is supervenient force said to be inherent in the soul, but also
the reality of all that Aristotle called automatic or spontaneous
agency generally. Chrysippus said that every movement was determined by
antecedent motives; that, in cases of equal conflict, the exact
equality did not long continue, because some new but slight motive
slipped in unperceived and turned the scale on one side or the other.
(See Plutarch De Stoicorum Repugnantiis, c. 23, p. 1045.) Here, we see,
the question now known as the Freedom of the Will is discussed: and
Chrysippus declares against it, affirming that volition is always
determined by motives.

But we also see that, while declaring this opinion, Chrysippus does not
employ the terms Necessity or Freedom of the Will: neither did his
opponents, so far as we can see: they had a different and less
misleading phrase. By Freedom, Chrysippus and the Stoics meant the
freedom of doing what a man willed, if he willed it. A man is free, as
to the thing that is in his power, when he wills it: he is not free, as
to what is not in his power, under the same supposition. The Stoics
laid great stress on this distinction. They pointed out how much it is
really in a man's power to transform or discipline his own mind: in the
way of controlling or suppressing some emotions, generating or
encouraging others, forming new intellectual associations, &c., how
much a man could do in these ways, _if he willed it_, and if he went
through the lessons, habits of conduct, meditations, suitable to
produce such an effect. The Stoics strove to create in a man's mind the
volitions appropriate for such mental discipline, by depicting the
beneficial consequences resulting from it, and the misfortune and shame
inevitable, if the mind were not so disciplined. Their purpose was to
strengthen the governing reason of his mind, and to enthrone it as a
fixed habit and character, which would control by counter suggestions
the impulse arising at each special moment--particularly all disturbing
terrors or allurements. This, in their view, is a _free mind_; not one
wherein volition is independent of all motive, but one wherein the
susceptibility to different motives is tempered by an ascendant reason,
so as to give predominance to the better motive against the worse. One
of the strongest motives that they endeavoured to enforce, was the
prudence and dignity of bringing our volitions into harmony with the
schemes of Providence: which (the