definition; or he has left its foundations quite unsettled.

The same thing may be made to appear from another point of view. It has been well said by the philosopher of Malmsbury, "that experience concludeth nothing universally." From experience we can pronounce, only in so far as we have observed, and no farther. But the proposition, that the will is always determined by the strongest motive, is a universal proposition; and hence, if true at all, its truth could not have been learnt from observation and experience. It must depend upon the very definition of the terms in which it is expressed. We cannot say that the will is in all cases determined by the strongest motive, unless we include in the very idea and definition of the strongest motive, that it is such that it determines the will. President Edwards not only does, but he must necessarily, go around in this circle, in order to give any degree of clearness and certainty to his doctrine.

From the foregoing remarks, it appears, I think, that the fundamental doctrine of the Inquiry is a barren truism, or a vicious circle. If Edwards understood the import of his own doctrine, when he reduced it to the form that a man does what he pleases when he does what he pleases, it is certainly a truism; and if this is all his famous doctrine amounts to, it can have no bearing whatever upon the question as to the cause of volition; for whether the mind be the cause of its own volitions, or whether the strongest motive always causes them, or whether they have no causes at all, it is equally and unalterably true, that every man does what he pleases when he does what he pleases. There is no possible form of the doctrine of free-agency or contingency, however wild, which is at all inconsistent with such a truism.

Edwards is not always consistent with himself. He sometimes represents the greatest apparent good, or sense of the most agreeable, as the cause of volition; and then his doctrine assumes the form, that the will is determined by the strongest motive, or the greatest apparent good. And yet he sometimes identifies a sense of the most agreeable with the choice itself; and then his doctrine assumes the form that the choice of the mind is always as the choice of the mind; and to deny it is a plain contradiction in terms.

I do not intend, then, to engage in the hopeless task, of admitting volition to be an effect, and yet striving to extricate it from "the mechanism of cause and effect." This ground has long since been occupied by much abler persons than myself; and if they have failed of success, falling into innumerable inconsistencies, it is because, on such ground, success is impossible; and that notwithstanding their transcendant abilities, they have been fated to contradict themselves.

VOLITION NOT AN EFFECT.

THE argument of the Inquiry, as I have shown, assumes that a volition is an effect in the proper sense of the word; that it is the correlative of an efficient cause. If it were necessary, this point might be established by a great variety of additional considerations; but, I presume that every candid reader of the Inquiry is fully satisfied in relation to it.

If we mean by an effect, every thing that comes to pass, of course a volition is an effect; for no one can deny that it comes to pass. Or, if we include in the definition of the term, every thing which has a sufficient reason and ground of its existence, we cannot deny that it embraces the idea of a volition. For, under certain circumstances, the free mind will furnish a sufficient reason and ground of the existence of a volition. All that I deny is, that a volition does proceed from the mind, or from motive, or from anything else, in the same manner that an effect, properly so called, proceeds from its efficient cause.

We always conceive of the subject in which such an effect resides, as being wholly passive. President Edwards himself has repeatedly said, that it is the very notion of an effect, that it results from the action or influence of its cause; and that nothing is any further an effect, than as it proceeds from that action or influence. The subject in which it is produced, is always passive as to its production; and just in so far as it is itself active, it is not the subject of an effect, but the author of an action. Such is the idea of an effect in the true and proper sense of the word.

Although the scheme of Edwards identifies these two things, and his argument assumes them to be one and the same; yet his language, it appears to me, frequently betrays the fact, that his consciousness did not work in harmony with his theory. While speaking of the acts of the will as effects, he frequently says, that it is the very idea of an effect that it results from, and is necessarily connected with, the action of its cause, and that it is absurd to suppose that it is free or loose from the influence of its cause.

These passages, which are scattered up and down through the Inquiry, in which the doctrine of liberty seems to be conceded, I cannot but regard as highly important concessions. They have been used to show that we misconceive the scheme of Edwards, when we ascribe to him the doctrine of fate. But when they are thus adduced, to show that we misrepresent his doctrine, I beg it may be remembered that such evidence can prove only one of two things; either that we do not understand what he teaches, or that he is not always consistent with himself.

OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF REGARDING VOLITION AS AN EFFECT.

IT has been frequently conceded that a volition is an effect; but to make this concession, without explanation or qualification, is to surrender the whole cause of free agency into the hand of the enemy. For if a volition is an effect, properly speaking, the only question is as to its efficient cause: it is necessarily produced by its cause.

