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OFFICE OF MOTIVES.

or necessarily. So far as anything acts physically, it is never styled a motive.

(3.) Motives do not supersede our own agency. If an organic impression excite a sensation, or an interesting perception excite an emotion, we are not active, but passive; we do not act, but are acted upon. But the case is totally different where motives are concerned. We ourselves then act; and motives, instead of destroying, or even impairing our agency, only afford us an opportunity of rightly exerting it. If a person, for instance, give a dollar for the relief of the distressed, the relief is the motive of his gift, but the action is nevertheless his own, and his agency in it is not in the slightest degree impaired by its proceeding from a motive.

67. Motives occur on all occasions, and must be of some use. Their only office, we suppose, is to afford knowledge to the understanding, and thus direct us in the exercise of volition. In reality, if they neither act as physical causes, nor impair our own agency, it is impossible to conceive them to have any other office; and when we look to facts, we find that this is the very office to which they are applied.

A person, for example, informs us that if we pursue a certain line of conduct, we shall experience good; that if we pursue another, we shall experience evil. In consequence of this information we choose the former and avoid the latter, and the information is styled the motive of our choice. But nothing seems more evident than that the information does not act on our will at all: it merely gives us passive knowledge, according to which we ourselves choose to act.

A connection certainly exists between motives and the will; but it is not a physical-it is merely a voluntary connection (some would call it a moral one), and is occasioned by the will itself. In other words, man himself chooses to act according to the knowledge which motives afford, and thus establishes a connection between them and his choice.

68. It may be said, by way of objection, that motives possess different degrees of power, and their different degrees of power can be nothing but their different degrees of influence on the will.

This objection is easily answered. Motives obtain

INFLUENCE OF MOTIVES.

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from us different degrees of preference; and it is these degrees of preference that constitute what are called their degrees of power. The expressions then, moral power and power of motives, though convenient, are really a species of misnomer, and are to be understood in the manner we have defined.

It appears also from this discussion that the mind, in view of the motive, and not the motive, begins the particular results that take place, and consequently, in the strict and proper sense of the expression, is their source.

69. Though in the use of volition we are not restricted to a particular course of action, it by no means follows that we shall conduct ourselves contingently or at random. On the contrary, being intelligent, as well as free agents, we will certainly conduct ourselves according to the circumstances in which we find ourselves placed.

It may be added, that to act according to a motive, is merely to perform an action for the attainment or accomplishment of something which the motive presents to us. [Ballantyne's Examination of the Human Mind.]

70. "External motives are not of such a nature, that volitions of a certain character invariably proceed from them, independently of the nature, and state, and feelings of the mind, which acts in view of them. But if a motive has any influence on the determination of the will, it is one of the antecedents on which the volition depends. Yet if it is an external object, it is not the immediate antecedent. This is an act or state of the mind. An executive volition must be preceded by an emotion. This is an act or state of the mind. Before this emotion can be felt, there must be an apprehension of the object. This is also a state of the mind. Apprehension and emotion must both intervene, between the external object and the volition. The object then can have no influence on the volition, except by influencing the mind; in other words, here must be not only a motive, but an agent. The agent does not will without motives; nor do motives will without an agent."

71. "The concurrence of the mind, in giving efficacy to motives, is evident from the fact, that the same external object will excite in different minds, or even in the same mind at different times, very different feelings, and lead to very different choices.

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INFLUENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.

The influence of an external motive (or the action of the mind in view of it) will vary with the state of the mind to which it is presented. And the feelings excited in the mind will vary as the objects before it are changed. If motives and the state of the mind are not both concerned, in determining the acts of the will, then they must be determined either by the mind alone, so that whatever be the motives presented, its volitions will be the same; or by motives alone, so that whatever be the state of mind, the volitions will be the same." [Day on the Will.]

65. How may the term motives be defined?

66. By what observations will the way be prepared to understand the relation between motives and volition?

67. What then is the office of motives?

68. What objection may be advanced against the view of motives now given?

69. May it not be objected to this doctrine that the mind will thus act at random and contingently?

70. What influence upon our choice is exerted by the state or feelings of the mind?

71. How does it appear that a concurrence of the mind is necessary in giving efficacy to motives?

SECTION III-INFLUENCE EXERTED UPON THE WILL, BY KNOWLEDGE, ATTENTION, AND MORAL HABITS.

