: A Review of Edwards's Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will by Tappan Henry Philip - Free will and determinism; Edwards Jonathan 1703-1758. Freedom of the will

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ds, under the first, speaks of the object as connected with future pleasure. Here the manner of the mind's view will have influence in two respects:

Now these may be in different degrees, compounded with different degrees of pleasure, considered in itself; and "the agreeableness of a proposed object of choice will be in a degree some way compounded of the degree of good supposed by the judgement, the degree of apparent probability or certainty of that good, and the degree of liveliness of the idea the mind has of that good."

After having settled his definition of choice or volition, and explained the cause of the same, Edwards takes up the nature of the connexion between this cause and effect: viz. motive and volition. Is this connexion a necessary connexion?

In order to determine this point, and to explain his view of it, he proceeds to discuss the meaning of the terms contained in the above title. This section is entirely occupied with this preliminary discussion.

Edwards makes two kinds of necessity: 1. Necessity as understood in the common or vulgar use; 2. Necessity as understood in the philosophical or metaphysical use.

"The subject and predicate of a proposition which affirms the existence of something, may have a full, fixed, and certain connexion, in several ways."

"And here it may be observed, that all things which are future, or which will hereafter begin to be, which can be said to be necessary, are necessary only in this last way,"--that is, "by a connexion with something that is necessary in its own nature, or something that already is or has been. This is the necessity which especially belongs to controversies about acts of the will."

"It has been observed that these terms in their original and common use, have relation to will and endeavour, as supposable in the case." That is have relation to the connexion of volition with effects. "But as these terms are often used by philosophers and divines, especially writers on controversies about free will, they are used in a quite different and far more extensive sense, and are applied to many cases wherein no will or endeavour for the bringing of the thing to pass is or can be supposed:" e. g. The connexion between volitions and their causes or motives.

"Any thing is said to be contingent, or to come to pass by chance or accident, in the original meaning of such words, when its connexion with its causes or antecedents, according to the established course of things, is not discerned; and so is what we have no means of foreseeing. But the word, contingent, is abundantly used in a very different sense; not for that, whose connexion with the series of things we cannot discern so as to foresee the event, but for something which has absolutely no previous ground or reason, with which its existence has any fixed connexion."

Contingency and chance Edwards uses as equivalent terms. In common use, contingency and chance are relative to our knowledge--implying that we discern no cause. In another use,--the use of a certain philosophical school,--he affirms that contingency is used to express absolutely no cause; or, that some events are represented as existing without any cause or ground of their existence. This will be examined in its proper place. I am now only stating Edwards's opinions, not discussing them.

We now return to the question:--Is the connexion between motive and volition necessary?

What is moral inability? "Moral inability consists not in any of these things; but either in the want of inclination, or the strength of a contrary inclination, or the want of sufficient motives in view, to induce and excite the act of will, or the strength of apparent motives to the contrary. Or both these may be resolved into one; and it may be said, in one word, that moral inability consists in the opposition or want of inclination. For when a person is unable to will or choose such a thing, through a defect of motives, or prevalence of contrary motives, it is the same thing as his being unable through the want of an inclination, or the prevalence of a contrary inclination, in such circumstances and under the influence of such views."

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