know; but what is
Necessity but an empty shadow of the mind's own throwing?'[24] A shadow
it most certainly is not, though it is a bugbear, and the veriest that
was ever suffered to torment a morbid imagination. It is an indisputable
reality, a substantial, but at the same time perfectly harmless, or
rather salutary reality, whose terrors need only to be boldly confronted
in order to disappear and to transform themselves into highly attractive
recommendations. For what, after all, does it imply? What but that
effects must follow their causes, and causes precede their effects, as
plainly they must, unless cause and effect be utterly unmeaning
expletives. Of course we must on all occasions be affected by
surrounding circumstances, in modes exactly accordant with our
idiosyncracies, moral and physical. Of course, too, our volitions must
exactly correspond with our contemporaneous affections. When we are
empty, we must, if in health, feel hungry, and desire to eat; when full,
we must, unless we are hogs, be satisfied, and prefer to ruminate. Most
men are so organised that when tickled they must laugh; when wronged,
must frown or sigh. The sight of distress makes them pity, and desire to
see it relieved. That of virtue makes them admire, and desire to see it
rewarded. That of vice makes them angry, and desire to see it punished.
Would we have all these things reversed? Would it be well for us that
our being starved or surfeited should make no difference in our wish to
feed, or our willingness to fast? Should we like the chances to be equal
whether we should desire distress to be alleviated or aggravated? If
not, what is the bondage under which we groan? What the liberty
wherewith we long to be made free? Our sole grievance is that, according
to actual arrangements, there must be reasons for our wishes, and that
on those reasons our wishes must depend. Should we then prefer that
there were no such reasons? Would we have our wishes to be independent
of reason, and adrift before irrational caprice? Probably we may, on
second thoughts, be content to forego an enfranchisement like this; but,
if not, we may at least console ourselves for its indefinite
postponement, by reflecting that Omnipotence itself is, equally with
ourselves, subject to the sort of necessity under which we are groaning;
equally destitute of the sort of free-will to which we aspire. It is
manifest that, since there cannot be omnipotence without boundless
liber