than the young beginner?  Because there is a uniform, undeniable necessity in the operations of the material universe.  Why is the old statesman more skilful than the raw politician) Because, relying on the necessary conjunction of motive and action, he proceeds to produce moral effects, by the application of those moral causes which experience has shown to be effectual.  Some actions may be found to which we can attach no motives, but these are the effects of causes with which we are unacquainted.  Hence the relation which motive bears to voluntary action is that of cause to effect; nor, placed in this point of view, is it, or ever has it been, the subject of popular or philosophical dispute.  None but the few fanatics who are engaged in the herculean task of reconciling the justice of their God with the misery of man, will longer outrage common sense by the supposition of an event without a cause, a voluntary action without a motive.  History, politics, morals, criticism, all grounds of reasonings, all principles of science, alike assume the truth of the doctrine of Necessity.  No farmer carrying his corn to market doubts the sale of it at the market price.  The master of a manufactory no more doubts that he can purchase the human labour necessary for his purposes than that his machinery will act as they have been accustomed to act.

But, whilst none have scrupled to admit necessity as influencing matter, many have disputed its dominion over mind.  Independently of its militating with the received ideas of the justice of God, it is by no means obvious to a superficial inquiry.  When the mind observes its own operations, it feels no connection of motive and action:  but as we know ’nothing more of causation than the constant conjunction of objects and the consequent inference of one from the other, as we find that these two circumstances are universally allowed to have place in voluntary action, we may be easily led to own that they are subjected to the necessity common to all causes.’  The actions of the will have a regular conjunction with circumstances and characters; motive is to voluntary action what cause is to effect.  But the only idea we can form of causation is a constant conjunction of similar objects, and the consequent inference of one from the other:  wherever this is the case necessity is clearly established.

The idea of liberty, applied metaphorically to the will, has sprung from a misconception of the meaning of the word power.  What is power?—­id quod potest, that which can produce any given effect.  To deny power is to say that nothing can or has the power to be or act.  In the only true sense of the word power, it applies with equal force to the lodestone as to the human will.  Do you think these motives, which I shall present, are powerful enough to rouse him? is a question just as common as, Do you think this lever has the power of raising this weight?  The advocates of free-will assert that the will has the power of refusing to be determined by the strongest motive; but the strongest motive is that which, overcoming all others, ultimately prevails; this assertion therefore amounts to a denial of the will being ultimately determined by that motive which does determine it, which is absurd.  But it is equally certain that a man cannot resist the strongest motive as that he cannot overcome a physical impossibility.