Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/194

186 since they do differ so widely, they should be given different names, and we may call upon the determinist to avoid altogether, as other men do, the use of the term 'couldn't help' in the second sense. He may then say, without serious danger of being misunderstood, that the first prisoner at the bar couldn't help doing what he did, but that the second could have helped doing it if he had so elected. Without doing violence to the common use of speech, nay, strictly in accordance with common usage, he may declare that the one man was not free, but was under compulsion, while, on the other hand, the second man was free. He may very well do this without ceasing to be an out-and-out determinist.

Before going on with the topic which is the main interest of this paper, it is right that I should say just a word as to what determinism does not imply, it does not imply that all the causes which may be assumed to be the antecedents of human actions are material causes. A determinist may be a materialist, or he may be an idealist, or he may be a composite creature. As a matter of fact, there have been determinists of many different kinds, for the dispute touching the human will is thousands of years old; and the fact that the doctrine happens at the present time to be more closely associated in our minds with one of the 'isms' I have mentioned than with another, says little as to their natural relationship. Nor need the determinist necessarily be either an atheist, a theist, or an agnostic. He may, of course, be any one of these; but if he is, it will not be because of his determinism. As a determinist he affirms only the universal applicability of the principle of sufficient reason—the doctrine that for every occurrence, of whatever sort, there must be a cause or causes which can furnish an adequate explanation of the occurrence. I say so much to clear the ground. It is well to remember that materialists have been determinists, idealists have been determinists, atheists have been determinists, theologians have been determinists. The doctrine is not bound up with any of the differences that divide these, and it should not be prejudged from a mistaken notion that it necessarily favors the position taken by one of these classes rather than that taken by another. We may approach it with an open mind, and make an effort to judge it strictly on its own merits.

But to judge it on its own merits, the very first requisite is to purge the mind completely of the misconception that the 'freedom' of the will, or indeterminism, has anything whatever to do with freedom in the ordinary sense of the word—freedom from external compulsion. Here I sit at my desk; my hand lies on the paper before me; can I raise it from the paper or not, just as I please? To such a question, both determinist and indeterminist must give the same answer. Of course I can raise it or not, as I please. Both must admit that I am free in