. Here, however, is not the place to discuss this question. It will
be sufficient for my purpose to show that even Sir W. Hamilton himself
considered it a very difficult one; and although he thought upon the whole
that the will must be free, he nevertheless allowed--nay, insisted--that he
was unable to conceive how it could be so. Such inability in itself does
not of course show the Free-will theory to be untrue; and I merely point
out the circumstance that Hamilton allowed the supposed fact unthinkable,
in order to show how very precarious, even in his eyes, the argument which
we are considering must have appeared. Let us then, for this purpose,
contemplate his attitude with regard to it a little more closely. He says,
"It would have been better to show articulately that Liberty and Necessity
are both incomprehensible, as beyond the limits of legitimate thought; but
that though the Free-agency of Man cannot be speculatively proved, so
neither can it be speculatively disproved; while we may claim for it as a
fact of real actuality, though of inconceivable possibility, the testimony
of consciousness, that we are morally free, as we are morally accountable
for our actions. In this manner the whole question of free- and bond-will
is in theory abolished, leaving, however, practically our Liberty, and all
the moral instincts of Man entire."[11]

From this passage it is clear that Sir W. Hamilton regarded these two
counter-theories as of precisely equivalent value in everything save "the
testimony of consciousness;" or, as he elsewhere states it, "as equally
unthinkable, the two counter, the two one-sided, schemes are thus
theoretically balanced. But, practically, our consciousness of the moral
law ... gives a decisive preponderance to the doctrine of freedom over the
doctrine of fate."

But the whole question concerning the freedom of the will has now come to
be as to whether or not consciousness _does_ give its verdict on the side
of freedom. Supposing we grant that "we are warranted to rely on a
deliverance of consciousness, when that deliverance is _that_ a thing is,
although we may be unable to think _how_ it can be,"[12] in this case the
question still remains, whether our opponents have rightly interpreted the
deliverance of their consciousness. I, for one, am quite persuaded that I
never perform any action without some appropriate motive, or set of
motives, having induced me to perform it. However, I am not discussing