Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/199

Rh determine the occurrence or non-occurrence of acts which are, by hypothesis, independent of what is contained in Tommy and his environment? Does she forget that she is raining her blows upon a 'free' agent? As well beat the lad to prevent the lightning from striking the steeple in the next block.

The utter absurdity of punishing a 'free' agent, in so far as he is a 'free' agent, must be apparent to every unprejudiced mind. It is unjust and it is useless. And it seems clear that it is equally useless to make an effort to persuade him. To what end shall I marshal all sorts of good reasons for not doing this or that reprehensible action? To what end shall I pour forth my torrent of eloquence, painting in vivid colors the joys of virtue and the varied miseries which lurk upon the path of the evil-doer? Are my words supposed to have effect, or are they not? If not, it is not worth while to utter them. Evidently they cannot have effect in determining 'free' actions, for such actions cannot be effects of anything. It seems, then, that Tommy's mother and his aunts and all his spiritual pastors and masters have for years approached Tommy upon a strictly deterministic basis. They have thought it worth while to talk, and to talk a great deal. They have done what all pedagogues do—they have adjusted means to ends, and have looked for results, taking no account of 'freedom' at all. Of course, in so far as Tommy upon a strictly deterministic basis. They have thought it worth of the melancholy situation of the man who finds himself the father of half a dozen little 'free-will' monsters who cannot possibly be reached either by moral suasion or by the rod!

It is a melancholy world, this world of 'freedom.' In it no man can count upon himself and no man can persuade his neighbor. We are, it is true, powerless to lead one another into evil; but we are also powerless to influence one another for good. It is a lonely world, in which each man is cut off from the great whole and given a lawless little world all to himself. And it is an uncertain world, a world in which a knowledge of the past casts no ray into the darkness of the future. To-morrow I am to face nearly a hundred students in logic. It is a new class, and I know little about its members save that they are students. I have assumed that they will act as students usually act, and that I shall escape with my life. But if they are endow r ed with 'free-will,' what may I not expect? What does 'free-will' care for the terrors of the Dean's office, the long green table, and the Committee of Discipline? Is it interested in Logic? Or does it have a personal respect for me? The picture is a harrowing one, and I drop the curtain upon it.

Fortunately for us all, 'freedom' is the concern of the philosophers; freedom is what we have to do with in real life. The judge, the philanthropist, the moralist, the pedagogue, all assume that man may be a free agent without on that account being forced beyond the pale into