Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

Note V.
position which naturally and immediately arises from our
consciousness of freedom as agents. To the universality
which mankind are agreed in ascribing to the law of
causation there is one claim of exception, one disputed
case, that of the human will the determinations ;
of whicli
a large class of metaphysicians are not willing to regard as
following the causes called motives, according to as strict
laws as those which they suppose to exist in the world of
mere matter. This controverted point will undergo a
special examination when we come to treat particularly of
the logic of the moral sciences. In the meantime I may
remark that metaphysicians, who, it must be observed,
ground the main part of their objection on the supposed
repugnance of the doctrine in question to our conscious
ness, seem to me to mistake the fact which consciousness
testifies against. What is
really
in contradiction to con
sciousness, they would, I think, on strict self-examination,
find to be the application to human actions and volitions
of the ideas involved in the common use of the term
necessity, which I agree with them in objecting to. But
if they would consider that by saying that a s
person
actions necessarily follow from his character, all that is
really meant (for no more is meant in any case whatever
of causation) is that he invariably does act in conformity
to his character, and that any one who thoroughly knew
his character could certainly predict how he would act in
any supposable case, they probably would not find this
doctrine either contrary to their experience
or revolting to
their feelings. Vol. i. p. 358.
I will stop,
in the first place,
to ask, what is meant by
the word character, in the assertion that s
person
| a^ "
"
actions necessarily follow from his character ? If the
term character here includes a man s whole conduct and
action, this assertion amounts to nothing. If the term
means simply a certain general disposition and bias of
mind, then the assertion is without proof;
the assertion,
I mean, that from this general disposition a particular
act will follow. The main object of this passage, how-
,ever, is to meet the objection to the doctrine of necessity