VOLITION AND FBEE-WILL 217 



unvarying laws which prevail elsewhere throughout 

 the material universe. How then can the will claim 

 any principle of freedom which is not possessed by 

 their inseparable companions the latter ? 



The answer to this is that the physiological evi- 

 dence on which the determinist here relies does not 

 really bear on the question. All the experiments 

 on which the argument depends were made on ner- 

 vous tissues, which had been the slaves of memory 

 for millions of years ; and they were not made for the 

 purpose of testing the existence of free-will, but 

 to ascertain how the nervous system acted. To shew 

 that this is the case, we have only to remember that 

 nearly all the experiments have been made on 

 animals which are not supposed to have free-will. 

 The determinists have dragged these experiments 

 into the controversy without understanding their 

 meaning. However, before dismissing their argu- 

 ment as worthless, let us examine it. 



In the first place, are the mental and physical 

 processes equivalents? and are they such inseparable 

 companions as the argument tries to make out? 

 Certainly they are not. For in the absence of an 

 external stimulus the mind can make a similar re- 

 arrangement of the tissue of the brain without any 

 physical agent. A good description can bring an 

 idea before the mind so vividly that an impression 

 is made on the brain, similar to that which would 

 have been made if the object had been seen by the 

 eye. " Flower in the crannied wall." We read 

 the letters and we form a mental picture in the 

 brain, not of the letters but of the flower and the 



