Page:Hare and Tortoise (1925).pdf/137

 ly packed as stones; our atoms are more free to roam and collide and become interesting. Human intelligence, with all its concomitants of reasoning and speech, is a sort of transformation which is analogous to the remarkable things that happen in a laboratory when certain combinations are subjected to intense pressures and temperatures. Degrees of vitality are like the gradations of electrical force: sluggish magnetic fields, live wires, dynamos, power stations. Everything has some vital status, just as everything has some electrical status."

"But you make everything seem so impersonal and arbitrary. Don't you believe that human beings can voluntarily increase or decrease their voltage and usefulness? If I determine to live up to my best instincts, can't I do so on my own initiative, without having been anticipated by Fate?"

"I think of it the other way round. Your strongest instincts, good or bad, will live up to you. They will determine your acts. The decision to live up to them begs the question, for it is they that prompted the decision, making up your so-called mind for you. You only said the words of your excellent decision after the excellent decision had surged and pulsated and battled and muscled its way through your system to the tip of your tongue. Taking a decision is like taking a train: in reality the train takes you."

"According to that theory there's nothing to stop the whole world from going to pot, morally speak-