Page:Philosophical Review Volume 9.djvu/686

670 creates for itself. Imitation supplies the element of continuity, intelligence that of progress. The transition from the lower animals, in which organic evolution prevails, to the Anglo-Saxon race of to-day, among whom evolution is of the social type, has been gradual. Therefore, if our two early conclusions were right, it follows that the conditions of human progress must be sought in the evolution of human achievement, and in the influence of this environment on the individual during his period of greater plasticity.

This article, although nominally written in connection with "some modern ethical works," and setting out with a discussion of Traeger's Wille, Determinismus, Strafe (1895), is really a defence of Determinism. The author admits at the outset that it is impossible from the nature of the case to furnish a final demonstration of one side or the other. After a discussion of the nature of causality and its application to mental phenomena, he considers in detail the objections which are usually brought against the deterministic standpoint. The objections considered are: (1) that determinism tends to regard the mental life of man as a purely mechanical occurrence, and thus to lead to fatalism; (2) that it destroys practical freedom; (3) that it is unable to explain the feeling of freedom which everyone finds as an indisputable fact in his consciousness; (4) that determinism undermines morality, that without freedom of the will there is neither good nor evil, duty nor fault, neither remorse nor conscience, punishment nor sin. After a careful and detailed discussion, the author finds that these objections, one and all, rest upon misunderstandings, and are entirely without weight.

J. E. C.