Henry Buckley - History of Civilization in England, Vol. 1 of 3

Whatever doubts may be thrown on the account which I have given of the probable origin of the ideas of free will and predestination, there can, at all events, be no dispute as to the foundation on which those ideas are now actually based. The theory of predestination is founded on a theological hypothesis; that of free will on a metaphysical hypothesis. The advocates of the first proceed on a supposition for which, to say the least of it, they have as yet brought forward no good evidence. They require us to believe that the Author of Creation, whose beneficence they at the same time willingly allow, has, notwithstanding His supreme goodness, made an arbitrary distinction between the elect and the non-elect; that He has from all eternity doomed to perdition millions of creatures yet unborn, and whom His act alone can call into existence: and that He has done this, not in virtue of any principle of justice, but by a mere stretch of despotic power. 8 8 Even Ambrose, who never went so far as Augustin, states this principle in its repulsive nakedness: ‘Deus quos dignat vocat, quos vult religiosos facit.’ Neander , vol. iv. p. 287. Calvin declares ‘that God, in predestinating from all eternity one part of mankind to everlasting happiness, and another to endless misery, was led to make this distinction by no other motive than His own good pleasure and free will.’ Mosheim's Eccles. Hist. , vol. ii. p. 103, see also p. 100; and Carwithen's Hist. of the Church of England , vol. i. p. 552. This doctrine owes its authority among Protestants to the dark though powerful mind of Calvin; but in the early Church it was first systematically methodized by Augustin, who appears to have borrowed it from the Manicheans. 9 9 On the Manichæan origin of Augustin's opinions, compare Potter , Esprit de l'Eglise , vol. ii. p. 171, Paris, 1821; Tomline's Refutation of Calvinism , 1817, pp. 571–576; Southey's Book of the Church , 1824, vol. i. pp. 301, 302; Matter , Hist. du Gnosticisme , 1828, vol. i. p. 325. However, Beausobre ( Histoire de Manichée , vol. ii. pp. 33–40) seems to have proved a difference between the election of Augustin and that of Basilides. At all events, and putting aside its incompatibility with other notions which are supposed to be fundamental, 10 10 On the absurdity of ‘an omnipotent arbitrary Deity,’ and on the incongruity of such a combination with φύσει καλὸν καὶ δίκαιον, see Cudworth's Intellect. Syst. , vol. i. pp. 45, 419, vol. iii. p. 241, vol. iv. p. 160. See also Theodicee in Kant's Werke , vol. vi. pp. 141, 142, and Metaphysik der Sitten in vol. v. p. 332, upon ‘den göttlichen Zweck in Ansehung des menschlichen Geschlechts.’ it must, in a scientific investigation, be regarded as a barren hypothesis, because, being beyond the province of our knowledge, we have no means of ascertaining either its truth or its falsehood.

The other doctrine, which has long been celebrated under the name of Free Will, is connected with Arminianism; but it in reality rests on the metaphysical dogma of the supremacy of human consciousness. Every man, it is alleged, feels and knows that he is a free agent: nor can any subtleties of argument do away with our consciousness of possessing a free will. 11 11 Johnson said to Boswell, ‘Sir, we know our will is free, and there's an end on't.’ Boswell's Life of Johnson , edit. Croker, 1848, p. 203. ‘La question: Sommes-nous libres? me paraît au-dessous de la discussion. Elle est résolue par le témoignage de la conscience attestant que dans certains cas nous pourrions faire le contraire de ce que nous faisons.’ Cousin , Hist. de la Philosophie , I. Série, vol. i. pp. 190, 191. ‘Die Freiheit des Menschen, als moralischen Wesens, gründet sich auf das sittliche Bewusstseyn.’ Tennemann , Gesch. der Philosophie , vol. v. p. 161. That this is the only ground for believing in the freedom of the will is so evident, that we need not notice the mystical proof of Philo ( Ritter's Ancient Philosophy , vol. iv. p. 447); nor the physical one of the Basilidian monads ( Beausobre , Hist. de Manichée , vol. ii. p. 23); still less the argument of Bardesanes, who thought to demonstrate freedom by the variety of human customs! Matter , Hist. du Gnosticisme , vol. i. p. 323, which should be compared with Burdach's Physiologie comme Science d'Observation , vol. v. p. 50, Paris, 1839. Now the existence of this supreme jurisdiction, which is thus to set at defiance all the ordinary methods of reasoning, involves two assumptions: of which the first, though possibly true, has never been proved; and the other is unquestionably false. These assumptions are, that there is an independent faculty called consciousness, and that the dictates of that faculty are infallible. But, in the first place, it is by no means certain that consciousness is a faculty; and some of the ablest thinkers have been of opinion that it is merely a state or condition of the mind. 12 12 Mr. James Mill ( Analysis of the Mind , vol. i. pp. 171, 172) says that consciousness and belief are the same, and that great error has arisen from calling ‘consciousness a feeling distinct from all other feelings.’ According to Locke ( Essay concerning Human Understanding , book ii. chap. i., Works, vol. i. p. 89), ‘consciousness is the perception of what passes in a man's own mind.’ Brown ( Philosophy of the Mind , pp. 67, 68) denies that consciousness is a faculty: and Sir W. Hamilton complains of ‘Reid's degradation of consciousness into a special faculty.’ Notes to Reid's Works , pp. 223, 297, 373. M. Cousin ( Hist. de la Philosophie , II. Série, vol. i. p. 131) pronounces consciousness to be ‘phénomène complexe;’ and at p. 94, ‘la condition nécessaire de l'intelligence c'est la conscience:’ while a still later writer ( Jobert's New System of Philosophy , vol. i. p. 25) declares that ‘we have the consciousness of our consciousness – this is certain.’ The statement in Alciphron, Dialogue vii. ( Berkeley's Works , vol. i. pp. 505, 506) is equally unsatisfactory: and what still further perplexes the question is the existence of what is now recognised as ‘double consciousness.’ See on this extraordinary phenomenon Elliotson's Physiology , pp. 367–369, 1165; Mayo's Physiology , pp. 195, 196; Prichard's Treatise on Insanity , pp. 450, 451; Carpenter's Human Physiology , p. 379. Should this turn out to be the case, the argument falls to the ground; since, even if we admit that all the faculties of the mind, when completely exercised, are equally accurate, no one will make the same claim for every condition into which the mind itself may be casually thrown. However, waiving this objection, we may, in the second place, reply, that even if consciousness is a faculty, we have the testimony of all history to prove its extreme fallibility. 13 13 This requires explanation. Consciousness is infallible as to the fact of its testimony; but fallible as to the truth . That we are conscious of certain phenomena, is a proof that those phenomena exist in the mind, or are presented to it; but to say that this demonstrates the truth of the phenomena is to go a step further, and not only offer a testimony, but also pass a judgment. The moment we do this, we introduce the element of fallibility; because consciousness and judgment put together cannot be always right, inasmuch as judgment is often wrong. The late Blanco White, a thinker of considerable subtlety, says: ‘The important distinction between libertas a necessitate and libertas a coactione , is seldom attended to. Nothing whatever can force my will: every man is more or less conscious of that fact: but at the same time we are, or may be, equally conscious that we are never decided without a motive.’ Life of B. White , by Himself, 1845, vol. iii. p. 90. But how can a man be conscious ‘that nothing whatever can force his will’? This is not consciousness, but judgment: it is a judgment of what may be, not a consciousness of what is. If there is any meaning in the word ‘consciousness,’ it must refer solely to the present, and can never include future contingencies as to what may be or can be. All the great stages through which, in the progress of civilization, the human race has successively passed, have been characterized by certain mental peculiarities or convictions, which have left their impress upon the religion, the philosophy, and the morals of the age. Each of these convictions has been to one period a matter of faith, to another a matter for derision; 14 14 As Herder says, ‘Was diese Nation ihrem Gedankenkreise unentbehrlich hält, daran hat jene nie gedacht oder hält es gar für schädlich.’ Ideen zur Gesch. der Menschheit , vol. ii. p. 130. and each of them has, in its own epoch, been as intimately bound up with the minds of men, and become as much a part of their consciousness, as is that opinion which we now term freedom of the will. Yet it is impossible that all these products of consciousness can be true, because many of them contradict each other. Unless, therefore, in different ages there are different standards of truth, it is clear that the testimony of a man's consciousness is no proof of an opinion being true; for if it were so, then two propositions diametrically opposed to each other might both be equally accurate. Besides this, another view may be drawn from the common operations of ordinary life. Are we not in certain circumstances conscious of the existence of spectres and phantoms; and yet is it not generally admitted that such beings have no existence at all? Should it be attempted to refute this argument by saying that such consciousness is apparent and not real, then I ask, What is it that judges between the consciousness which is genuine and that which is spurious? 15If this boasted faculty deceives us in some things, what security have we that it will not deceive us in others? If there is no security, the faculty is not trustworthy. If there is a security, then, whatever it may be, its existence shows the necessity for some authority to which consciousness is subordinate, and thus does away with that doctrine of the supremacy of consciousness, on which the advocates of free will are compelled to construct the whole of their theory. Indeed, the uncertainty as to the existence of consciousness as an independent faculty, and the manner in which that faculty, if it exists, has contradicted its own suggestions, are two of the many reasons which have long since convinced me that metaphysics will never be raised to a science by the ordinary method of observing individual minds; but that its study can only be successfully prosecuted by the deductive application of laws which must be discovered historically, that is to say, which must be evolved by an examination of the whole of those vast phenomena which the long course of human affairs presents to our view.