322 ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



is definite, and essentially so ; that freedom cannot 

 mean indeterminism, and thence caprice or chance.^ 

 Our first step toward this is to realise that for 

 freedom's sake we may need to keep, as belonging 

 to the free being when all the factors of its life 

 are considered, both meanings of determinism as 

 these were just now found — the free definiteness 

 and the determinateness that is constrained. For 

 action, to be free, if concerned as our human action 

 is with a world of sensible particulars, must have 

 in that world a calculable order — unchangeably 

 calculable. There antecedent must be followed by 

 consequent with rigour incapable of variation. 

 Otherwise, and just so far as uncertainty of the 

 order exists, there is ignorance what to count upon, 

 there is risk of frustration : the actor is discon- 

 certed, perplexed, all at fault ; in so far, enslaved. 



On the other hand, in such a necessitated world 

 the actor cannot be free unless he is in conscious 



1 In his brilliant and memorable essay on " The Dilemma of Deter- 

 minism," Professor James chooses to state the doctrine of freedom in 

 terms of the word "chance." To be sure, he warns his readers that he 

 only intends by this to mark with emphasis the fact that the world 

 where the agent acts leaves him a "chance" {i.e. an opportunity') to 

 make himself effective in it, and to render its course difierent from 

 what it would be without his voluntary acts. But the word seems 

 time and again to ensnare him in its ambiguity, so that he often treats 

 freedom as if it meant caprice or mere Willkur. See The Will to 

 Believe, and Other Essays, pp. 145-183. New York and London: 

 Longmans, Green and Co., 1897. 



