320 ESSAYS AV PHILOSOPHY 



without motive, without the influence of plan or 

 purpose, whimsically, incalculably, in disconnexion 

 unforeseen and unpredictable. There is no possible 

 reconciliation, that is to say, if will in the free- 

 agent is conceived as simply self-will or mere arbi- 

 triiini, a sheer " first cause " as mere power, not 

 only underived, but unreasoning and unreasonable, 

 inexplicable, and in fact meaningless. In such a 

 case there could be nothing definite ; things would 

 be reduced to indeterminism and chaos, which would 

 in truth be simply non-existence. 



(4) So the conciliability of determinism and free- 

 dom depends on the fact, if this be a fact, that 

 determinism simply means definitcncss (instead of 

 constraining foreordination), while freedom means 

 (instead of unpredictable whim) action spontaneously 

 flozving from the definite guiding intelligence of the 

 agent himself In short, the desired harmony will 

 fail unless the determinism and the freedom are 

 both alike defined in terms of the one and identi- 

 cal definiteness of the rational nature ; but it will 

 be secured if they can be so defined, and are. 



Let us proceed, then, to settle whether this simple 

 definiteness may not be the sufficing sense of de- 

 terminism, and whether action really free may not 

 remain when the utter indeterminism of caprice or 

 chance is taken away. 



