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 there a new relation arises: it is the relation which subsists between an agent and its act. We may trace changes in the external world up to the volitions or acts of mind, and perceive no diversity in the chain of dependencies; but precisely at this point the chain of cause and effect ceases, and agency begins. The surrounding circumstances may be conditions, may be occasional causes, may be predisposing causes, but they are not, and cannot be, producing or efficient causes. Here, then, the iron chain terminates, and freedom commences. In the ambiguity which fails to distinguish between “the relation of cause and effect,” and the relation which volition bears to its antecedents, “consists the strength of the necessitarian system.” Let this distinction be clearly made and firmly borne in mind, and the great boasted adamantine scheme of necessity will resolve itself into an empty, ineffectual sound. Hence, if we would place the doctrine of liberty upon solid grounds, it becomes necessary to modify the categories of M. Cousin. All things, says he, fall under the one or the other of the two following relations: the relation between subject and attribute, or the relation between cause and effect. This last category, we think, should be subdivided, so as to give two relations; one between cause and effect, properly so called, and the other between agent and action. Until this be done, it will be impossible to extricate the phenomena of the will from the mechanism of cause and effect. We think we might here leave the stupendous sophism of the necessitarian; but as it has exerted so wonderful an influence over the human mind, and obscured, for ages, the glory of the moral government of God, we may well be permitted to pursue it further, and to continue the pursuit so long as a fragment or a shadow of it remains to be demolished. Section IV. The scheme of necessity is fortified by false conceptions.