"[I]t follows that motives, volitions, and actions, are all the definite effects of definite causes, and that they are all links of that // ---- "golden everlasting chain, / Whose strong embrace holds heaven, and earth, and main."
— Belsham, William (1752-1827)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for C. Dilly
Date
1789
Metaphor
"[I]t follows that motives, volitions, and actions, are all the definite effects of definite causes, and that they are all links of that // ---- "golden everlasting chain, / Whose strong embrace holds heaven, and earth, and main."
Metaphor in Context
"But the next thing demanded, says Mr. Locke, sect. 25. is, Whether a man be at liberty to will which of the two he pleases, motion or rest?" A question of which the absurdity is manifest. It is to ask, Whether a man can will what he wills, or be pleased with what he is pleased with?--A question which needs no answer." True; and it is a question, therefore, which Mr. Locke might have spared himself the trouble of proposing. It is self-evident, that man has the liberty or rather the power to will that which he wills; and all that the Necessitarians pretend is, that man has not the Liberty or power of willing that which he does not will. "In this, then," he repeats, sect. 28. "consists freedom; in our being able to act or not to act, according as we shall chuse or will." Thus far then Mr. Locke coincides with the advocates for philosophical Necessity, though his concessions are generally involved in a cloud of words; and he is still desirous, as it should seem, of ranking amongst the friends of philosophical Liberty. Our actions he allows to be necessarily determined by our volitions. He now goes on to ask, sect. 29. "What determines the will?" To which he answers, "The mind or the intelligent agent itself, exerting its power this or that particular way; or, more explicitly, the mind is determined by motives grounded upon feelings of satisfaction or uneasiness." This account is entirely consistent with the system of Necessity; for the advocates of that hypothesis insist as strongly as Mr. Locke, that our actions are the result of our volitions, which are themselves produced by motives, or by the mind actuated by a regard to motives; and as those motives were themselves produced by causes previously existing, it follows that motives, volitions, and actions, are all the definite effects of definite causes, and that they are all links of that
---- "golden everlasting chain,
"Whose strong embrace holds heaven, and earth, and main."
(pp. 280-1)
---- "golden everlasting chain,
"Whose strong embrace holds heaven, and earth, and main."
(pp. 280-1)
Categories
Provenance
Reading in Google Books
Citation
William Belsham, Essays, Philosophical, Historical, and Literary (London: Printed for C. Dilly, 1789). <Link to Google Books>
Date of Entry
08/24/2011
