HUMAN FREEDOM 427 



of human freedom has been one-sided, since it has recognized 

 the conclusions of science but disregarded the dictates of 

 introspection. The modern solution demands that these 

 data be admitted as of equal significance. 



From these premises only one conclusion follows. When 

 I examine my own consciousness I find that its essential 

 feature is volition. "We may now feel quite satisfied that 

 the volition is genuine. The materialist view was that the 

 motions which appear to be caused by our volition are 

 really reflex actions controlled by the material processes in 

 the brain, the act of will being an inessential side phenom- 

 enon occurring simultaneously with the physical phe- 

 nomena. But this assumes that the result of applying 

 physical laws to the brain is fully determined. ... If the 

 laws of physics are not strictly causal the most that can be 

 said is that the behavior of the conscious brain is one of the 

 possible behaviors of a mechanical brain. Precisely so; and 

 the decision between the possible behaviors is what we call 

 volition. ... At some brain center the course of behavior 

 of certain atoms or elements of the physical world is directly 

 determined for them by the mental decision — or, one may 

 say, the scientific description of that behavior is the metrical 

 aspect of the decision." * 



Unfortunately the meaning here is none too clear. Appar- 

 ently what Eddington has in mind is something like the fol- 

 lowing: By virtue of the principle of indeterminacy the 

 occurrence of a particle in a given state is unpredictable, 

 i.e., the anterior state is ascertainable only by knowing both 

 position and velocity of the particle — which is impossible. 

 If one argues from this fact to objective indeterminism he 

 concludes that any state of a particle may occur without 

 cause, i.e., without physical cause. Now let us suppose that 

 the particle in question is a brain particle. Any given state 

 of this particle may occur without physical cause, i.e., with- 

 out anterior brain-state. But introspection is a witness to 

 the fact that a brain particle has an inner nature which 



» Ibid., pp. 311-312. 



