there be any cause to operate on our minds, so as therein to produce our volitions. In this inquiry I shall look after the positive cause, for I have nothing to do with negative causes. CHAPTER VII. AN INQUIRY WHETHER VOLITION HAS FOR ITS CAUSE THE GREATEST APPARENT GOOD, CHOICE, HABIT, OR MR. EDWARDS' STRONGEST MOTIVE IN THE MIND'S VIEW. I. Is volition an effect of the greatest apparent good? In applying terins to the mind O-in Chap. II. we learnt, it was active in reflection, attention, examen, and comparing, before it saw the difference between the idea, called heat, and the impression called hunger; consequently, it was active before one of these was a greater good than the other in the mind's view. When the mind took either of these active steps, it willed, therefore it willed without the greatest apparent good to produce its volition. Hence I conclude this good is never the cause of volition. But we shall see more of this hereafter. II. Is volition an effect of choice? Choice means the same as the greatest apparent good; therefore if this be not the cause of volition, then choice is not. Dr. HI. Is not volition sometimes the effect of habit? To answer this question, we must consider what habit is, and how it comes into existence. Hartley in his Essay on the active powers of man, page 128 says, suppose a person, who has a perfect voluntary command over his fingers to begin to learn to play on the harpsichord. The first step is to move his fingers from key to key, with a slow motion, looking at the notes, and exerting an express act of volition in every motion. By degrees the motions cling to one another, and to the impressions of the notes, in the way of association, so often mentioned, the acts of volition growing less and less express all the time, till at last they become evanescent, and imperceptible. For an expert performer will play from notes or ideas. laid up in the memory, and at the same time carry on a quite different train of thoughts in his mind; or even hold a conversation with another. Whence we may conclude that there is no intervention of the idea or state of mind called Will." Mr. Stewart, in his Philosphy of the Human Mind, page 68, remarking upon the above, says, "Cases of this t Hartley calls transitions from voluntary ac tions into Automatic ones. I cannot help thinking it is more philosophical to suppose that these actions, which are originally voluntary, always continue so; although in the case of operations, which have become habitual in consequence of long practice, we may not be able to recollect every different volition. Thus in the case of the performer on the harpsichord, I apprehend, that there: is an act of the will preceding every motion of every finger, although he may not be able to recollect these: volitions afterward; and although he may during, the time of his performance be employed in carrying on a separate train of thoughts. For it must be remarked, that the most rapid performer can, when he pleases, play so slowly, as to be able to. attend to, and recollect every separate act of his will, in the various movements of his fingers, and he can gradually accelerate the rate of his exertion, tili he is unable to recollect these acts.". Here we have a case of habit. It consists in the regular and rapid motions of the fingers. on the harpsichord. But this habit, like all others, is an effect of volitions, perhaps a thousand times re peated. If habit be the effect of volitions repeated, will it do to say that any of these volitions are the effects of habit? I think not; for this would be saying the effect produced its cause.. IV. Is volition an effect of Mr. Edwards' strong.. est motive in the mind's view? To answer this question we must consider, 2. What he means by the strongest motive. 1. Volition. I observe," says Mr. Edwards,. that the will (without any metaphysical refining) is plainly, that by which the mind chooses any thing. The faculty of the will, is that faculty or power, or principle of mind, by which it is capable of choosing: An act of the will, is the same as an act of choosing or choice. If any think it a more prop er definition of the will, to say, that it is that by which the soul either chooses, or refuses, I am con. tent with it. Though I think it is enough to say,. it is that by which the soul chooses: for in every act of the will whatsoever, the mind chooses one thing, rather than another; it chooses something rather than the contrary, or rather than the want or non-existence of the thing. So in every act of refusal, the mind chooses the absence of the thing refused; the positive and negative are set before the mind for its choice, and it chooses the nega tive."(Free Will, 9, 10.). 2. Strongest motive.-Mr. Edwards says, "It is sufficient for my present purpose to say, that it is. that motive, which, as it stands in the view of the nd, is the strongest, that determines the will |