Scottish Philosophy in America by James J. S. Foster

Author:James J. S. Foster
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Scottish philosophy, Scottish enlightenment, philosophy in America, Princeton, Yale, Harvard, William Smith, John Witherspoon, Samuel Stanhope Smith, Archibald Alexander, Alexander Campbell, W.E. Channing, James McCosh, C.S. Peirce, religion, science, common sense, commonsense, moral philosophy, Benjamin Rush, sensation, virtue, consciousness, memory, judgement, judgment, reason, volition, miracles, slavery, conscience, prejudice, pragmaticism, pragmatism
ISBN: 9781845404369
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2012
Published: 2012-07-19T00:00:00+00:00

Volition [15]

The will is that power of the soul, and volition the exercise of that power which is the immediate cause of action in man. Propensities, affections, and other active principles in our nature, may stimulate the mind to action, and thus prove motives to the exercise of its voluntary powers. These internal emotions, therefore, and the various external objects which tend to incite them, may be regarded as primary and remote causes of our actions; but the immediate and proximate cause, is volition.

The nature of the will is understood, as far as we understand any of the acts or powers of our own minds, only by consciousness. The plainest and most unlettered man perfectly conceives the meaning of these phrases, I will, and I will not. And the nature of this faculty, as of every other power of the soul, is understood only in its acts.

The principal inquiry on this subject which merits your attention, relates to the freedom of the will, as it is generally expressed; or, as it ought, perhaps, to be more definitely stated, the freedom of the mind in her volitions. —It is an inquiry on which volumes have been written by the most acute and distinguished metaphysicians, and moralists. And, as they have embraced directly contradictory opinions upon the question, or have come in their conclusions to opposite results, it is probable that there is some peculiar subtlety in the subject, or that they have set out in the discussion on erroneous principles, or embarrassed it by the introduction of the peculiar tenets of their respective sects of philosophy or religion.—One party maintain not only that the will is free in acting, but that it determines its own acts. Another party contend that the will is, in all cases, determined by motives; that it cannot act in any other way; and that, therefore, it must necessarily be determined by the strongest motive, or the last motive in the view of the mind at the time of acting.—That is, laying aside all consideration of the interior energy or power of the soul over its own acts, the will is, by a separate mechanism, subjected to the impulse and control of motives, as the water wheel, to use Dr. Priestley’s own analogy, is to the force and gravity of the fluid that turns it round.

One would think, indeed, that it is a question of the utmost simplicity, and the most obvious solution. It is a question strictly of experience; and to experience alone we ought to appeal for its decision. Every man is conscious to himself that he acts freely; and that, in all ordinary cases, when he is not under the impulse of some violent passion, or under the commanding influence of some inveterate habit, he has it in his power to pursue a directly contrary course of action, from that to which he is invited by the present predominant motive. But philosophers have opposed speculation to fact; and commencing with an erroneous principle, that

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