10 



by the Will are undetermined that all "experiences" are 

 only votes given in favour of a certain course and that, be 

 the voting what it may, the Will has a casting vote which 

 can set aside any amount opposed to it, and by its simple 

 decree compel the organisation to act as it pleases. To 

 establish his proposition Mr. Spencer is bound to overthrow 

 this doctrine. As we have seen, he has not advanced one 

 real argument; he has only made assertions. The advo- 

 cates of Freedom can make counter-assertions, and, for all 

 that Mr. Spencer has contributed, the matter stands where 

 it was. 



11. In the next sentence there is the same unsupported 

 statement. 



12. The next suggests that what he calls the subjective 

 illusion that our will is free is strengthened by an objective 

 illusion, produced by the extreme complexity of the amounts 

 and directions of the motives that urge it, which complexity 

 is such as to make its action incalculable ; and he shows that 

 in proportion as material masses are acted upon by many 

 forces do they move in a line which cannot be predicted, and 

 hence they seem to be free. Any trained scientific intellect 

 will, I think, see the worthlessness of this argument. Every 

 mathematician will say in a moment that if a million forces be 

 acting on a body, it will obey the resultant of them all, and 

 that between this and freedom there is a difference as wide 

 as logical contradictories can make it. 



No doubt the flight of a bird through the air seems to be 

 free ; but it seems so only to the untrained intelligence, and 

 any one accustomed to the severities of scientific thought sees 

 quite clearly that every movement of its wings is held in the 

 bonds of fixed law as completely as a planet is held in its 

 place in the heavens. Mr. Spencer's is only an ad captandum 

 argument ; the illusion would impose on no student of science. 



13. Mr. Spencer then makes one final effort a sort of 

 closing charge, intended to sweep all opponents from the 

 field. He brings out one of his great generalisations, which 

 are, as a rule, so far-reaching in their range and so penetra- 

 ting and deadly in their sweep. Here, however, his artillery 

 is loaded only with blank cartridge ; there is a great appear- 

 ance, but no force. He says, " To reduce the general ques- 

 tion to its simplest form, Psychical changes either conform to 

 law, or they do not. If they do not conform to law, this work, 

 in common with all works on the subject, is sheer nonsense ; 

 no science of Psychology is possible. If they do conform 

 to law, there cannot be any such thing as free-will." 



This last sentence seems to show in what way Mr. Spencer 



