Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

2oo Augustinian Doctrine CHAP. vm.
of another, and another to determine that, and so on in
infinitum.
Upon this ground it is decided that the man or agent
does not determine his own will. But is not this an argu
ment which simply takes advantage of the difficulties of
language, with which questions
like these are beset ? The
position that the man determines his own will is stated in
a/orm in which it becomes absurd, and then the charge
of is absurdity brought against the position itself. It is
described as the assertion, that the man is at liberty to
will which of the tiuo he pleases? or wills. And certainly
in this form the position is absurd ; for it assumes the
previous existence of a particular decision of the will, as
the condition of the power or liberty of the man to make
it. But though in loose speech the self-determining power
of the will may sometimes be expressed in this way, the
truth really intended and meant does not depend on such
an expression of it. The truth which is meant, is not the
man s power to will as he wills or pleases, but simply his
that his will rises ultimately and originally
power to will ;
from himself as the agent or possessor of the will : in other
words, that that whole affair of the man willing is an
original event.
The question of such a
self-determining power in the
will may be called an unreasonable, because unintelligible
question ;
1 and the other ground be preferred, as simpler
and more common sense and straightforward, that will is
will, and that that is all that can be said about it. But if
truths are to be rejected because they are indistinct, in
definite, and incapable of consistent statement, we must
reject a large class of most important truths belonging to
our rational nature. 2
This self-determining power in the
will cannot be stated accurately, nor can it be apprehended
accurately ;
but have we not a perception in this direction ?
Is there not a rational instinct which speaks to our origi
nality as agents, as there is a rational instinct which tells
us of substance, of cause, of infinity ? And does not this
instinct or
perception see a certain way, so that we have
1
Essay, book 2. c. 21. s. 14. See Chap. II.