HARMONY OF DETERMINISM AND FREEDOM 32 1 



As for determinism, it is clear that one of its 

 meanings is predestination — prescription from with- 

 out, inevitable and fatal. This is what we mean 

 by the "uniformity of nature" — the "law of causal- 

 ity," the "iron band of necessity," in the physical 

 world ; there the things and the events are bound 

 in a rigid order not originated by them, but com- 

 ing upon them from some higher source, which they 

 passively obey. Yet even this predestination is but 

 a species of definiteness ; and so, as definiteness 

 may be predestined and constrained, it is of course 

 a legitimate question whether there may not be 

 definiteness when the factor of constraint and edict 

 is taken away. Indeed, the imperative and con- 

 straining definiteness of physical fate implies some- 

 where an ultimate Defining Source, itself therefore 

 free, from which the constraining edict issues; and 

 this Source, as free and yet defining, must be self- 

 defined, must be itself perfectly definite though un- 

 constrained by anything else ; for tJie indeterminate 

 could not possibly confer deterininatencss Jtpon any- 

 thing. Thus there may be — rather, there must be — 

 such a fact as definiteness simply ; definiteness that 

 is not predestination, but is the definiteness involved 

 in self-determination. 



On the other hand, as to freedom, we have just 

 seen that in the last resort definiteness is free. It 

 remains for us to discover, conversely, that freedom 



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