Still, the position thus contended for may be, and has been, called in question; or, at least, certain exceptions to its universality may be put forward. We are able to com prehend the meaning of this counter-doctrine, even although we may find a difficulty in acceding to it. For example, Socrates drew a distinction between human and' divine knowledge, intending by the one the departments of nature where strict law prevailed, and where by assiduous observation men might attain to certainty; such was. the knowledge of the operative respecting his special craft, in which it was absurd to seek for any other source of insight than Lis own and other men's experience. But this did not include all knowledge. There was a department, the divine, reserved by the gods for their own special administration, and where they did not bind themselves to observe uniformity of dealing. This region included, according to Socrates, such great opera -tions of the physical world, as the motions of the heavenly bodies, the phenomena of weather and season. To be enlightened ou these, it was necessary to consult the gods by oracle and sacrifice. Now, applying this view to the case of the human will, it Might be maintained that, in the greater number of instances, and•in all matters of primary importance, such as self-preservation, the uniformity of human actions must be admitted; but still there may be some deep, subtle, and refined operations, where the same motives sometimes lead one way, sometimes another, the whole situation twins. in respect identical. But it lies with the supporters di this view to stantiate their exceptional cases in the midst of so much evident uniformity. As yet, nothing of the kind has ever been proved, and our only safe ground, philosophically, is what is our safe ground practically—namely, to abide by the doctrine of law in all human actions, on which we have not the smallest scruple as respects the preponderating mass of them.
The partisans of liberty, who take up the ground of opposition to uniform law as now expounded, not unfrequently express themselves to the following effect. Granting that the emotions of the mind have a uniform efficacy as motives, and that he that has a musical taste will be found on all occasions acting in conformity with it, still the emotions are not the whole of the mind. We have, in our mental composition, feelings, and intelligence, and activity; but these do not make up our entire being. There is a something that all these inhere in, a substratum or support, which we call our " self," the "ego," or " I," and this abstract self is exempt from the conditions that attach to these attributes of self. This ultimate personality of every human being is free and independent, being exempt from the laws whereby our several feelings operate as motives to our ordinary actions. A self-detormining power is supposed to reside here, even if excluded from the other mental adjuncts. It is considered unphilosophical and incorrect to resolve the whole of mind into feelings, actions, and intellect; these are mere attributes of an inexplicable something which each one is conscious of, and recog. nizes as the essence or center of the mental being, while they are merely properties. 01 attributes. Granting the existence of this inner self, there is said to be sufficient scope for a properly free agency, without going the length of supposing that men are to con. tradict themselves in the everyday conduct of life.
Such a mode of stating the doctrine of liberty, however, is liable to the charge of logical confusion, not to speak of the difficulty of establishing the existence of the entity in question. If we were to inquire into what constitutes the essence cif mind, the thing which being present constitutes mind, and whose absence is the negation of mind, we might perhaps not be able to come to a conclusion that all philosophers would acquiesce in. It is always reckoned a very abstract and metaphysical discussion to settle the essence of things; even as regards matter, this is not an easy question. But if " essence" is to mean something, and not absolutely nothings it must point to some power, prop erty, or quality, capable of being named and signalized. Thus, we might say the
essence of mats•ilsisaiodies is the quality variously named, momentum, inertia; all which imply that one body is at once an obstruction to other moving bodies, and a moving power when once in motion; but if any one insists that this is but one of the attributes of matter, in common with weight, extension, color, etc., and that there must be something still deeper, in which all the various qualities inhere, we can only answer that we know of no such essence or substratum, and are incapable of conceiving any such. We may fix upon the most fundamental, the most universal, and inerasable quality of 'a thing, such as this property of resistance as regards material bodies, and term that the essence; while any other attempt at discovering an essence would only end in setting up fictions. So in the ease of mind. If we are called on to specify any one aspect of our mental constitution more universal and fundamental than the rest, with a view to setting forth the essence of mind, we should be obliged to select VOLITION, or action governed by feeling, as the main or central fact. Wherever we can prove the existence of feeling, and of an activity controlled by that—as when an animal uses its organs to preserve its own life, to cater for pleasures, and ward off pains—we should have to admit the reality of mind, although, perhaps, the intelligence were of the lowest kind. Any being not possessing both sefisibility and the power of acting in accordance with it, could not be said to possess a true mental nature. We should not trouble ourselves with considering the possible existenceof a mystical " ego,' but should at once declare that such a being did not come up to the standard or defini tion of mind. Will, or volition, as thus explained—namely, the direction of the active organs of a living creature to chime in with its various feelings—is itself the essence or substratum of mind, as resistance is the essence of matter. Wherefore, to speak of feel ings and actions as something apart from the "ego,' but inhering in it, is merely to count the same fact twice over, or to call a thing the attribute of itself. Volition is mind, and not an attribute of mind; and when we have specified the power of voluntary, or feeling-guided action, and a certain amount of intelligence, varying greatly in indi viduals, we have specified everything that can belong to any individual man or animal; rat " ego" beyond this is something inexplicable and fictitious. It cannot, therefore, be admitted that any foundation i$ given to a supposed " free agency," by referring to this occult and imaginary essence, any more than it would be competent to claim exceptions to the great physical laws that govern material bodies, by assuming an occult essence of matter with powers and properties at variance with its inertia, weight, extension, and other known qualities.
In one respect, the mind is differently situated from the material world in all that regards the power of tracing strict and predicting the future from the past. Each one of us has direct. access to our own feelings, but only an indirect and imperfect access to the feelings of another person. Excepting self, we can never know the whole of what any one feels; our best observations and reasonings are but approximations to the truth, and pretlictions founded on them are liable to be falsified through unseen forces in the arcana of another mates individuality. Admitting the uniformity of sequence of motive and act, we are never able to exhaust the motives of any single mind, beyond our own; and thus each one may be said to move in a certain inner circle of the impenetrable and unpredictable, while the large mass of the everyday actions of all human beings follows an almost undeviating regularity. This is a very important distinction between mind and matter, although not invalidating the great general fact of uniform law, as attaching to the one no less than to the other. For a sketch of the history of this great controversy, see Dugald Stewart's Attire Powers.