Stoic theorist Chrysippus, and various opponents.  These opponents denied that volition was determined by motives, and cited the cases of equal conflicting motives (what is known as the ass of Buridan) as proving that the soul includes in itself, and exerts, a special supervenient power of deciding action in one way or the other:  a power not determined by any causal antecedent, but self-originating, and belonging to the class of agency that Aristotle recognizes under the denomination of automatic, spontaneous (or essentially irregular and unpredictable).  Chrysippus replied by denying not only the reality of this supervenient force said to be inherent in the soul, but also the reality of all that Aristotle called automatic or spontaneous agency generally.  Chrysippus said that every movement was determined by antecedent motives; that, in cases of equal conflict, the exact equality did not long continue, because some new but slight motive slipped in unperceived and turned the scale on one side or the other.  (See Plutarch De Stoicorum Repugnantiis, c. 23, p. 1045.) Here, we see, the question now known as the Freedom of the Will is discussed:  and Chrysippus declares against it, affirming that volition is always determined by motives.

But we also see that, while declaring this opinion, Chrysippus does not employ the terms Necessity or Freedom of the Will:  neither did his opponents, so far as we can see:  they had a different and less misleading phrase.  By Freedom, Chrysippus and the Stoics meant the freedom of doing what a man willed, if he willed it.  A man is free, as to the thing that is in his power, when he wills it:  he is not free, as to what is not in his power, under the same supposition.  The Stoics laid great stress on this distinction.  They pointed out how much it is really in a man’s power to transform or discipline his own mind:  in the way of controlling or suppressing some emotions, generating or encouraging others, forming new intellectual associations, &c., how much a man could do in these ways, if he willed it, and if he went through the lessons, habits of conduct, meditations, suitable to produce such an effect.  The Stoics strove to create in a man’s mind the volitions appropriate for such mental discipline, by depicting the beneficial consequences resulting from it, and the misfortune and shame inevitable, if the mind were not so disciplined.  Their purpose was to strengthen the governing reason of his mind, and to enthrone it as a fixed habit and character, which would control by counter suggestions the impulse arising at each special moment—­particularly all disturbing terrors or allurements.  This, in their view, is a free mind; not one wherein volition is independent of all motive, but one wherein the susceptibility to different motives is tempered by an ascendant reason, so as to give predominance to the better motive against the worse.  One of the strongest motives that they endeavoured to enforce,