the happiness of others; and as these are inseparable, the reformation of the individual must be effected. Nor is it difficult to conceive how this is done. God has made man fond of happiness, and averse to misery; it is a law of his nature which never varies. He can not change it, either by volition or crime; he can not will to hate happiness and love misery any more than he can suspend gravitation by a word of command.

God has made man also with an intellect capable of finding out by experience more and more of those things which produce misery, and also more and more of those things which produce happiness. Now the wiser he becomes, the wiser will be his volitions; that is, the more and more of those things which produce happiness he will choose, and the more and more of those things which produce misery he will avoid; and when he becomes perfectly wise, if that time shall ever come, he will then by no possibility choose to do any wicked action, because a perfectly wise being cannot choose to make a foolish volition. Nor does this impossibility of choosing to make foolish or wicked volitions in the slightest degree impair his free agency; for, on such a supposition, God is not a perfect free agent, as, from the very perfection of his nature, he can not choose to make a foolish or wicked volition, or perform any wicked action. It has been thought by some that free agency, or moral accountability, implies at least the possibility of choosing to do either good or evil; but this can not be, for, on this plan, God would not be a free agent; and man, too, would be less and less a free agent the wiser he became, and when he became perfectly wise, he would cease to be a free agent altogether. It is maintained also by some, that it would be unjust in God to cause pain to follow as a consequence of any action, if that action could not have been avoided. So far from this being correct, it will appear by a little reflection that it is entirely consistent with the highest benevolence to cause pain to follow the commission of crimes, or the formation of wicked volitions, as this is the only means of enabling the agent to make good volitions in future. It may perhaps be objected that God could not have intended to produce the greatest possible amount of happiness when he created man, or he would have created him so perfect in knowledge that he never could choose to do any act from which pain would result. It may be answered that God is only beginning to create man when he is born; and that it is impos

sible, so far as we know, to create him faster in knowledge than he is actually being created, whilst he remains in this world. And, besides, we may safely infer, that if it would be better for man to have been created in any other way, God, from his infinite perfections, would have chosen that way.

The justice of punishment does not depend on the fact that it was possible for the individual punished to have avoided the crime committed, but rather on the fact that the being who is punished is created with powers and capacities which may be operated on by the punishment itself, so as to render it possible and even certain, that, with the new motives introduced by the punishment, or by the pain following the commission of the crime, as an effect, he will be finally taught to avoid the crime in future. Unless the individual punished is so created, all punishment would be useless to him, and, of course, useless to others. If retrospective punishment could cause a crime which has been committed not to be, then it might be useful; but this is impossible and absurd. Nor is the absurdity of punishing retrospectively lessened by supposing that the individual punished could have avoided doing the criminal act; for, even on that supposition, the act once done can not be prevented, nor in any way altered by the punishment.

On some of the points here discussed the human mind seems to be differently constituted, and to take different views, after the most careful and patient examination. Some think that though God knew from all eternity all the actions which I perform in my whole life, yet I might have avoided many of them, if not all, and might perform an entirely different set; otherwise it would be unjust in God to cause pain or punishment to be the result of any of them. Others acknowledge that foreknowledge implies inevitability; but as foreknowledge is not the cause of the inevitability, they think God may be just in punishing for crimes or vices, provided he only foresaw these vices, but did not decree them. Now my mind is so constituted that it appears to me that if our actions were foreknown to God from all eternity, they must have been decreed by him. For foreknowledge implies the certainty that the event foreknown will come to pass. Now this certainty, or, which is the same thing, this inevitability of the event, must have been caused by something in God, or something out of God. was something in God, it must have been his decree or determination, either to cause the events to come to pass, or to bring

into existence a set of causes which would certainly bring into existence the events foreknown; for, if there was no certainty that the events would take place, then they could not be foreknown. Now, if God decreed to bring these effects into existence, or to bring a set of causes into existence which he knew would certainly produce the effects, then may he be said to have decreed the effects. On the other hand, if God did not decree to bring the effects foreknown into existence himself by his direct agency, nor to create any set or train of causes which would certainly produce the effects foreknown, then something out of God was the cause of the certainty, on which God's foreknowledge was founded, or which God's foreknowledge implies. Now, whatever this something is, it must be superior to God in power, for it is supposed to have caused a most important train of events in the moral world to be certain, and that, too, independent of any agency in God. Nay, more not only will they come into existence without the agency of God, but he has no power to hinder them; for that can not be prevented from coming to pass which any being knows will certainly come to pass. To believe, then, that God foresaw the future actions of men, and at the same time to deny that he was himself the cause of that certainty or inevitability that the events foreknown would take place, on which the foreknowledge was founded, leads to atheism, or at least to a belief that God is a very weak and imperfect being; for, inasmuch as it is assumed that the certainty or inevitability was not caused by him, and as it is clear that, when an inevitability is once in existence, the thing inevitable can not be prevented from coming to pass, the Deity is left powerless in regard to the events taking place or not taking place. If it is said that the inevitability arose from something out of God, but that the subsequent agency of God had to be employed to bring the very beings into existence whose acts were inevitable, and thus he was not powerless in relation to these acts, still, even on this scheme, there would be a power above God, which is atheism. Or, if this power, which causes things to be inevitable, does this with intelligence and goodness, then this power is God, and the being who creates man is an inferior agent, which the superior uses to execute his plans, and bring into existence those things which he had rendered inevitable, or, which is the same thing, which he had decreed.

