to it. We care not how completely fatalism or philosophical Necessity may be battered down. Only leave us God as the cause of all causes, the life of all life, the source of all power, and the sum of all wisdom and goodness, and it is enough. But how a reasonable man can seriously ask us to admit that man, a puny worm of the dust, can act contrary to the will of God, and then with the next breath tell us to lean upon the Divine will as the rock of our defence, and the strong tower of our hope, is past all our comprehension. What to us is the value of the will or the purpose of a God, whose will is violated every day by the puny arm of mortals? What dependence upon a God who cannot, or does not, make his will an efficient, and a binding law upon the creatures of a day? What can we reason

but from what we know? If the will of God has been trampled in the dust during six thousand years past, the presumption is unquestionable that it will be so for six thousand years to come, and there is no solid ground to hope that it will ever be otherwise. If it were our desire to weaken men's confidence in God, and destroy their hope in the ultimate triumph of Divine grace and love, we would lay hold of the doctrine of Divine efficiencies, and show, first, that it is identical with Necessity; secondly, that Necessity is identical with fatalism; then, thirdly, we would belabor fatalism with all sorts of epithets (but we would not admit that it stands on the law of cause and effect), and if we could frighten the people away from fatalism, we should accomplish our object; for what would we have left to trust in? Not a God whose will is the law that must be fulfilled; but simply a God whose will is violated every day, and in whose face puny mortals may snap their fingers, saying, "we will go our way, notwithstanding thy will."

We had it in mind to review at length the very able article on the doctrine of Necessity, to which we have alluded. That work, however, has been anticipated and performed by another hand. 24 It is there shown, that the method of the article is vicious, and the argument a failure, and we do not care to repeat what has been so well said. In fact, logically, there is scarcely any need of a reply, for the article itself is its own best refutation. It is not to be presumed, that the learned and venerable author of that article, was

24 See Quarterly, January, 1859.

moved to perform the great labor of its preparation by no motive. His own intuitions, and the common sense of the world, will pronounce the decision, that the man who wrote that piece, had some strong motive, some good reason, for so doing. And after having written it, we are not to presume that he caused it to be published without expecting some effect to be produced by its publication. The very fact of the appearance of the article is, therefore, an admission that motives do govern, and an appeal to the law of cause and effect; and, as such, a practical refutation of all and singular the arguments that it urges against the doctrine of Necessity. Besides, the article defeats itself in theory. It takes up the doctrine of theological Necessity, and endeavors to show that it is identical with philosophical Necessity; substantially so, at least. It then attempts to show, that philosophical Necessity is substantially fatalism. It then tells us that "fatalism stands on the position that the human mind is subject to the universal law of cause and effect." Of course, this theological Necessity stands on the same position. If that position be sound and tenable, they are both placed on a foundation that cannot be moved. Does our author hazard a single shot at that foundation? Not one. On the contrary, he admits that the law of cause and effect is a part and parcel of our "primary intuitive knowledge." What then? Simply this. Fatalism rests upon the basis of our primary intuitions, and is to be received with all the legitimate deductions involved in it, or growing out of it. We may not blow hot and cold by insisting, in one breath, upon the absolute authority of our primary knowledge, and in the next, endeavoring to frighten us from it by an array of consequences. The question is, are these consequences legitimate? If so, they must be accepted along with the intuitions. Failing to show that they are not legitimate, the article establishes, on the basis of "primary intuitive knowledge," the very doctrine that it attempts to overthrow. Such is the logical aspect of the case, and here we might leave the subject. We cannot, however, resist the "necessity" that is laid upon us to test the metal of that sharp two-edged sword that we find in the article first named. We try the quality of the opposite edge, by the alteration of a few words,-as substituting Liberty for Necessity.

"The doctrine of Liberty stands on this position, that the human mind is not subject to the universal law of cause and effect, except in such a way that it can, in any case, be otherwise disposed than it is necessitated to be disposed by that law, and can, in any case, act otherwise than it is necessitated to act, by the same Law. Accordingly no feeling of ours, good or bad, no disposition of our heart, no principle, or motive, we act from, no intention, no thought that we have, is wrought out within us by a congeries of causes, over which we have no power. We indeed seem to ourselves to be subject to the law of Cause and Effect in some things, but in reality we are not. None of our natural energies and activities are first produced and then partly governed, either by the constitutional laws of our being, which we had no hand in making, and which we cannot control, nor by exciting causes from without which work with those laws, and with their co-operation, produce any result within us, whatever it is. We can begin any wish, any effort, or any mood of mind, before we are necessitated to do so, and after we have begun it, we can arrest it, or modify it, or do any thing whatsoever about it, without being moved thereunto by any cause. Thus neither the whole mind, nor any of its affections or faculties, is locked up in the indeflectible gearing of Cause and Effect. If it be felt,