Let it be assumed, that a volition is, properly speaking, an effect, and every thing is conceded. On this vantage ground, the scheme of necessity may be erected beyond the possibility of an overthrow. For, even if we "suppose that action is determined by the will and free choice," this "is as much as to say, that it must be necessary, being dependent upon, and determined by something foregoing; namely, a foregoing act of choice," p. 199. Let the above position be conceded, and there is no escape from this conclusion. Nay, the conclusion itself is but another mode of stating the position assumed.

It is evident, then, that action must take its rise somewhere in the world, without being caused by prior action; or else there must be an infinite series of acts. I say it takes its rise in the mind, in that which is essentially active, and not in matter. Edwards does not say, that it takes its rise in matter; and hence, there is no dispute on this point. It is very remarkable, that this objection to his scheme, that it runs into an infinite series, seems never to have occurred to President Edwards. He seems to have endeavoured to anticipate and reply to all possible objections to his system; and yet this, which has occurred to so many others, appears not to have occurred to himself, for he has not noticed it.

The younger Edwards has attempted to reply to it. Let us see his reply. "We maintain," says he, "that action may be the effect of a divine influence; or that it may be the effect of one or more second causes, the first of which is immediately produced by the Deity. Here then is not an infinite series of causes, but a very short series, which terminates in the Deity or first cause," p. 121. Thus, according to the younger Edwards, the infinite series of causes is cut short, terminating in the volition of Deity. What! does the volition of God come into existence without a cause of its existence? What then becomes of "that great principle of common sense," so often applied to volition, that no event can begin to be without a cause of its existence? Is this great principle given up? Has it become obsolete?

But there is an objection to this view. "If it should be said," he continues, "that on this supposition the effects take place not till long after the acts, by which they are produced, I answer, they do so in our view, but not in the view of God. With him there is no time, no before nor after with respect to time," p. 124.

Now, it will not be denied, that things appear to God just as they are in themselves; and hence, if his volitions, which are said to exist long before their effects, even from all eternity, appear to him not to exist long before them; then they do not in reality exist long before them. But if the divine volitions do not really exist long before their effects, but just before them, as other causes do before their effects, why should they not have causes as well as any other volitions? If they really exist just before their effects in time, and not long before them, why do they not exist in time just as much as any other volitions? and why do they not as much require causes to account for their existence? If they only seem to us to exist long before their effects, even from all eternity, how can this mere seeming make any real difference in the case? There is a very short series, we are told, the volition of Deity constituting the first link. Has not this first link, this volition of the Deity, a cause? No. And why? Because it has existed from all eternity; and so nothing could go before it to produce it. Did it not exist long before the effect then, which it produces in time? No. And why? Because in the view of God and in reality, it existed just before its effect, as all causes do, and therefore there is no real severance of cause and effect in the case! It really comes just before its effect in time, and therefore there is no severance of cause and effect; and yet it really existed before all time, even from all eternity, and therefore it cannot have a cause! Now is this logic, or is it legerdemain?

There is no time with God, says the author; then there is no time in reality; it is all an illusion arising from the succession of our own thoughts. If this be so, then all things do really come to pass simultaneously; and if there were a very long series, even an infinite series of causes and effects, yet would they all come to pass in the same instant. Indeed, there is very great uncertainty about the speculations of philosophers in regard to time and space; and we hardly know what to make of them, except we cannot very well understand them; but one thing is abundantly certain; and that is, that it is not good logic, to assert that a particular cause cannot be produced, because it has existed long before its effect, even from all eternity; and yet repel objections to this assertion, by alleging that they only seem to do so, while in reality there is no such tiling. This is to turn from the illusion to the reality, and from the reality to the illusion, just as it suits the exigency of the moment. Such are the poor shifts and shallow devices, to which even gifted minds are reduced, when they refuse to admit that action, that volition, may take its rise in the world, spontaneously proceeding from mind itself, without being made to do so by the action of any thing upon it.

