FATALISM OR FREEDOM 



to eat and nourish our bodies or to diet 

 and reduce our weight. To follow the 

 lines of least resistance in the mental field 

 leads backward toward our biological 

 origins, toward bestial reversals; to make 

 full and intelligent use of our native en- 

 dowments looks forward toward richer 

 and freer life, to have life and to have it 

 more abundantly. And we do make these 

 choices. 



This power to choose, that is, to shape 

 our conduct in view of one out of several 

 possible future contingencies, is no super- 

 natural or miraculous endowment which 

 enables us to flout the laws of nature; it 

 operates within the natural realm and in 

 harmony with natural law. 



There is a widely current impression 

 that the recognition of this "power of 

 choice" or of making an intelligent selec- 

 tion of one out of several apparently pos- 

 sible ways of reacting to a situation implies 

 uncaused or lawless action. "Mystical 

 freedom," however, we have eliminated 

 from this discussion, and no one who in- 

 sists upon admitting it here can follow the 

 subsequent argument. Our "intelligent se- 

 lection" is not disorderly or lawless. 



Take the case of an unintelligent selec- 



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