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IV

LIBERTY AND NECESSITY¹

The question of free will lies at the root of social re-organisation, and it has been affirmed and defended by the profoundest and most spiritually illuminated minds that the human will is free and unrestrained. I propose, however, to prove that man is a being of necessity, a depending and necessary part of the universal whole. He enjoys a twofold relation—physical and spiritual—to the universe. One is the connection which subsists between his body and external Nature; the other is the conjunction between mind and internal Nature—purity, truth, justice, or, in a word, Deity. Were the mind intrinsically free—untrammelled by any physical object, element or circumstance—the individual would be qualified to select his own anatomy, cerebral structure, temperament and organic powers; but as it must be conceded that no being is at liberty to supervise the formation of his own body, so—at least in this respect—man is a creature of necessity.² There is a kind of liberty involved by human individuality, and in this abstract

¹ See The Great Harmonia, Vol. II, p. 211 et seq., digested and collated.
² Compare The Principles of Nature, Part II, original edition, p. 463. Considering the inseparable connection which is sustained between the universe and Deity, it is impossible to conceive of independent volition. Did such a thing exist, the universe would be disunited, and the Divine Mind would be incapable of communicating life to its various recesses and labyrinths. The chain of cause and effect; the bond of unity, harmony and reciprocity would be broken; and the universe would be no longer an organised system, but an incomprehensible ocean of chaos and confusion.

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sense everything enjoys a species of independence. No single thing is, however, isolated from all else, for Nature is an inseparable whole, with its parts essential to and depending one upon another. Notwithstanding the dissimilarity and apparent mutual independence of male and female, they depend one upon another and also upon the elements and means of nourishment which surround them in Nature. So also, in proportion to a man's constitutional powers and qualifications, but not beyond them, is he capable of thinking or acting, and he can only be expected to fill the measure of his capacity.¹

And now as regards the will in its superior relations to purity, truth, justice and Deity, it is held that man is situated intermediately between good and evil,² that he has the power to reject the one or the other, and can thus determine his own eternal character, destiny and situation in the world beyond the grave. We have seen elsewhere that he is the highest organisation in the stupendous system of Nature, that he lives, moves and has being in God's Universal Spirit.³ Attractions, desires and impulses are born within him; those which proceed from his immediate progenitors are temporal, but those which he derives from his Heavenly Father are eternal. He is not therefore situated between good and evil; he stands on the summit of creation, a little lower than the angels, requiring simply a constitutional har-

¹ See The Principles of Nature, p. 629: Many have assigned to the soul a faculty of absolute free will—a power to act or not to act in any specified manner, uninfluenced by interior or external things. Such an opinion is of course rejected.
² Compare the corresponding condemnation of those who have given to the soul innate faculties perpetually disposed to wickedness and abomination, delighting to indulge in every species of evil and licentiousness, and seeking its own emolument by a sacrifice of all moral principles. . . . The soul has no such inherent propensities, no desire to injure or dissemble.—Ibid., pp. 629, 630.
³ He is an offspring of the incessant and successive developments of those mighty attributes which together constitute the Cause of all things,

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mony and a spiritual development to understand and enjoy their continued association. He is not merely a recipient; he is filled with life, motion, sensation, intelligence; he is God manifested in the flesh; he is a son of the Most Glorious and High. As regards his power of choosing between good and evil, he cannot select associations without knowledge of their character and influence, to obtain which he is subject to surrounding suggestions, both material and spiritual. Reasonable action or selection depends invariably upon prior experience and understanding, and consequently the human mind, in order to choose intelligently between good and evil, must first ascertain by actual experience, or by interior perception, what good and evil are. I am led therefore to conclude that man has no absolute freedom of will,¹ because it is not possible to be a free moral agent without having ability to distinguish between the seeming and the actual, the false and true. Materially and spiritually, man possesses universal affinities which he did not create and can neither control nor destroy; he is compelled to act as he is acted upon and to manifest character according to his constitutional capacity and social situation.