IT is a well-known fact that the will of individuals is influenced differently with the same motives before them. The principles on which this fact can be explained, may be referred to the three heads of Knowledge, Attention, and Moral Habits.

(1.) Influence of Knowledge.

72. A primary and most essential element in the due regulation of the will is a correct knowledge of the truths and motives which tend to influence its determinations.

73. The highest class of these comprehends the truths of religious belief-a series of moral causes, the tendencies of which are of the most important kind, and calculated to exert a uniform influence upon every man who surrenders himself to their guidance.

74. The sacred writers speak in the strongest terms of the guilt attached to voluntary ignorance; and this guilt must be evident to every one who considers the clearness with which the highest truths are disclosed, and the in

INFLUENCE OF ATTENTION.

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controvertible evidence by which they are supported. This remark applies equally to the principles, both of natural and of revealed religion.

75. The important truths of natural religion are partly matters of the most simple induction from the phenomena of nature which are continually before us, and partly impressed upon our own moral constitution in the clear

est manner.

From these two sources may be gained a knowledge, to some valuable extent, of the character of the Creator, and of our relation to him as moral beings; and the man is left entirely without excuse who fails to direct to them his most earnest attention, and to make the impressions derived from them the habitual rule of his volitions, and the guide of his whole character.

76. The truths of revealed religion are supported by a weight of miraculous evidence, and are transmitted to us by a chain of testimony, carrying absolute conviction to the mind of every candid inquirer. They are further confirmed by probability and a force of internal evidence, which fix themselves upon the moral feelings of every sound mind with irresistible power.

The whole is addressed to us as rational beings; it is pressed upon our attention as creatures destined for another state of existence; and the duty is imposed upon every individual seriously to examine and to consider.

77. Every man is in the highest degree responsible for the care with which he has informed himself of these evidences, and for the attention with which he has given to every part of them its due weight in the solemn inquiry.

He is further responsible for the influence of any previously formed prejudice, or any degree of that vitiated state of his moral feelings, which prevents him from approaching the subject with the simplicity of an uncontaminated mind.

(2.) Influence of Attention.

78. Next to the acquisition of that knowledge which is adapted best to act upon us as moral beings, is the important rule of habitually attending to it, when acquired, so as to bring its influence to bear upon our volitions.

79. Such attention is a voluntary act; for when a par

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HARMONY OF MORAL FEELINGS.

ticular desire is present to a person's mind, he has the power to act upon the first impulse, or upon a very partial and limited, perhaps a distorted, view of the considerations and motives by which he ought to be influenced; and he has the power to suspend acting, and direct his attention deliberately and fully to the facts and principles which are calculated to guide his determination. This is the first great step in that chain of sequences which belong to the regulation of the will; and the power to take this step constitutes man a free and responsible agent.

80. When the desire or inclination is suffered to engross the mind and occupy fully the attention; when the power is not exercised of directing it to moral causes and motives, and of comparing with them the inclination which is present, the consequence may be that the man runs heedlessly into volition and action, from which the due exercise of this process of mind might have preserved him.

81. The moral causes may be so far attended to as to prevent the inclination from being followed by action; while the inclination is still cherished, and the mind is allowed to dwell with a certain feeling of regret on the object which it had been obliged to deny itself.

Though the actual deed be thus prevented, the harmony of the moral feelings is destroyed; for this consists in the desires and affections, as well as conduct, being in strict subjection to the indications of an enlightened conscience, and the principles of moral rectitude. The inclination, thus cherished, gradually acquires greater ascendency over the moral feelings; the attention is less and less directed to the moral truths and motives which are opposed to it; the inclination at length acquires the predominance, and is followed by volition. This is to be carried away by passion. This is vice. In the whole of this course each movement of the mind is felt to be entirely voluntary.

Moral causes, in this manner, gradually lose their power over the volitions or determinations of the mind; and at a certain period of this progress, the judgment itself comes to be changed respecting the moral aspect of the deed.

82. There is still another mental condition, in which the harmony of the moral feelings may be destroyed, without the action following.

This takes place when the inclination is cherished, as