LIBERTY, physical, is that principle of spontaneity or self-determination which constitutes us agents;
or which gives us a command over our actions, rendering them properly ours, and not effects of the operation of any foreign cause. See METAPHYSICS, (Encycl.) no 78—80. Without this liberty, or being under a necessity of always following some will different from his own, man would be a machine acted upon by mechanical springs, having no principle of motion in himself, or command over events; and therefore incapable of all merit or demerit.
Whether man is endowed with this kind of liberty or self-determining power, has been a subject of much controversy: it was agitated at the beginning of this century between Leibnitz, Collins, &c. on one side, and Clarke, Jackson, &c. on the other; and has been lately revived by Dr Priestley.
The principal arguments in favour of liberty, as it is popularly understood, and as it is defined above, are the following. This principle is necessary to constitute man an agent. For, as far as it is true of a being that he acts, so far he must himself be the cause of the action, and therefore not necessarily determined to act; but if he has no absolute power over his own actions, i. e. if he be not a free agent, the actions which he performs cannot properly be said to be his own, but must be ascribed to some other power by which he is led on to perform them; as a good clock or watch performs the motions assigned to it by the artist. This argument is excellently illustrated by Dr Clarke. Man, says he, either has within himself a principle of action, properly speaking, i. e. a self-moving faculty, a principle or power of beginning motion; or he has not. If he has within himself such a principle, then he is a free, and not a necessary agent: for every necessary agent is moved necessarily by something else; and then that which moves it, not the thing itself which is moved, is the true and only cause of the action. That any other thing operating upon an agent should efficiently and necessarily produce self-motion in that agent, is a direct contradiction in terms. If man has not within himself a principle or power of self-motion, then every motion and action of man is chiefly and properly produced by the efficiency of some extrinsic cause; which cause must be either what we usually call the motive or reason upon which a man acts; or else it must be some insensible subtle matter, or some other being or substance making an impression upon him. If the reasons or motives upon which a man acts be the immediate and efficient cause of the action, then either abstract notions, such as all reasons and motives are, have a real subsistence, that is, are themselves substances; or else that which has itself no real subsistence can put a body into motion; either of which is manifestly absurd. If insensible subtle matter, or any other being or substance, continually making impression upon a man, be the immediate and efficient cause of his acting; then the motion of that subtle matter or substance must be caused by some other substance, and the motion of that by some other, till at last we arrive at a free agent; and then liberty is a possible thing, and man possibly may have liberty; and if he may possibly have it, then experience will prove that he probably, nay, that he certainly has it. If we never arrive at any free cause, then there is either in infinitum a progression of motions without any mover, of effects with-
liberty. without any cause, of things acted without any agent; which is a manifest contradiction, or else motion exists necessarily of itself. If motion exists necessarily of itself, it must be either with a determination every way, or one certain way: if with a determination every way, this is no motion at all; if with a determination one certain way, then that determination is either necessary, and consequently all other determinations impossible, which is contrary to experience; or else there must be a particular reason of that determination, and so backwards in infinitum; which comes to the fore-mentioned absurdity, of effects existing without any cause.
Farther, liberty is the dictate of our own consciousness: we have really the same constant and necessary consciousness of liberty that we have that we think, choose, will, or even exist; and, whatever men may say to the contrary, it is impossible for them in earnest to think they have no active self-moving powers, and are not the causes of their own volitions, or not to ascribe to themselves what they must be conscious they think and do. Mr Hume, though he denies the reality of liberty, grants that we have a feeling of it; that the divine plan required that we should be so made, as to seem to ourselves free; that the whole constitution of things is as if we were free; and that being under a necessity of approving and disapproving actions and characters, we are so far under a necessity of believing ourselves and others free. After these concessions, it can hardly be imagined that the constitution of nature should be altogether imposition and deceit.
Besides, if man be not, in the strictest sense of the word, a free agent, he can be no moral agent. It is hard to say what virtue and vice, commendation and blame, mean, if they do not suppose agency, voluntary motion, free choice, and an absolute dominion over our resolutions. Can we applaud or reprove ourselves for what we were no more the causes of than of our own beings, and what it was no more possible for us to prevent than the returns of the seasons, or the revolutions of the planets? On the system of necessity, conscience is an inexorable principle: its censures or applause are equally futile and groundless: the approbation of mankind is an insult with regard to those on whom it is bestowed, because they can have no merit; and the reproof of men unjust and cruel, because there can be no demerit and ground of blame. Whatever difficulties, therefore, may attend the nature of that influence which we ascribe to motives, they cannot be the efficient necessitating cause of human actions: since, on this supposition, there could be but one agent in the universe; who must equally be the author of all the good and evil in the world, and on whom must ultimately be charged the sin and misery, as well as the virtue and happiness, of his creatures.
Moreover, it has been urged by the advocates of liberty, that if men's determinations and actions flow necessarily from the previous state of their minds and the motives or influences resulting from a nature or condition imposed upon them without their own consent or choice, the idea of responsibility or accountability must vanish, and there can be no propriety or use of rewards or punishments. God cannot reward without virtue, and there can be no virtue without a self-deter-
mining power: he cannot punish without guilt, and there can be no guilt when men do what they cannot avoid doing, and when their actions arise from circumstances in which their Creator placed them. Lieutaud. Lymington
It is also equally unjust and useless to threaten punishment or inflict it on men, to prevent crimes, when they are necessarily determined in all their actions. And if men are necessary agents, though we cannot well admit this verbal contradiction, it can be of no use to reason with them, to admonish or intreat them; and God must be inflexible in his addresses and invitations, and cruel in his requirements and commands. But such is the whole tenor of revelation; and therefore the conclusion is necessary, that man is a free agent, capable of good or evil, and of determining his pursuit of either, from the sole power of his own judgment or will. See on this subject Collins's Inquiry concerning Human Liberty, first printed in 1717. Clarke's Remarks, 1717; and Collection of Papers which passed between Mr Leibnitz and Dr Clarke, in 1715 and 1716. Jackson's Vindication and Defence of Human Liberty, 1730. Price's Review of the principal Questions, &c. in Morals, p. 315, &c. edit. 1758. Priestley's Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity, 1777.—For the objections against liberty, and the arguments in support of necessity, see NECESSITY.