436 INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 



edge which might be overcome if the individual intelligence 

 were suitably increased." ! "Such an attempt is condemned 

 to failure in advance because every application of the law of 

 causality to the will of the individual and every information 

 gained in this way is itself a motive acting upon the will, so 

 that the result which is being looked for is continually being 

 changed." 2 Applying the general principle noted above, 

 "the nearer we are to the events of our own personal expe- 

 rience the more difficult it is for us to study ourselves in the 

 light of these happenings; for the activities of the observer 

 are here partly the object of research and, in so far as that 

 is so, the causal connection is practically impossible to 

 establish." 3 "We cannot possibly study ourselves at the 

 moment or within the environment of any given activity. 

 Here is the place where the freedom of the will comes in 

 and establishes itself, without usurping the right of any ri- 

 val." 4 "The impossibility of foretelling the subject's actions 

 on purely causal lines is not based on any lack of knowledge, 

 but on the simple fact that no method by whose application 

 the object is essentially altered can be suitable for the study 

 of this object." 5 



If this be freedom, it is freedom of a different kind from 

 that demonstrated by Eddington and Compton. It is not a 

 freedom which is based upon the efficacy of a factor which 

 eludes physical analysis and which is itself not the result of 

 any physical processes. Nor is it a freedom which is self- 

 determination. It is rather a freedom which is equivalent to 

 unpredictability. The self is free because no one short of an 

 omniscient being could ascertain the complete complex of 

 causal factors effective in a given situation. Man acts, 

 therefore, not without cause, but without anticipated knowl- 

 edge as to how he is to act. He is under the control of a causal 

 law, but it is transcendental not empirical. At the level of 

 his understanding, therefore, he is free. But to assert this 

 means no more than that his actions are unpredictable, for, 



1 Philosophy of Physics, p. 80. 2 Loc. cit. 3 Where Is Science Going?, p. 163. 

 4 Ihid. r p. 164. 5 Philosophy of Physics, p. 80. 



