Page:Philosophical Review Volume 4.djvu/562

546 Chapters iv, "The Freedom of the Will," and v, "Responsibility and Punishment," may be considered together. They occupy nearly a quarter of the book. What Dr. Hyslop attempts, as stated in the Preface, is nothing less than "to fully analyse the whole problem, to present a solution of it, to conciliate controversy, to fix the meaning and interest of freedom for Ethics, and to obtain a position regarding it where discussion is not a logomachy and a sheer waste of time" (p. vi). Apparently these chapters are regarded as the most important in the book, but they seem to me, on the whole, among the least satisfactory. One's objection is not at all that the author happens to be a libertarian, but that his treatment of both sides of the question is naïve and inadequate. It never, e.g., seems to occur to him that the one-sided libertarian and the one-sided determinist have each equal difficulty in understanding what the other means by 'responsibility.' If the treatment had clearly shown how the methodological postulates of Psychology and of Ethics appear to conflict in the case of Free-Will; if it had then made plain just what is the issue between Free Will and Determinism, and what (if any) are the ethical implications of each; and if the question had then been either relegated to Metaphysics for solution, or discussed consistently upon the metaphysical plane, the result would certainly have been much more satisfactory, even if it had not realized all the author's ambitious hopes.

Dr. Hyslop distinguishes three senses of Freedom: (1) 'Liberty,' or 'exemption from external restraint'; (2) 'Spontaneity,' or 'sub- jective causation' (not necessarily excluding Determinism); and (3) 'Velleity,' or 'the capacity of alternative choice' [Indeterminism]. These primary distinctions are useful enough, and, of course, terminology aside, by no means peculiar to the present treatise; but if the reader wishes to receive at once the full benefit of the author's perverse ingenuity, let him turn to p. 163 for the 'tabular outline.' Here he will find 'Freedomism' (the author's position,—Indeterminism which objects to being called Freedom of Indifference) classed, with 'Psychical Necessitarianism,' under 'Subjective Determinism,' which, in turn, comes under the general head of 'Determinism.' I submit that such a classification must prove unnecessarily confusing to the average undergraduate. Moreover, the difference between 'Freedomism' (a form of 'Determinism') and 'Indifferentism' (Freedom of Indifference) may be left to the acute and practiced reader; the student, for whom the book is intended, will hardly find out from the by no means lucid