xvi FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY 297 



II 



We have shown so far not only that it is grossly in 

 consistent in a Determinist to propose to reform the world, 

 but also that he could not act, either rationally or at all, 

 except on the assumption of Freedom. But we made no 

 attempt to explain either the truth contained in Deter 

 minism and the reason of its plausibility, or the real 

 nature of Freedom, nor did we try to answer the case 

 against Freedom as it is commonly presented. The whole 

 question, consequently, seems to have been left in a 

 thoroughly inconclusive and unsatisfactory condition. 



We may now begin by considering the truth in 

 Determinism. Why is it that we all so frequently assume 

 that the future is fixed, that events can be calculated 

 beforehand, and that predictions can be made which will &amp;lt; 

 come true ? Why is it that so many philosophers go 

 further still and assume that all events are in this way 

 fully determined, and regard the idea that any event 

 should still be indeterminate, uncertain, incalculable or as 

 they technically say contingent, as fatal to science and 

 as the very height of irrationality and absurdity ? 



The answer to this question will easily be found by 

 any one who has trained himself to note that the truths 

 we assume are always relative to some purpose in 

 which we are interested, and are not asserted aimlessly 

 and at random. Now mankind has always been intensely 

 interested in forecasting the future for the best and most 

 cogent of reasons. For had we been unable to devise 

 methods of prediction, we should have remained the 

 helpless sports of circumstance. It is very unlikely that 

 we could have survived, and it is certain that we could 

 not have prepared for and controlled the course of 

 experience, even to the extent we now can. Hence 

 foreknowledge of the future is man s capital achievement, 

 an achievement of the greatest practical and vital value. 

 Man is distinctively the animal that looks before and 

 after, that observes the present, and studies the past, in 



