FREE WILL 



2326 



FREEZING 



of mankind. Competition in the open market 

 between the goods produced assures consumers 

 the best and cheapest terms. As most men, 

 in whatever branch of production they may 

 be engaged, are consumers of a great number 

 of purchased commodities, cheapness of these 

 commodities is of the utmost benefit to them. 

 As we see, free trade considers the question 

 from the point of view of the consumer, and 

 regards consumption of goods as the aim of 

 all production. 



To sum up, free trade maintains that in 

 order to secure the greatest abundance of 

 goods in the world as a whole and the greatest 

 benefit to the consumer there ought to be. 

 complete freedom of trade between the na- 

 tions. Those who believe in the policy of free 

 trade urge that no artificial barriers, in the 

 form of customs duties or other restrictions, 

 should be erected which will interfere with 

 the free exchange of goods between nations. 



The economic principles on which free trade 

 is based are undoubtedly sound, but it is a 

 question whether this policy is desirable in 

 the present state of unequal national develop- 

 ment. Many who accept free trade as a final 

 goal insist that its immediate application would 

 retard the development of skill-using manu- 

 facturing industries in the less-advanced coun- 

 tries, and cause them to remain too long 

 mere producers of food and raw materials, 

 missing the greater rewards which skill and 

 organization command. 



Moreover, the conduct of nations is not 

 determined simply by economic factors, how- 

 ever powerful these may be. Political and so- 

 cial considerations, such as national safety, 

 national defense, national economic independ- 

 ence, as well as national hatreds and jeal- 

 ousies, play just as important a role in the 

 choice made by a nation between the free 

 trade and the protective system. 



Under which system these aims could be 

 best attained has formed the subject of fierce 

 controversies, raging in almost every nation. 

 For the present most countries cling to the 

 protective system. For other arguments in 

 favor or against free trade, see the article 

 PROTECTION, in these volumes. E.A.R. 



Consult Cunningham's Rise and Decline of the 

 Free Trade Movement; Mathews' Taxation and 

 the Distribution of Wealth. 



FREE WILL, the power of human beings to 

 make deliberate choice in matters of conduct. 

 It implies that man is a free agent, able to 

 decide for himself which of several possible 



courses of action he shall adopt. The opposite 

 idea is that his choice is determined for him 

 by a series of causes over which he has no 

 control, such as outside circumstances, environ- 

 ment, heredity, moral influences, all his pre- 

 vious experiences and actions, his impulses, in- 

 stincts, habits and other internal motives. This 

 counter-theory is called determinism, and over 

 the two doctrines philosophers have disputed 

 long and fiercely from the time of the first 

 thinkers down to the psychologists of to-day. 



The controversy over predestination (which 

 see) took up the religious phase of the ques- 

 tion, but modern discussion concerns itself 

 almost exclusively with the ethical aspect. 

 Those who uphold the freedom of the will 

 rest their case chiefly upon the argument that 

 unless man is free to choose there is no value 

 or purpose in moral law, and no justice in 

 holding anyone responsible for his actions. 



An analysis of the controversy on the sub- 

 ject shows that in discussing the arguments 

 for and against free will the philosophers have 

 had in mind no fewer than six different kinds 

 of freedom, and much of the confusion can 

 be traced to the attempt to prove one mean- 

 ing of free will by facts properly related to an 

 entirely different meaning. Inevitably, how- 

 ever, the question of free will is one on which 

 there can probably never be perfect agreement. 

 See WILL; HEREDITY. 



FREEZ'ING, the process, not yet fully un- 

 derstood, which turns a liquid into a solid 

 when its temperature is sufficiently lowered. 

 Each substance has its own freezing point, 

 which is always the same under ordinary con- 

 ditions. Thus, the freezing point of water 

 is always 32 Fahrenheit a fact which is de- 

 pended upon in making a thermometer. Ex- 

 cept in mixtures and solutions, the freezing 

 point of the liquid is also the melting point of 

 the solid; so that ice again becomes water at 

 a temperature of 32. This is sometimes called 

 the point oj jusion. 



All fluids do not freeze at the same temper- 

 ature. Mercury, for instance, becomes solid at 

 about 39 below zero F., and for that reason 

 thermometers for exceedingly cold regions are 

 made with alcohol instead of mercury, since 

 alcohol does not freeze until it reaches a 

 temperature of 202 below zero F. Salt water 

 freezes at a lower temperature than fresh water. 

 The approximate temperature at which sea 

 water freezes, for instance, is 28.5 F., and 

 the more salt there is in solution, the lower 

 the freezing point drops. 