Let us suppose, that a man should tell us, that a producing cause existed long before its effect; that there was nothing to prevent it from bringing its effect to pass; and yet, long after it had existed, its effect sprang up and came into existence; what should we think? Should we not see that it is absurd, in the highest degree, to say that an unimpeded causative act existed yesterday, and even from all eternity, unchanged and unchangeable; and yet its effect did not come to pass until to-day? Surely, no man in his right mind can be made to believe this, unless it be forced upon him by the desperate necessities of a false system; and if any person were told, that although such a thing may seem absurd to us, inasmuch as the cause seems to exist in full operation long before its effect, yet it is not so in the view of God, with whom there is no time, should he not be pardoned if he doubted the infallibility of his informant?

Since the time of Dr. Samuel Clarke, it has been frequently objected to the scheme of moral necessity, that it is involved in the great absurdity of an infinite series of causes. President Edwards urged this objection against the doctrine of the self-determining power; he did not perceive that it lay against his own scheme of the motive-determining power; and hence, he has not even attempted to answer it. This was reserved for the younger Edwards; and although he has deservedly ranked high as a logician, I cannot but regard his attempt to answer the objection in question, as one of the most remarkable abortions in the history of philosophy.

IN a former section, I referred to some of the false assumptions which have been incautiously conceded to the necessitarian, and in which he has laid the foundations of his system; but I have not, as yet, alluded to the argument or deduction in which he is accustomed to triumph. This argument, strange as it may seem, is a deduction, not from any principle or general fact which has been ascertained by observation or experience, but from a self-evident and universal truth.

That every effect must have a cause, is the maxim upon which the necessitarian takes his stand, and from which he delights to draw his favourite conclusion. It may be well, therefore, to examine the argument which has been so frequently erected upon the maxim in question. Although from various considerations, it has been very justly concluded, that there is somewhere a lurking fallacy in the argument, yet it has not been precisely shown where the fallacy lies. Suspicion has been thrown over it: nay, abundant reason has been shown why it should be rejected; but yet the fallacy of it should be dragged from the place of its concealment, and laid open in a clear light, so as to render it apparent to every eye. If it is a sophism, it certainly can be exposed, and it should be done.

In order to do this, it will be necessary to consider the nature and use of the maxim, that every effect must have a cause. I am aware, that no necessitarian of the present day, would choose to express this maxim as I have expressed it; for in such a form Mr. Hume has shown that it contains no information, and is indeed a most insignificant proposition. And, in truth, what does it amount to? Cause and effect are correlative terms; and when we speak of an effect, we mean something that is produced by a cause; and hence, the famous proposition, that every effect has a cause, amounts only to this, that every effect is an effect!

The maxim, that every effect must have a cause, is a self-evident and universal proposition. Its truth is involved in the very definition of the terms of which it is composed. In this respect it is like the axioms of geometry. When it is said, for example, that "the whole is equal to the sum of the parts," we at once perceive the truth of the axiom; because the "whole" is merely another name for "the sum of the parts." It is intuitively certain that they are equal, because they are but different expressions of the same thing. So, likewise, when it is affirmed, that every effect or every change in nature has a cause, we instantly perceive the truth of the proposition; inasmuch as an effect is that which is produced by a cause. The very idea of an effect implies its relation to a cause; and to say, that it has one, is only to say, that an effect is an effect. For if it were not produced by a cause, it would not be an effect.

The maxim under consideration is as unquestionably true as any axiom in Euclid. It does not depend for the evidence of its truth upon observation, or experience, or reasoning; it carries its own evidence along with it. No sooner are the terms in which it is expressed understood, than it rivets irresistible conviction on the mind. It is a fundamental law of belief; and it is impossible for the imagination of man to conceive, that an effect, or that which is produced by a cause, should be without a cause. And it were just as idle an employment of one's time, to undertake to prove such a proposition, as it would be to attempt to refute it.

Now, one of the fallacies of the argument of the necessitarian is, that it is an attempt to draw a conclusion from the axiomatical truth above referred to, as from the major of a syllogism. Every such attempt must necessarily be vain and fruitless. "Axioms," justly remarks Mr. Locke, "are not the foundations on which any of the sciences are built." And again, "It was not the influence of those maxims which are taken for principles in mathematics, that hath led the masters of that science into the wonderful discoveries they have made. Let a man of good parts know all the maxims generally made use of in mathematics never so perfectly, and contemplate their extent and consequences as much as he pleases, he will, by their assistance, I suppose, scarce ever come to know, that the square of the hypothenuse in a right-angled triangle, is equal to the squares of the two other sides. The knowledge, that the whole is equal to the parts, and, if you take equals from equals, the remainder will be equal, helped him not, I presume, to this demonstration. And a man may, I think, pore long enough on those axioms, without ever seeing one jot the more of mathematical truths."

