HUMAN FREEDOM 



no clear awareness of the "accidental" 

 glimpse of the magnet in the rack or of 

 innumerable other factors in the causal 

 complex may lead to the belief that the 

 choice was "spontaneous" or uncaused. 

 But critical examination shows that it was 

 nothing of the sort. The inference that 

 it was a deterministic process throughout 

 is no more invalidated by our ignorance 

 of all of the details of the physiological 

 mechanism employed in seeing and think- 

 ing than is our belief that the magnet 

 itself is a natural mechanism invalidated 

 by the fact that we do not know the ulti- 

 mate nature of magnetism and electrons. 

 Does the man's intelligent selection 

 therefore differ in no significant way from 

 the magnet's unintelligent selection? It 

 does not differ by the addition of any 

 mystical or supernatural features or in 

 being less truly a natural process; but it 

 does differ by just this quality of intelli- 

 gence w^hich we have no evidence is there 

 in the case of the magnet. This we can 

 judge objectively by comparing the be- 

 havior of men and magnets. And if I am 

 the man in question I have experience of 

 the intelligence and of the wish and the 

 voluntary impulse directly. I do not ex- 



[69] 



