86 BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF HUMAN PROBLEMS 



epigrammatically expressed this view when he said : 

 "Our feeling of free will is but ignorance of the causes 

 that make us act." 



This is frankly fatalistic doctrine, but it need not 

 be either blind or depressing. On the contrary, I 

 believe a scientific fatalism to be both enlightening 

 and encouraging to serious natures. If it brings 

 sobering influences into life, which in some degree 

 dissipate the cloud effect of Yoganidra, it carries 

 compensations in the form of increased efficiency, 

 greater understanding, and, above all, greater toler- 

 ance of the faults and sins of the human race. It is 

 worth while to consider briefly the doctrine of scien- 

 tific fatalism in some of its relations to our individual 

 conduct and to the conduct of other people. 



When an educated individual of mature years 

 looks back on his career, it is inconceivable that he 

 should not recall many thoughts and acts which he 

 would wish to have been otherwise. According to 

 his temperament and training, he will regard the 

 mistakes of the past with the equanimity of the man 

 of affairs who has learned to lose no energy in vain 

 regrets, or will suffer periods of depression from 

 disgust with the failure to attain a higher level of 

 thought and action. There exists always the pos- 

 sibility that a philosophical attitude cognizant of the 

 fatalistic elements that underlie and govern every 

 life will aid in reaching such higher levels in future 

 experience. The elements which demand recogni- 

 tion are those which have been already mentioned. 



