ich only wearily, and after long labour, imperfectly accomplishes what
is required of it. And the same, _to a certain extent_, unless we will
deny the patent facts of experience, holds true in moral actions. No
wonder, therefore, that evaded or thrust aside as these things are in
the popular beliefs, as soon as they are recognised in their full
reality they should be mistaken for the whole truth, and the free-will
theory be thrown aside as a chimera.

It may be said, and it often is said, that such reasonings are merely
sophistical--that however we entangle ourselves in logic, we are
conscious that we are free; we know--we are as sure as we are of our
existence--that we have power to act this way or that way, exactly as we
choose. But this is less plain than it seems; and if granted, it proves
less than it appears to prove. It may be true that we can act as we
choose, but can we _choose_? Is not our choice determined for us? We
cannot determine from the fact, because we always _have chosen_ as soon
as we act, and we cannot replace the conditions in such a way as to
discover whether we could have chosen anything else. The stronger motive
may have determined our volition without our perceiving it; and if we
desire to prove our independence of motive, by showing that we _can_
choose something different from that which we should naturally have
chosen, we still cannot escape from the circle, this very desire
becoming, as Mr. Hume observes, itself a _motive_. Again, consciousness
of the possession of any power may easily be delusive; we can properly
judge what our powers are only by what they have actually accomplished;
we know what we _have_ done, and we may infer from having done it that
our power was equal to what it achieved. But it is easy for us to
over-rate our strength if we try to measure our abilities in themselves.
A man who can leap five yards may think that he can leap six; yet he may
try and fail. A man who can write prose may only learn that he cannot
write poetry from the badness of the verses which he produces. To the
appeal to consciousness of power there is always an answer:--that we may
believe ourselves to possess it, but that experience proves that we may
be deceived.

There is, however, another group of feelings which cannot be set aside
in this way, which do prove that, in some sense or other, in some degree
or other, we are the authors of our own actions. It is one of the
clearest of all inward pheno