Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

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Note V.
in a particular way, or at least that no effort of his own
can hinder it. In the words of the sect (Owenite) which
in our own day has most perniciously inculcated and most
perversely misunderstood this great doctrine, his character
is formed for him, and not by him ; therefore his wishing
that it had been formed differently is of no use, he has no
power to alter it. But this is a grand
error. He has to
a certain extent a power to alter Ids character. Its
being in the ultimate resort formed for him is not in
consistent with its being in part formed by him as one
of the intermediate agents. His character is formed by
his circumstances (including among these his particular
organisation) ; but his own desire to mould it in a par
ticular way is one of those circumstances, and by no means
one of the least influential. We cannot, indeed, directly
will to be different from what we are ; but neither did
those who are supposed to have formed our characters
directly
will that we should be what we are. . . . We are
exactly as capable of making our own character, if we
willy as others are of making it for us. Vol. ii. p. 410.
Here is an attempt, then, to represent the necessarian
system in such an aspect as to reconcile it with all those
sensations of power over ourselves and over our conduct,
which are part of our internal experience. But the
attempt fails, because it will not go the proper length of
acknowledging such power as an original one. A man has,
to a certain extent, a power to alter his own character.
To what extent, or in what sense? While it is c in the
ultimate resort formed for him, it is formed by him as
one of the intermediate agents. But does this conces
sion of an intermediate agency satisfy the demands of
natural feeling and instinct on this head ? Would any
person naturally regard that power of choice, of which he
is conscious, as a power which he exerts in obedience and
subordination to some deeper cause working underneath it,
and obliging it to be exerted in a particular way ? Would
not a certain instinctive view he takes of this agency in
him be contradicted by this view of it as intermediate-