the consequent, to imply some state
of dependence which our consciousness does contradict. Moreover, the
erroneous notion that something more than uniformity of order and
capability of being predicted is meant, has been favoured by the use of
the ambiguous term _necessity_ (which, it is true, commonly implies
irresistibleness), to signify simply that the given cause will be
followed by the effect subject to all possibilities of counteraction by
other causes. Most necessarians have been themselves deceived by the
expression: they are apt to be partially fatalists as to their own
actions, with a weaker spirit of self-culture than the believers in
free-will, and to fail to see that the fact of their character being
formed _for_ them, that is, by their circumstances, including their own
organisation, is consistent with its being formed _by_ themselves, as
intermediate agents, moulding it in any particular way which they may
_wish_. The belief that the _wishing_ is excited by external causes,
e.g. by education, casual aspirations, and experience of ills resulting
from our previous character, can be of no practical harm, and does not
conflict with our feeling of moral freedom, that is, of power, _if we
wish_, to modify or conquer our own character.

The ambiguity of the word _motive_ has also caused confusion. A motive,
when used to signify that which determines the will, means not always or
only the anticipation of a pleasure or a pain, but often the desire of
the action itself. The action having finally become by association in
itself desirable, we may get the habit of willing it (that is, get a
_purpose_) without reference to its being pleasurable. We are then said
to have a confirmed character.

CHAPTER III.

THERE IS, OR MAY BE, A SCIENCE OF HUMAN NATURE.

Any facts may be a subject of science, if they follow one another
according to constant laws; and this, whether, although the ultimate
laws are known, yet, of the derivative laws on which a phenomenon
directly depends, either _none_, as in Meteorology, or, as in Tidology,
_only_ the laws of the greater causes on which the chief part of a
phenomenon directly depends, have been ascertained, and not those of all
the minor modifying causes; or, as in Astronomy (which is therefore
called an _exact_ science), both the ultimate laws are known, and also
the derivative laws as well of the greater as of all the minor causes.
The science of Human Nature cannot be exa