A Review of Edwards's Part 13

Footnotes

[1] "It is remarkable that the advocates for necessity have adopted a distinction made use of for other purposes, and forced it into their service; I mean moral and natural necessity. They say natural or physical necessity takes away liberty, but moral necessity does not: at the same time they explain moral necessity so as to make it truly physical or natural. That is physical necessity which is the _invincible_ effect of the law of nature, and it is neither less natural, nor less insurmountable, if it is from the laws of spirit than it would be if it were from the laws of matter."--(Witherspoon's Lectures on Divinity, lect. xiii.)

[2] Natural inability, and a want of liberty, are identified in this usage; for the want of a natural faculty essential to the performance of an action, and the existence of an impediment or antagonistic force, which takes from a faculty supposed to exist, the _liberty_ of action, have the same bearing upon responsibility.

[3] It is but justice to remark here, that the distinction of moral and natural inability is made by many eminent divines, without intending anything so futile as that we have above exposed. By moral inability they do not appear to mean anything which really render the actions required, impossible; but such an impediment as lies in corrupt affections, an impediment which may be removed by a self-determination to the use of means and appliances graciously provided or promised. By natural ability they mean the possession of all the natural faculties necessary to the performance of the actions required. In their representations of this natural ability, they proceed according to a popular method, rather than a philosophical. They affirm this natural ability as a fact, the denial of which involves monstrous absurdities, but they give no psychological view of it. This task I shall impose upon myself in the subsequent volume. I shall there endeavour to point out the connexion between the sensitivity and the will, both in a pure and a corrupt state,--and explain what these natural faculties are, which, according to the just meaning of these divines, form the ground of rebuke and persuasion, and const.i.tute responsibility.

[4] "The great argument that men are determined by the strongest motives, is a mere equivocation, and what logicians call _pet.i.tio principii_. It is impossible even to produce any medium of proof that it is the strongest motive, except that it has prevailed. It is not the greatest in itself; nor does it seem to be in all respects the strongest to the agent; but you say it appears strongest in the meantime. Why?

Because you are determined by it. Alas! you promised to prove that I was determined by the _strongest motive_, and you have only shown that I had a _motive_ when I acted. But what has determined you then? Can any effect be without a cause? I answer--supposing my self-determining power to exist, it is as real a cause of its proper and distinguishing effect, as your moral necessity: so that the matter just comes to a stand, and is but one and the same thing on one side and on the other."

--(Witherspoon's Lectures, lect. xiii.)

[5] Cousin.

[6] Dr. Reid.

[7] Lat. _moralis_, from _mos_,--i. e. custom or ordinary conduct.