There exists, however, a species of freedom or independence in human thoughts and actions; but it is altogether comparative.² A start in life is made from the same point, estate or social class, but very different

¹ As neither theology nor philosophy, in the orthodox schools on the one hand or on the other in authorised schools of teaching, has postulated absolute liberty on the part of man, it will be observed that Davis grants here that which is necessary to the responsibility of human being. If some of his statements read on the surface otherwise they must be taken in the light of the qualification made above. It will be seen furthermore that the Harmonial Philosophy is essentially a philosophy of freedom and that no loose terminology should be utilised to place its author in the category of fatalists.
² This is expressed elsewhere as follows: It is certainly evident that there is a species of independence possessed by every particle of matter;

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paths are trodden and distinct terminations reached. One person is in possession of a weak and combative mind, which leads on to murder; another is vain, ambitious and secretive, which things end in robbery; a third has some or all of these qualities, but accompanied by prodigal benevolence, as a result of which, under certain circumstances, he may sink so low in the scale as to become a beggar; while the fourth, without better external advantages, has a superior organisation and more harmoniously developed faculties. He is industrious and above the temptations to which the others have yielded; yet he may be thrown out of employment and at last may die of starvation. Now, the enlightened mind will perceive that these distinct paths and ends were of absolute, unconditioned necessity. Society was the first cause of the disasters, while parents were the second, for they imparted the dissimilarity of organisations which caused dissimilar fates.

It is a legitimate conclusion herefrom that an individual is accountable only according to his capacity. Man is both an actor and a circumstance, a cause and an effect. He should be treated not as a being having will and power to do that which he desires, when and where he pleases; but he should be born, educated, situated, rewarded, punished as a tree capable of yielding good fruit only when it is properly organised and conditioned in a good soil. The doctrine of the free will or agency of the soul is contradicted by everything in Nature and Man.¹ Every thought, motive and deed arises from

but it consists only in the fact that forms have an individual being. In this sense the term independence can be applied to all things. But speaking in reference to the whole system of creation . . ., all things are parts of one stupendous whole, and hence is demonstrated the unity and dependence of all things.—Ibid,., p. 636.
¹ The conviction of the soul's independence arises from insufficient development of the faculty of wisdom, from misdirection of all the faculties, and especially from the prevailing superficial modes by which people are educated.—Ibid., p. 634.

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interior laws and combinations of physical and mental economy which are inevitable and unchangeable. The comparative freedom which man seemingly inherits is that of motion within the circle described by his capacity and degree of development. Beyond this he has no more liberty than is enjoyed by a goldfish in a globe of water.¹ But he is a part of Nature and is designed to move as harmoniously in the great whole as the heart in the body; and this conception of his moral state is an unfailing source of consolation and happiness. It removes all doubt as to the ultimate issue of this life; it satisfies the soul that "the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth"; it makes Deity the Sovereign Ruler of human and angelic hosts; and it points to the reconstruction of society, to new methods of educating and punishing—or reforming rather—the human race. It develops the religion of distributive justice, the spirit of compassion, law of love and morality of universal benevolence.²

¹ The contrary belief is said to arise from confusing the actions of individual faculties, without perceiving the relations which they sustain to external things, to the forms which they inhabit, or to one another. . . . It has been held by some metaphysicians, especially Plato and Locke, that the free will of man is proved by his superiority over all other forms in Nature, he alone being prompted to act, yet at liberty to refuse. But this hypothesis has neglected to analyse the soul's individual faculties and their specific modes of action.—Ibid., p. 636.
² There is another argument on liberty and necessity, which may be summarised briefly thus: (1) Man believes himself conscious of power to move according to a desire of the will; (2) this power appears to be born of and governed by itself; (3) it seems therefore to be self-existent; (4) but the supposed consciousness is deceptive, because no one can perceive the relation between each portion of the soul; and (5) hence all conceptions respecting the inward self are intangible and unsatisfactory.—Ibid., p. 633. It seems obvious that the argument cannot be pressed on either side of the consideration under view.