The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 42

Free-will, Responsibility, and Duty

Free-will, Responsibility, and Duty.

"Throughout the breadth and height and depth of human consciousness, Personality manifests itself under one condition, that of a Free Will, influenced, though not coerced, by motives."

Professor H. L. Mansel.

"The essential characteristic of volition, as presented to the mind, consists in the consciousness of a power of choosing between two alternative determinations."

Professor H. L. Mansel.

"Free agency may co-exist with invariable regularity, it obviously cannot co-exist with necessary regularity, which, consequently, is incompatible with moral responsibility. If men are compelled by the force of circumstances, or by any other force, to move only in one direction, they cannot be responsible for not moving in a different direction."

William Thomas Thornton.

"If you deprive man of his free agency, you subvert his nature. You may have order from him and regularity, as you may have from the tides and the trade-winds, but you put an end to his moral character, to virtue, to merit, to accountability."

Theist.

"To deny the freedom of the Will is to make morality impossible."

James Anthony Froude.

"I submit that Duty is a power which rises with us in the morning, and goes to rest with us at night. It is co-extensive with the action of our intelligence. It is the shadow which cleaves to us where we will, and which only leaves us when we leave the light of life."

The Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone.