I am not going to try to treat such a subject as this by the way, but a very few words may be of use to the beginner. If we put it in as ordinary language as we can, the main difficulty is this—If there is a ‘because’ to my acts, responsibility seems to go; and yet we have an irresistible impulse to find a ‘because’ everywhere. But is it not the sort of ‘because’ which gives all the trouble?
(1.) We may say there is one kind of ‘because,’ and one only. Then I am put on a level with nature; and whether you take your ‘because’ from mechanism, or start from will and put nature on a level with me, makes no practical difference, since in neither case do you distinguish.
(2.) We may say there is no ‘because’ for us, and may say,
Neither of these assertions can hold; for, apart from metaphysical difficulties, we actually do predict volitions to a large extent.
(3.) We may admit the ‘because’ (or rather, since our will is rational, we may demand it), but may say, there is more than one sort of ‘because.’ There is mechanical ‘because,’ but that is not adequate to the lowest life, still less to mind. And if we take this line, we may find that the ‘because’ which excludes accountability, is only the ‘because’ which does not apply to the mind, but to something else.
If ‘must’ always means the ‘must’ of the falling stone, then ‘must’ is irreconcileable with ‘ought’ or ‘can.’ Freedom will be a bare ‘not-must,’ and will be purely negative.
But how if the ‘must’ is a higher ‘must’? And how if freedom is also positive—if a merely negative freedom is no freedom at all? We may find then that in true freedom the ‘can’ is not only reconcileable with, but inseparable from, the ‘ought;’ and both not only reconcileable with, but inseparable from, the ‘must.’ Is not freedom something positive? And can we give a positive meaning to freedom except by introducing a will which not only ‘can,’ but also ‘ought to’ and ‘must,’ fulfil a law of its nature, which is not the nature of the physical world.
There is a view, which says to the necessitarian, ‘Are you not neglecting distinctions?’; to the believer in ‘liberty’, ‘Are you sure you are distinguishing? Is there the smallest practical difference between external necessity and chance? Can you
