reason for claiming freedom for human action except when that action
turns on the question of right or wrong. There is no reason to call
action free that flows from inclination or custom, or passion, or a
desire to avoid pain, or a desire to obtain pleasure. The will claims to
be free in all these cases, but it is free in the sense that it might be
exerted; and so, since it is not exerted, the action is not free. But
when, at the call of duty, in whatever form, the will directly
interferes, then and then only are we conscious not only that the will
is free, but that it has asserted its freedom, and that the action has
been free also.

The relation of the will to the conduct falls under four distinct heads:
for sometimes the will simply concurs with the inclination; sometimes it
neither concurs nor opposes; sometimes it opposes but is overpowered;
sometimes it opposes and prevails. In the first case, inclination of
some kind or other prompts the man to action. The inclination, whether
set up by an external object of desire or by an internal impulse of
restlessness or blind craving or the like, comes clearly from the
nature, and is not free choice. There is no reason to believe that it is
not in most cases, possibly in all cases, under the dominion of fixed
law. It may be as completely the product of what has preceded it as the
eclipse of the sun. And if the will concurs in the inclination, it is
needless to discuss the question whether the will acts or not. The
conduct is the same whether the will adds force to the inclination or is
simply passive. The freedom of the will may in this case be considered
as negative. So, too, may the freedom of the will be considered negative
in the second case, which is that of the will neither concurring with
inclination nor opposing it. In this case there may be a distinct
consciousness of freedom in the form of a sense of responsibility for
what inclination is permitted to do. A man in this case knows that he is