If there is any truth in the foregoing remarks, or correctness in the position of Locke and Stewart, it is certainly one of the capital errors of Edwards, as well as of other necessitarians, that he has undertaken to deduce his doctrine from a metaphysical axiom, or identical proposition.

Supposing this to be the case, how has it happened, it may be asked, that the argument of the necessitarian has appeared so conclusive to himself, as well as unanswerable to others? The reason is plain. Having set out with a proposition, which is barren of all consequences, as the basis of his argument, it became necessary, in order to arrive at the destined conclusion, to assume, somewhere and somehow, in the course of his reasoning, the very point which he had undertaken to prove. Accordingly, this has been done; and the tacit assumption of the point in dispute seems not to have been suspected by him.

The justice of this remark may be shown, by a reference to the argument of the necessitarian. When this is reduced to the form of a syllogism, it stands thus: Every effect has a cause; a volition is an effect; and, therefore, a volition has a cause. In the middle term, which assumes that a volition is an effect, the point in dispute is taken for granted, the whole question is completely begged.

If we take the words in any sense, yet as they are correlative terms, the maxim that every effect must have a cause is self-evident; and hence, no conclusion can be drawn from it, unless the conclusion intended to be drawn is assumed in the middle term of the syllogism. It either begs the question, or it decides nothing to the purpose. It is true, that every change in nature must have a cause; that is to say, it is in some sense of the word an effect, and consequently must have a corresponding cause; but in what sense does every act of the mind come under the idea and definition of an effect? This is the question. Is it brought to pass by the prior action of motive? Is it necessitated? Upon this precise question, the maxim that every change must have a cause can throw no light; it only seems to refer to this point, by means of the very convenient ambiguity of the terms in which it is expressed. The necessitarian never fails to avail himself of this ambiguity. He seems both to himself and to the spectator to be carrying on a "great demonstration;" and this is one reason, perhaps, why the mind is diverted from the sophistical tricks, the metaphysical jugglery, by which both are deceived. Let us look a little more narrowly at this pretended demonstration.

It is freely admitted, and the advocates of free-agency have always admitted, that volition has a cause, as that word is frequently used by Edwards. He tells us, that by cause he sometimes means any antecedent, whether it exerts any positive influence or no. Now, in this sense, it is conceded by the advocates of free-agency, that motive itself is the cause of volition. This is the question: Is motive the efficient, or producing cause of volition? This is the question, I say; but Edwards frequently loses sight of it in a mist of ambiguities; and he lays around him in the dark, with such prodigious strength, that if his adversaries were not altogether imaginary beings, and therefore impassible to his ponderous blows, I have no doubt he would have slain more of them than ever Samson did of the Philistines.

The manner in which the necessitarian speaks of cause in his maxims, and reasonings, and pretended demonstrations, is of very great service to him. It includes, as we are told, every condition or cause of volition; every thing without which volition could not come to pass. Yea, it is used in this sense, when it is said that motive is the cause of volition. What shall we do, then, with this broad, this most ambiguous proposition? Shall we deny it? If so, then we deny that volition has any cause of its existence, and fall into the great absurdity of supposing "volition to produce itself." Shall we assent to it, then? If so, we really admit that motive is the efficient cause of volition; and thus, by denying, we are made to reject our own doctrine, while, by affirming, we are made to receive that of our opponents. This way of proposing the doctrine of necessity very strongly reminds one of a certain trick in legislation, by which such things are forced into a bill, that in voting upon it, you must either reject what you most earnestly desire, or else sanction and support what you most earnestly detest. We should, therefore, neither affirm nor deny the whole proposition as it is set forth by the necessitarian; we should touch it with the dissecting knife, and cure it of its manifold infirmities.

He did not look at a volition and an effect, so as to mark their differences narrowly, and to proceed in his reasonings according to them; he set out with the great and universal truth, that every change in the universe must have a cause; from which lofty position the differences of things in this nether world were invisible. Having secured this position to his entire satisfaction, being firmly persuaded in his own mind, that "nonentity could not bring forth," he supposed he had gained a strong foothold; and from thence he proceeded to reason downward to what actually takes place in this lower world!

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