FATALISM OR FREEDOM 



What determines the selection of the 

 magnet by the mechanic who wishes to 

 find a handful of lost nails? He reflects 

 upon where he was working when he last 

 saw them, upon what he was doing, upon 

 the other events of the time and place. He 

 looks upon the floor and notices that it 

 has been swept. Where are the sweep- 

 ings? He hunts up the janitor's dust bin. 

 Are they in there? It will be a messy job 

 to find out. A moment's further reflec- 

 tion suggests a sieve, but none is handy. 

 As his eye roves over the shop it falls 

 upon the magnet. Just the thing! 



The cause of his choice of the magnet 

 is, of course, the total situation, but the 

 decisive factor was the "accident" of the 

 incidence of an image of the magnet upon 

 the man's retina at just that moment. If 

 the magnet had not been in the rack, if the 

 mechanic had overlooked it, or if he were 

 ignorant of the properties of magnets, this 

 choice would not have occurred. The 

 choice was not made by some extraneous 

 spiritual entity working upon or through 

 the man's body. It was made by his body 

 working in normal fashion in a particular 

 external situation. The fact that the on- 

 looker or the mechanic himself may have 



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