with the worship of every associated circumstance; and that as we advance in perfection, the associations relating to the one only, Ultimate, Infinite Cause, must at last overpower all the rest; that we shall pay no regards but to God alone; and that all resentment, demerit, sin, and misery, will be utterly annihilated and absorbed by his infinite happiness and perfections. For our associations being in this, as in many other cases, inconsistent with each other, our first gross and transitory ones must yield to those which succeed and remain.
While any degree of resentment, or unpleasing affection, is left, it may be shewn, that the same associations which keep it up, will turn it upon the creatures, and particularly upon ourselves. And, on the other hand, when the consideration of the Ultimate Cause seems ready to turn it from ourselves, it will also shew that it ought to be annihilated.
These may be considered as general remarks, tending to remove the difficulties arising from the consideration of the moral sense. I will now state the principal objections to the opinion of mechanism, in a direct, but short way, adding such hints as appear to me to afford a solution of them.
First, then, It may be said, that a man may prove his own free-will by internal feeling. This is true, if by free-will be meant the power of doing what a man wills or desires; or of resisting the motives of sensuality, ambition, &c. i.e. free-will in the popular and practical sense. Every person may easily recollect instances, where he has done these several things. But then these are entirely foreign to the present question. To prove that a man has free-will in the sense opposite to mechanism, he ought to feel that he can do different things, while the motives remain precisely the same: and here I apprehend the internal feelings are entirely against free-will, where the motives are of a sufficient magnitude to be evident; where they are not, nothing can be proved.
Secondly, It may be said, that unless a man have free-will, he is not an agent. I answer, that this is true, if agency be so defined as to include free-will. But if agency have its sense determined, like other words, from the associated appearances, the objection falls at once. A man may speak, handle, love, fear, &c. entirely by mechanism.
Thirdly, It may be said, that the denial of free-will in man is the denial of it in God also. But to this it may be answered, that one does not know how to put the question in respect of God, supposing free-will to mean the power of doing different things, the previous circumstances remaining the same, without gross anthropomorphitism. It does not at all follow, however, because man is subject to a necessity ordained by God, that God is subject to a prior necessity. On the contrary, according to the doctrine of mechanism, God is the cause of causes, the one only source of all power.
