CAUSE AND EFFECT— PROBABILITY 125 



a routine of perceptions, but merely as a secondary cause 

 or intermediate link in the chain. The " freedom of the 

 will " lies in the fact that exertion is conditioned by our 

 own individuality, that the routine of mental processes 

 which intervenes between sense-impression and exertion 

 is perceived physically neither by us nor by any one else, 

 and psychically by us alone. Thus will as the first cause 

 of a sequence of motions explains nothing at all ; it is 

 only a limit at which very often our power of describing 

 a sequence abruptly terminates. 



So much is this recognised by modern science, that 

 special branches of it are entirely devoted to describing 

 the sequences of secondary causes, the routine which 

 precedes special determinations of the will. Science tries 

 to describe how will is influenced by desires and passions, 

 and how these again flow from education, experience, 

 inheritance, physique, disease, all of which are further 

 associated with climate, class, race, or other great factors 

 of evolution. Thus, with the advance of our positive 

 knowledge, we come more and more to regard individual 

 acts of will as secondary causes in a long sequence, as 

 stages in a routine which can be described — stages, how- 

 ever, at which the routine changes its at present knowable 

 side from the psychical to the physical. An act of will 

 thus appears as a secondary cause, and no longer as an 

 arbitrary first cause. Evil acts flow indeed from an anti- 

 social will, and as hostile to itself society endeavours to 

 repress them ; but the anti-social will itself is seen as a 

 heritage from a bad stock, or as arising from the condi- 

 tions of past life and training. Society begins more and 

 more to regard incorrigible criminals as insane, and slight 

 offenders as uneducated children. 



From the standpoint of science no two brains are alike, 

 the complexity of the parts and of their commissures 

 differs from individual to individual ; it is due to heritage, 

 to training, to experience. This difference constitutes the 

 mental individuality of a man, when we view it from the 

 psychical side. From the physical side we can in part 

 only describe its action and link its centres and com- 



