its rise in the world without any such efficient
cause of its existence.

Each party has refuted his adversary, and in the enjoyment of his triumph
he seems not to have duly reflected on the destruction of his own
position. Both are in the right, and both are in the wrong; but, as we
shall hereafter see, not equally so. If we adopt the argument of both
sides, in so far as it is true, we shall come to the conclusion that
action must take its rise somewhere in the universe without being caused
by preceding action. And if so, where shall we look for its origin? in
that which by nature is endowed with active power, or in that which is
purely and altogether passive?

We lay it down, then, as an established and fundamental position, that the
mind acts or puts forth its volitions without being efficiently caused to
do so--without being impelled by its own prior action, or by the prior
action of anything else. The conditions or occasions of volition being
supplied, the mind itself acts in view thereof, without being subject to
the power or action of any cause whatever. All rational beings must, as we
have seen, either admit this exemption of the mind in willing from the
power and action of any cause, or else lose themselves in the labyrinth of
an infinite series of causes. It is this exemption which constitutes the
freedom of the human soul.

We are now prepared to see, in a clear light, the sophistical nature of
the pretended demonstration of the scheme of necessity. "It is impossible
to consider occurrences," says Sir James Mackintosh, otherwise than as
bound together in "_the relation of cause and effect_." Now this relation,
if we interpret it according to the nature of things, and not according to
the sound of words, is not one, but two.

The motions of the body are caused by the mind, that is, they are produced
by the action of the mind; this constitutes one relation: but acts of the
mind are caused, that is, they are produced by the action of nothing; and
this is a quite different relation. In other words, the motions of body
are produced by preceding action, and the acts of the mind are not
produced by preceding action. Hence, the first are necessitated, and the
last are free: the first come under "the relation of cause and effect,"
and the last come under a very different relation. The relation of cause
and effect connects the most remote consequences of volition with volition
itself; but when we reach volition ther