312 HUMANISM xvi 



Nothing could be more natural to him than that the 

 affirmation and the denial of Freedom should both be free 

 choices. As William James aptly says, &quot; Freedom ought 

 to be freely espoused by men who can equally well turn 

 their backs upon it.&quot; 



Nor is the philosophic situation we have reached a 

 paradox. It is quite in accord with the results of 

 examining other fundamental questions. It is becoming 

 clearer and clearer that ultimately our convictions every 

 where rest upon acts of faith and of choice, which make 

 demands upon the moral virtue of courage, and must 

 precede what is called the proof of their truth. The 

 fact that we must believe that we are free to some extent 

 and that our consciousness of choice is not delusive, and 

 so must choose Freedom rather than Necessity, does not 

 stand alone. We must, for example, have faith also and 

 must choose to believe that the world is orderly rather 

 than chaotic, in order to acquire the notion of the 

 uniformity of nature ; i.e. we must choose Science rather 

 than impotence. We must choose to believe that our 

 experience is real and no dream, and that its incidents 

 are not the figments of a nightmare ; i.e. we must choose 

 a society rather than a solipsism. And lastly, we must 

 choose to believe that the struggle of life is worth living 

 and worth trying, and not worthless ; i.e. we must choose 

 a sort of optimism and not a pessimism. 



In none of these cases, perhaps, can our position be 

 established coercively against the contrary bias. For in 

 all of them we have to make our venture and to choose 

 our side, before we get the evidence which verifies and 

 confirms our choice. 



But what finer proof could there be of the fact that 

 the functions of our intellect are intimately bound up 

 with those of our will and our moral qualities, and that 

 our reason is designed to co-operate with our feelings 

 and our instincts, and not to hold stupidly aloof and to 

 criticize without understanding the dumb faiths of the 

 living creeds which guide man s responses to the require 

 ments of life ? 



