such action that we find human freedom. Such action, if possible at all,
must inevitably be mechanical. A man who is acting from mere caprice is
even more completely at the mercy of passing inclination than one who is
acting from passion or from overpowering temptation. The freedom of the
will is not shown in acting without motive, but in choosing between
motives. But when it is further said that a man always acts from the
stronger motive, the question immediately follows, what determines which
is the stronger motive? It cannot be anything in the motives themselves,
or all men would act alike in the same circumstances; and it is clear
that they do not. It must be therefore something in the man. And if it
be something in the man, it must be either his will acting at the
moment, which in that case is free, or his character. But if it be his
character, then follows the further question, what determines his
character? If we are to maintain the uniformity of nature, we must
answer by assigning the determination to the sum total of surrounding
and preceding circumstances. Nothing will satisfy that law of
uniformity but this; that, given such and such parents, such and such
circumstances of birth and life, there must be such a character and no
other. At what point is there room in this case for any responsibility?
I did not on this supposition make my character; it was made for me; any
one else born in my stead, and living in my stead, would of necessity
have acted exactly as I have done; would have felt the same, and aimed
at the same, and won the same moral victories, and suffered the same
moral defeats. How can I be held responsible for what is the pure result
of the circumstances in which I was born? But if, on the other hand, it
be said that our character is not the mere fruit of our antecedents and
surroundings, the law of uniformity is clearly broken. A new element has
come into the world, namely, my character, which has not come out of the
antecedents and surroundings according to any fixed law. The antecedents
and surroundings might have been quite the same for any one else, and