CHAPTER I. NATURE OF MENTAL POWER. § 149. Of the distinction between liberty and power. WE now enter again upon a distinct series of subjects, which present the WILL to our notice in a new aspect. They are subsequent in the order of examination, but they are not wanting either in importance or interest. In this last Part of the discussion before us, we propose to examine the Power of the will and the various topics that are naturally connected with it. But in making the POWER of the will a distinct subject of examination, it is proper to remark, that we deviate from the view of many writers, and some of them of no mean rank, who seem to have considered the Power of the will and its Liberty as one and the same thing. And this confusion of things which are entirely distinct has been one cause of that obscurity which has ever rested in too great a degree on the whole subject. It is not altogether surprising, however, that an error should have been committed here, when we consider how apt we are to confound together objects, whatever grounds there may be for a distinction between them, which are often united together in our thoughts. The material world is so constituted, that in our perceptions of extension and colour, we find them necessarily always accompanying each other; so that, after a time, we find it very difficult to exclude from our notion of the sensation of colour the idea of extension. And it is undoubtedly much the same in all similar cases, and among others in that of FREEDOM and POWER, which also are found to be closely associated together. It is obvious that there is no freedom where there is no power; it seems to be undeniable that in the nature of things they go to gether; and they are, therefore, so closely connected in our thoughts, that we ultimately find it difficult to make the proper distinction between them. § 150. Proof of the distinction between liberty and power. We presume to anticipate, that, after the reader has gone through with what we have to say on this general subject of voluntary power, especially if he will take the pains to compare it with what has already been said on the nature of liberty, he will not be disposed to take exceptions to the distinction which we assert to exist between LIBERTY and POWER. And yet, although it is unnecessary, in this stage of our remarks, to spend much time on this particular topic, there is a propriety in briefly introducing a few circumstances in support of the distinction before us.And, accordingly, we remark, in the first place, that there are sometimes diversities or different degrees in the amount of power, even to a marked and decided extent, while the amount of freedom is essentially the same, which could not well be the case if liberty and power were identical. Take a single illustration. There is as much freedom, in any true and proper sense of the term freedom, in the mind of a child, whose intellect, just beginning to open, cannot expand itself beyond the limits of his native village, as in that of a philosopher whose thoughts embrace the world, and even systems of worlds. The sphere of the child's mind is indeed a very limited one in comparison with that of the philosopher, but the degree of freedom enjoyed by it is essentially the same. But while there is undeniably in these two cases an equal, or nearly equal degree of mental liberty within the respective spheres of the mind's operations, no one will undertake to say that there is the same, or nearly the same degree of mental power. Again, if we take two persons equally advanced in years, we shall, in many cases, notice similar results. A truly virtuous man will always possess and exhibit a high degree of mental freedom. A vicious man will suffer under some form of mental distortion unfavourable to freedom. But, although the latter possesses less mental freedom, it is possible that, in certain directions at least, he may possess much more mental power than the other. § 151. Distinction of power and liberty involved in the fact of our being able to form abstract ideas of power and liberty. In the second place, our consciousness (that internal reflection, or rather recognition, which we are able to bestow upon what takes place in the mind itself, and which thus gives us new forms of knowledge) assures us that we are able to form the abstract idea of liberty, and also that we are able to form the abstract idea of power; and if our internal mental experience thus assures us of the existence of the two, it of course assures us of a distinction between them. Every simple idea, as it is a unit and is inseparable into parts, must necessarily have a character of its own, which is definite and immutable. And if we are capable, therefore, of forming these two distinct ideas of power and liberty (as the general consciousness on the subject seems clearly to testify), it will necessarily follow that they are entirely distinct in their nature; and although they may be, and undoubtedly are, closely connected together, so much so that we cannot conceive of the one without implying the existence of the other, it is still true that, in themselves considered, they are entirely separate, each having an entity and a character of its own. And if the ideas of liberty and power are thus distinct from each other, then we are under the necessity, inasmuch as there are no elementary ideas without things corresponding to them, of drawing the inference, that the things for which they stand, or, in other words, that power and liberty, in their state of actual realization, are different from each other. § 152. Distinction of power and liberty shown from language. That there exists a distinction between mental power and mental liberty, and that this distinction is to |