order apparent in Nature. Obeying the law of God, his omnipotence is on its side. To oppose a law of Nature, therefore, is to oppose the Deity. It is sure to redress itself.
But these created things have no consciousness, so far as we know, at least, nothing which is the same with our self-consciousness. They have no moral will; no power in general to do otherwise than as they do. Their action is not the result of forethought, reflection, judgment, voluntary obedience to an acknowledged law. No one supposes the Bison, the Rosebush, and the Moon, reflect in themselves; make up their mind and say, “Go to, now, let us bring up our young, or put forth our blossoms, or give light at nightfall, because it is right to do so, and God's law.” Their obedience is unavoidable. They do what they cannot help doing.[1] Their obedience, therefore, is not their merit, but their necessity. It is power they passively yield to; not a duty they voluntarily and consciously perform. All the action, therefore, of the material, inorganic, vegetable, and animal world is mechanical, vital, or, at the utmost, instinctive; not self-conscious, the result of private will.[2] There is, therefore, no room for caprice in this department. The Crystal must form itself after a prescribed pattern; the Leaf presume a given shape; the Bee build her cell with six angles. The man-
- ↑ This point has been happily touched upon by Hooker, Eccles. Polity, Book I. Chap. iii. § 2. See his curious reflections in the following sections.
- ↑ I have not the presumption to attempt to draw a line between these three departments of Nature, nor to tell what is the essence of mechanical, vital, or instinctive action. I would only indicate a distinction that, to my mind, is very plain. But I cannot pretend to say where one ends and the other begins. Again, it may seem unphilosophical to deny consciousness, or even self-consciousness, to the superior animals; but if they possess a self-consciousness, it is something apparently so remote from ours, that it only leads to confusion if both are called by the same term. The functions of a plant we cannot explain by the laws of mechanical action; nor the function of an animal, a Dog, for example, by any qualities of body. On this subject, see Whewell, Hist. Inductive Sciences, Book IX. Chap. i.-iii. Cudworth, Chap. III. $ 37, No. 17, et seq., has shown that there may be sentient, and not mere mechanical, life, without consciousness, and therefore without free-will. Is not this near the truth, that God alone is absolutely free, and man has a relative freedom, the degree of which may be constantly increased? Taking a certain stand-point, it is true, Freedom and Necessity are the same thing, and may be predicated or denied of Deity indifferently; thus, if God is perfect, all his action is perfect. He can do no otherwise than as he does. Perfection therefore is his necessity, but it is his freedom none the less. Here the difference is merely in words.
measure emancipated from their instincts. On this curious question, see Descartes, Epist. P. I. Ep. 27, 67; Henry More, Epist. ad Cartesium.
