Wesley Corpus

as irresistibly determined to act thus or thus? What should he be commended or rewarded for, who never did any good but when he could not help it, being impelled thereto by a force which he could not withstand? What should he be blamed or punished for, who never did any evil, to which he was not determined by a power he could no more resist, than he could shake the pillars of heaven? This objection the author of the Essay gives in its full strength: “The advocates for liberty reason thus: If actions be necessary, and not in our own power, what ground is there for blame, self-condemnation, or remorse? If a clock were sensible of its own motions, and knew that they proceeded according to necessary laws, could it find fault with itself for striking wrong? Would it not blame the artist, who had so ill adjusted the wheels? So that, upon this scheme, all the moral constitution of our nature is overturned; there is an end to all the operations of conscience, about right and wrong; man is no longer a moral agent, nor the subject of praise or blame for what he does.” He strangely answers: “Certainly the pain, the remorse, which is felt by any man who had been guilty of a bad action, springs from the notion, that he has a power over his own actions, that he might have forborne to do it. It is on this account, that he is angry at himself, and confesses himself to be blamable. That uneasiness proceeds on the supposition, that he is free, and might have acted a better part. And one under the dominion of bad passions is condemned upon this ground, that it was in his power to be free from them. Were not this the case, brutes might be the objects of moral blame as well as man. But we do not blame them, because they have not freedom, a power of directing their own actions. We : therefore admit, that the idea of freedom is essential to the moral feeling. On the system of universal necessity, there could be no place for blame or remorse. And we struggle in vain to reconcile to this system the testimony which conscience clearly gives to freedom.” Is this an answer to the objection ? Is it not fairly giving up the whole cause ?