Another will object to all these views, and say the only plan to

render man a free agent is to suppose that there is no certainty or inevitability, which amounts to the same thing, as it relates to its influence on the character of actions, and consequently there can not be a foreknowledge of the actions of a free agent. This view is founded, as was said before, on the assumption that free agency, or moral accountability, implies the possibility of choosing to do either right or wrong, in every case, where a choice is made; or, as it is vaguely expressed, the agent is free to choose the right or the wrong. If those who take this view of the subject will institute a careful examination of what can be meant here by the word "free," they will, I think, find reason to change their views. If they suppose that the volitions are free from the intelligence and passions of the agent, and also free from the desire of happiness or aversion to misery, which is the universal law of all beings endowed with feeling, then is there no such thing as that kind of free agency for which they contend. If they come to the conclusion, as I think they must by such an examination, that our volitions are not entirely free from the influence of our state of mind as to intelligence, and our clearness of view as to the character of the object, to produce happiness or misery, at the time of willing or choosing, then I desire them to push the inquiry still further, and inquire how much influence the intelligence and state of mind may exercise on the volitions or choices which the agent makes without destroying his freedom or moral accountability.

In pursuing this inquiry to its utmost extent, my mind leans strongly to the conviction that all the time man is increasing in wisdom and goodness, the possibility of his making foolish and wicked volitions is constantly diminishing, and his power to make wise and good volitions is increasing in the same proportion, and thus all that kind of agency or power of acting which is of any value is retained and augmented. And whether any one may choose to call this power of making volitions under the influence of wisdom and goodness free agency or not, is a matter of little consequence, provided the fact itself is clearly perceived.

If we push our inquiry still further, we will perceive that our volitions, like all things which begin to exist, are produced by causes adequate to produce them, each particular volition depending on its own particular set of causes, adequate to produce that very volition and no other at the time. The particulars going to make up the cause are numerous, and if any one of these particu

lars should be removed, the particular volition made at that time would be different. For example, suppose we make a volition which is the result of much deliberation. It is manifest that there are three particulars coëxisting as causes of this volition, and that if any one of them had been wanting at the time, the volition could not have been made. These three are the being who chooses or wills, the object of the choice, and the intelligence with which the deliberation is made. Other particulars, doubtless, enter into the complex compound going to make up the cause of the volition, and whatever they may be, they are adequate to produce the particular volition, and no other. Now, it is manifest that the particular volition of which we are speaking is inevitably produced by its complex cause at the moment it comes into existence; and, therefore, if free agency depends upon the possibility of making a different volition every time we make a volition, then free agency in that sense does not, and can not exist. Nor is it desirable that such a free agency should exist, for a being so constituted that his intelligence should not influence his volitions, would be a monstrosity of which we could form no conceptioncertainly he would not be a moral agent. Such a being could never be taught, and even if he could become intelligent, his intelligence would be of no use, for his volitions not being influenced by his understanding, he would be as likely to make foolish or ignorant volitions after he became intelligent as before. But the proposition is so absurd in itself that it seems impossible to attempt to reason from it without uttering absurdities. It is almost as if we were to suppose our uncle to be our aunt, and then to endeavor to find out what would be the consequences of such a supposition.

There is another consequence flowing from the supposition that there is not a necessary and indissoluble connection between the volitions and the causes of those volitions, which the advocates of this view of the subject little suspect. It is, that man on this principle would not be an accountable being; or, in other words, it would be utterly useless to punish him after he had committed any crime, with the expectation that the punishment would be of any use. It is true, punishment would produce new views, if it was so arranged that he would perceive it to follow as a consequence of the transgression: but what good would that do? His future volitions, according to the supposition, could not be affected by these new views. Thus it appears that the very principle