Rational Free Agency.

In contrast with the above, we have already described the mind of man as possessing the power to choose either that which excites the strongest desire or [pg 074] that which the intellect decides to be best for all concerned.

When there is nothing to excite desires, there is no power at all to choose; so that motives are as indispensable to the action of the will as physical causes are to the movement of matter. The more strongly desire is excited the more the power of choice is increased. This gives rise to the universal use of language which characterizes motives as stronger or weaker according as desire is more or less powerful.

The greater part of our choices are for things which are best, so that there is no conflict between what excites the strongest desire and what is best for all. Thus to eat, drink, walk, sleep and perform most of the daily duties of life, are cases where the strongest desire and what is best coincide. In all such cases we choose that which excites the strongest desire. And when we assign the cause or reason for our choice, we say it was the strongest desire which was the cause; that is to say, it was the occasional cause of our choice. But our own mind is the only producing cause of its own volitions.

This exhibits the grand principle of free agency in distinction from its opposite, which is called fatalism, viz.:

Motives are producing causes of desire, and are occasional causes of choice. Mind itself is the only producing cause of choice, having power to choose either that which excites the strongest desire or that which reason and conscience decide to be best for all concerned.

In opposition to this, the fatalist maintains that every act of choice follows the strongest desire, so that there is the same invariable antecedence and sequence [pg 075] between the two as there is in material changes between the necessary cause and effect. This being so, the mind has no power to choose any thing but that which excites the strongest desire.

Now, this is a question which every person, learned or unlearned, can decide. Have we power to choose any other way than as we do choose? Here it is claimed that every human being believes that we have this power, and proves that he believes it by word and action. And if any person were habitually to talk and act as if he believed children and men had no power to choose right when they choose wrong, he would be regarded as having lost his reason.

This, therefore, is placed as one of the principles of common sense, viz., every rational mind has power to choose either that which excites the strongest desire or that which the intellect decides to be best, even when it does not excite the strongest desire.

Moral power is the power to control rational minds by motives.

When no desire for any good and no fear of any evil exists, the mind has no power to choose. Excited desires (or motives) are as indispensable to choice as physical causes are to any change in matter.

The stronger the desire for a thing, the easier it is to choose it; and the less desire there is for a given thing, the harder it is to choose it. This measuring of various degrees of power to choose, is a matter of consciousness to every mind, and it is recognized in all languages. And we find that all mankind, of all languages, recognize the fact that men have power to choose what is best, even when it conflicts with the strongest desire; so much so, that life itself has been [pg 076] relinquished for the good of others, when there was little or no expectation of a future life, or of any consequent good to self.

Moreover, it will be shown in a future chapter that our highest idea of virtue implies a conflict between the strongest desire and the conviction of what is right and best on the whole; so that sometimes men choose what is seen to be wrong and yet excites the strongest desire, and at other times what is right or best, when it does not excite the strongest desire.

All self-control, self-denial and self-government involve the idea of a conflict between the decisions of reason and conscience as to what is best and right, and the importunities of the strongest desire for what is not so.