II. We are also prepared to notice another assumption of President Edwards, which, if admitted in the sense in which he assumes it as true, necessitates the admission of the Necessitarian scheme, to wit: that the determination of the Will is always caused by the Motive present to the mind for putting forth that determination. “It is that motive,” he says, “which, as it stands in the view of the mind, is the strongest which determines the Will.” Again, “that every act of the Will has some cause, and consequently (by what has been already proved) has a necessary connection with its cause, and so is necessary by a necessity of connection and consequence, is evident by this, that every act of Will, whatsoever, is excited by some motive.” “But if every act of the Will is excited by some motive, then that motive is the cause of that act of the Will.” “And if volitions are properly the effects of their motives, then they are necessarily connected with their motives.”

If we grant the principle here assumed, the conclusion follows of necessity. But let us inquire in what sense motive and volition sustain to each other the relation of cause and effect. The presence and action of one power causes the action of another, so far, and so far only, as it necessitates such action; and causes its action in a particular direction, so far only as it necessitates its action in that direction, in opposition to every other. Now the action of one power may cause the action of another, in one or both these ways.

1. It may necessitate its action, and necessitate it in one direction in opposition to any and every other. In this sense, fire causes the sensation of pain. It necessitates the action of the Sensibility, and in that one direction. Or,

2. One power may necessitate the action of another power, but not necessitate its action in one direction in opposition to any or all others. We have seen, in a former chapter, that the Motive causes the action of the Will in this sense only, that it necessitates the Will to act in some direction, but not in one direction in distinction from another. Now the error of President Edwards lies in confounding these two senses of the word cause. He assumes that when one power causes the action of another in any sense, it must in every sense. It is readily admitted, that in one sense the Motive causes the action of the Will. But when we ask for the reason or cause of any one particular choice in distinction from another, we find it, not in the motive, but in the power of willing itself.