LUCRETIUS AND THE ATOMIC THEORY 193 



of the universe. The modern believer in free-will will probably 

 adopt this view, which is certainly consistent with observation, 

 although not proved by it. Such a power of moulding circum- 

 stances, of turning the torrent to the right, where it shall 

 fertilise, or to the left, where it shall overwhelm, but in nowise 

 of arresting the torrent, adding nothing to it, taking nothing 

 from it, such is precisely the apparent action of man's will ; 

 and though we must allow that possibly the deflecting action 

 does but result from some smaller subtler stream of circumstance, 

 yet if we may trust to our direct perception of free-will, the 

 above theory, involving a power in man beyond that of atoms, 

 would probably be our choice. Lucretius chose the second 

 alternative as an exit from the difficulty : Atoms with strict 

 causation did exist, and free-will too. We will then grant 

 free-will to atoms, one and all, not in perpetual exercise, but at 

 quite uncertain times. The idea is startling, but not illogical, 

 and the form in which atoms are supposed to exercise their 

 free-will is quite unexceptionable. We cannot but admire the 

 audacity of the man who, called upon to grant free-will as a 

 tertium quid, either to man or to atoms, chooses the atoms 

 without a qualm. We do not agree with him, because observa- 

 tion has detected no such action on the part of atoms, or the 

 constituents of matter. 



We cannot hope that natural science will ever lend the least 

 assistance towards answering the Free-will and Necessity ques-* 

 tion. The doctrines of the indestructibility of matter and of 

 the conservation of energy seem at first sight to help the Neces- 

 sitarians, for they might argue that if free-will acts it must add 

 something to or take something from the physical universe, and 

 if experiment shows that nothing of the kind occurs, away goes 

 free-will ; but this argument is worthless, for if mind or will 

 simply deflects matter as it moves, it may produce all the con- 

 sequences claimed by the Wilful school, and yet it will neither 

 add energy nor matter to the universe. Lucretius thought 

 atoms acted thus ; we do not, because we observe no action of 

 the kind in matter, but, on the contrary, strict causation or 

 sequence of phenomena. Whether what we call mind act so 

 or not must also be a matter of observation, but as people have 

 not been able to agree as to the results of observation about 



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