THE advocates of free-agency have contended that the will is determined by itself, and not by the strongest motive. This is the ground which, so far as I know, has always been taken against the doctrine of necessity; but it may be questioned whether it is tenable, and whether the friends of moral agency might not have made far greater headway against their adversaries if they had not assumed such a position. It appears to be involved in several inevitable contradictions; in the exposure of which the necessitarian has been accustomed to triumph. The leading argument of Edwards against the self-determining power may be substantially stated in a few words. The will can be the cause of no effect, says he, except by acting, or putting forth a volition to cause it; and hence, if we assert that the will causes its own volitions, we must suppose it causes them by preceding volitions. It can cause a volition only by a prior volition, which, in its turn, can be caused only by another volition prior to it; and so on _ad infinitum_. Thus, according to Edwards, the self-determining power of the will necessarily runs out into the absurdity of an infinite series of volitions. If this reasoning is just, the doctrine in question must be abandoned; for no sound doctrine can lead to such a conclusion. But is it just? Does such an absurdity really flow from the self-determining power of the will? It has been objected to the argument of Edwards, that it is based on a false assumption. The position of Edwards, "that if the will determines itself, it must determine itself by an act of choice," is, it has been contended, clearly an assumption unsupported, and incapable of being supported. The reason assigned for this objection is, that we do not know how any cause exerts itself in the production of phenomena; and consequently we have no right to assume that the will can cause its volitions only by volitions. In other words, as we do not know how any cause produces its effects, so it is wholly a gratuitous assumption to say, that if the will causes its volitions, it must cause them in this particular manner, that is, by preceding acts of volition.