Will and Guidance 173 



yet a theory of life we have not even a 

 theory of the essential nature of gravita- 

 tion ; discoveries are waiting to be made 

 in this region, and it is absurd to sup- 

 pose that we are already in possession of all 

 the data. We can wait ; but meanwhile 

 we need not pretend that because we do not 

 understand them, therefore life and will can 

 accomplish nothing ; we need not imagine 

 that "life" with its higher developments 

 and still latent powers is an impotent 

 nonentity. The philosophic attitude, surely, 

 is to observe and recognise its effects, both 

 what it can and what it cannot achieve, and 

 to realise that our present knowledge of it is 

 extremely partial and incomplete. 



Note on Free Will and Foreknowledge. 



In the above chapter I must not be understood 

 as pretending to settle the thorny question of a 

 reconciliation between freedom of choice and pre- 

 determination or prevision. All I there contend 

 for is that no mechanical or scientific determinism, 

 subject to special conditions in a limited region, 



