530 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



all ? or may we assume that he does so because it seems to him at least 

 a plausible one ? If he says what he does just 'because he does,' it is, of 

 course, useless to argue with him. He is not what we call a rational 

 being, and is not moved to embrace this or that conviction by evidence. 

 But^ being myself a determinist, I will be more generous with him 

 than he is with himself, and Avill maintain that he is not so wholly un- 

 reasonable as he represents himself to be. I will look for some motive 

 which may explain why he takes so strange a position. 



A very little reflection upon what 'free-willists' have written reveals 

 that that motive is not far to seek. It is the old confusion of indeter- 

 minism, or 'freedom' in a special sense of the word, with freedom in the 

 usual sense, freedom from compulsion. No man in his senses thinks of 

 praising or blaming any one for acts performed under compulsion. If a 

 stronger than Tommy seizes his small hand, forces his fingers to close 

 upon a key and turn it, pries open his mouth and fills it with jam, no 

 sane parent would dream of punishing the involuntary offender. And 

 if a stronger hand catches the boy as his fingers are stealing towards 

 the lock, and drags him forcibly away from the fascinating spot, no 

 one but a fool would regard the precipitate retreat as a triumph of 

 virtue that calls for the crown of some substantial reward. It may 

 or may not be a desirable thing to be born with red hair, but surely no 

 one will maintain that it is a creditable thing. When he is acting under 

 compulsion, Tommy's actions are no more a matter of choice than 

 is the color of his hair, and we recognize this fact in judging him. 

 On this point all classes of moralists are agreed — actions can be credit- 

 able or discreditable only if they are voluntary, or only if the actor 

 is free. 



We ought never to forget, however, that freedom in this sense of the 

 word means only freedom from compulsion, a freedom to act out the 

 impulses inherent in one's own nature. It is a totally different thing 

 from 'freedom,' that philosophical fiction that has played so large a 

 part in polemical literature. But it is easy to confuse things that pass 

 by the same name, and when the 'free-willist' hurls at us the contemp- 

 tuous question : 'Do you mean to assert that there can be any credit for 

 actions which we do not freely do?' we too often make haste to affirm 

 that there cannot be, without stopping to ask him whether he means the 

 word freely to be understood with or without the quotation marks. He 

 himself fails to perceive that the word is ambiguous; and seeing, as 

 we all do, that only free actions are deserving of credit, he makes this 

 true of 'free' actions. He thus comes to deny credit to every action that 

 is not causeless. It is evident that he has no good reason for such an 

 assertion, but he has at least a reason ; he has simply fallen into a con- 

 fusion, and to do this is human, while to embrace a doctrine 'freely,' 

 or for no reason at all, appears positively inhuman. 



