(5.) As a corollary of the above, freedomists affirm that necessitarianism must, if consistent with itself, equally with fatalism, denv all moral distinctions and regard the idea of a moral government as chimerical.
2. Tlie principal arguments adduced in support of necessitarianism are as follows :
(1.) Causality. — Volitions are effects, and must have a cause ; tlie cause being what it is, the effect cannot be otherwise than it is. This is regarded by opponents as a plain begging of the question, for it assumes that all causes are potent only for one sole effect, when the ques- tion under discussion is whether or not mind is a cause equally potent for each of several different effects. If it be asked, What causes the mind to cause as it does? the answer is. Nothing causes it; it is itself first cause of its own volitions, and is by its nature an adequate cause of all its volitions, both general and particular.
(2.) Edwards's reductio ad ahsurdum. If the mind be self-determined, it must determine itself in any given volition by an antecedent volition ; but if this antece- dent volition be self-determined, it also must be deter- mined by another antecedent volition, and so on ad iii- Jinitum. But to suppose such an infinite series of voli- tions is absurd; therefore mind is not self-determined. All the force of this argument comes from the unfort- unate use of the term self- determined. Mind is not determinpf/, it is itself determine?-. The supposed ante- cedent volition is useless, and the series is stopped at its beginning.
(3.) Utility. — The question is asked, " What is the use of a power that is never used?" The events that do occur are produced each by a power adequate to its production; if there be a power adequate for the produc- tion of an opposite event, it is never used, is useless, and therefore need not be. The fallacy here consists in the assumption that the doctrine of freedom supposes two powers — one to do, and another not to do. AVhereas the assertors of a power to the contrary affirm that the same one power is fully adequate to the production of either of several different results, Jlind is such a cause that when it produces effect A, it is fully adequate to produce effect B instead.
(4.) Motirity. — It is said mind cannot act without a motive. In a conflict of motives the strongest must pre- vail, therefore volitions alwaj's are as the strongest mo- tive. The fallacj'^ of this argument comes from the ma- terialistic idea conveyed by the term " strongest." There is no analogy between mental and material phenomena that admits of such argumentation. The strenrrth of a
motive cannot be represented by the weights of a balance ; to infer prevalence from strength in mental the same as in physical phenomena is vicious. If, however, the term strongest motive must be used, it is indispensable that it be distinctly stated in what the strength of a motive consists; the term strength must bo clearly de- fined. " The so-called strength of a motive," says Whe- don, " may be defined the degree of probability that the will will choose in accordance with it, or on account of it." This definition being admitted, the argument is closed, for beyond all controversy it is evident that great improbabilities do sometimes occur; an improba- bility, however great, is not the equivalent even of a certainty, much less of a necessity.
But, again, the argument assumes that mind never acts but in view of motives, and that it cannot act with-' out a motive. This is not admitted. Everv active man, every day of his life, in a thousand indifferent and unimportant movements, both of mind and body, acts in the total absence from consciousness of any mo- tive or reason for doing as he does ; and, again, in an equilibrium of conflicting motives, clearly cognized in consciousness, man can make a choice. This is not a supposed case, but is of actual and frequent occurrence. Men frequently with strong motives for action find themselves without any motive whatever for action in one way rather than another, and yet in these circum- stances they put forth volitions as readily and as easily as when a strong preponderance is obvious. The argu- ment from the strength of motives is not determinative.
(5.) Divine Prescience. — Infinite wisdom must include a perfect knowledge from eternity of all existences and events. A complete history of the universe through all time must have always been perfectly cognized by the Divine ]\Iind. God's foreknowledge can never be disappointed. All existences and events will be as God has from eternity foreknown them ; therefore the op- posite to what is, and the different from it, could not be; the power to the contrary does not exist. Let it be distinctly noted that the inference here is not merely the non-existence of a power to the contrary, but its impossibility; and if the argument proves an impossi- bility in human affairs, it also proves the same as to di- vine affairs — indeed, as to all events from eternity' to eternity — and God himself is forever shut up to one sole and necessary histor}'; the actual equals the possible; eternal fate governs God and all that is not God.