PHILOSOPHY, THE GUIDE OF MENTAL LIFE 265 



would notice it. It would be succeeded by other equally fleeting 

 instants where molecular bombardment would actually add to the 

 fall of the brick. 4 



It will be observed that the principle of indeterminism as well 

 as the deductions from probability calculations are generally ap- 

 plicable to the "same time" or a "given instant." However, an 

 instant — mathematically, a point of time — has no more practical 

 existence for us than a point in space. What we term the "pres- 

 ent" is in reality the immediate past and the immediate future. 

 The "present" has become the "past" before our sensory and in- 

 tellectual apparatus can inform us what was then occurring, even 

 when aided by clever mechanical devices. 



Free Will 



Theology long ago advanced the metaphysical notion of pre- 

 destination or pre determinism, according to which an omniscient 

 and omnipotent God has decided, for all eternity, exactly what 

 will happen; and if everything was thus "foreordained," there is 

 really no such thing as free will. The philosophical and scientific 

 analog of predestination is the doctrine of determinism, according 

 to which physical events, whether on the outside or in the brain, 

 strictly necessitate the character of all human volition. If we ac- 

 cept this materialistic fatalism, probability and the physical prin- 

 ciple of indeterminism (Heisenberg) make man a mechanical auto- 

 maton, a helpless plaything of chance. On the other hand, the 

 doctrine of predeterminism makes man a helpless tool in the hands 

 of God or Fate (Kismet). 



Rebellion against this impasse appears in the quatrains of Omar 

 Khayyam: 



We are no other than a moving row 



Of Magic Shadoiu-shapes that come and go 



Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held 

 In Midnight by the Master of the Show. 



But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays 

 Upon this chequer-board of Nights and Days; 



Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays, 

 And one by one back in the closet lays. 



If man, like the billiard shark condemned in Gilbert's "Mi- 

 kado," must play extravagant matches, with fitless finger-stalls, 