that this language is too strong, or if there be an impression that we represent the element of Liberty as more pervading and absolute in the case, than the doctrine really demands, a second thought will discover that we do not exaggerate, and, indeed, that it is impossible to exaggerate in these respects. For it is essential to Liberty, that it be absolute and universal; that it go down to the bottom of our being, and leave not the very subtlest movement of our nature, nor the remotest tendency to move, clasped in the embrace of Necessity. Every one can see, that if there be a single operation of the mind, how slight soever, that is thoroughly necessitated, the doctrine of Liberty gives way to the entrance of some form of dominion, and another doctrine becomes established. Human nature protests against such a theory so strongly, that we have to do a sort of violence to ourselves, to get at its full meaning. Men naturally falter in the attempt to force their thoughts out to its extreme positions, and even when these are once

reached with much effort, we are scarcely able to hold our thoughts there long enough, and steady enough, to get a clear idea of the matter. We never read an author on Libty, who did not slide away from his own labored positions, as often as he suffered the tension of his speculative logic to relax for an instant. Nature was too strong for him; and he recognized the law of Cause and Effect in the very reasons he gives for denying it." 26

We tender our profound acknowledgments to our author for the use of his sharp sword. We see not but it cuts with equal keenness either way. We try it again on the following quotation. After having argued that the doctrine of Necessity destroys the idea of moral qualities, responsibility, etc., our author says, "Now we have no clearer intuition that there is such a law in any part of the universe, as cause and effect, than we have that there are such qualities as virtue, sin, merit, demerit, responsibility, personality, and freedom. Both intuitions stand on equal authority, and one cannot disprove the other. We must accept both parts of our primary knowledge.'

Saying nothing of the serious doubt whether our ideas of virtue, sin, merit, responsibility, and freedom, are intuitions; nor of the fact, that we cannot conceive of merit or demerit in human actions, except as they proceed from motives; we utter our protest against accepting both, in language that is ready furnished to our hand. "And yet if it is worth while to have any thing to do with such a scheme, it is unquestionably requisite to know what it is, and then deal with it as it is. It would be idle to play backwards and forwards from Liberty to something else-now a little of one, and now a little of the other-and still, to call the mongrel product by that name; to argue Liberty by fits, and when our nature will no longer bear it, to fall back upon a little Cause and Effect for a breathing spell, and then return to the argumentation with renewed vigor. This, however, is the case with the advocates of this doctrine. Their nature is all the while prompting them to think in the relation of cause and effect, indeed they cannot think in any other relation, and these thoughts will steal into the process of their argument without being noted, and vitiate the whole. From this disturbing cause (there are

26 Quarterly, October, 1858, p. 347, 8, 9.

causes), the question will perhaps come up (it ought to come up without a cause), does not Liberty admit that the mind is in some measure subject to the law of cause and effect? Certainly, but in no other way than that it is able at any time to arrest, or suspend, or abrogate that law." 27

Is there no such thing as Liberty? None, in a positive sense. The Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Liberty, in the sphere of outward action, is the absence of restraint or hindrance to prevent us from doing as we choose to do. Liberty, in the sphere of our internal activities, is the absence of restraint or hindrance to prevent us from willing or choosing in accordance with our prevailing belief and preponderating desire. Neither the desire nor the belief is under our control. We do not believe and desire as we will; but we will as we desire and believe. What we desire to do, and believe, we can do, that we do, and we cannot do otherwise. We cannot say that we are conscious of Liberty ; we can only say we are unconscious of restraints or hindrance. It is precisely this unconsciousness of restraint, that men mistake for a positive consciousness, or an intuition of Freedom or Liberty. Necessity is an affirmation. Liberty is a negation. The one can be proved, the other

cannot.

I. D. W.

ART. XI.

The Order of Religious Ideas in History.

THE observation is as true as it is familiar, that the infancy of the world resembles the infancy of the individual. The early generations, along with the physical stature of mature manhood, retain much of the thoughts and mental habits of childhood. The analogy appears all the more perfect the more carefully it is analyzed; there is the same quickness of feeling and perception, and the same ready faith, which never harbors a doubt until deception has produced an

27 Quarterly, October, 1858, p. 351.