Free Will 175 



recognition that " time," as it appears to us, is 

 really part of our human limitations. We all 

 realise that " the past " is in some sense not non- 

 existent but only past ; we may readily surmise 

 that " the future " is similarly in some sense 

 existent, only that we have not yet arrived at it ; 

 and our links with the future are less understood. 

 That a seer in a moment of clairvoyance may catch 

 a glimpse of futurity some partial picture of 

 what perhaps exists even now in the forethought 

 of some higher mind- is not inconceivable. It 

 may be after all only an unconscious and inspired 

 inference from the present, on an enlarged and 

 exceptional scale ; and it is a matter for straight- 

 forward investigation whether such prevision ever 

 occurs. 



The following article, on the general subject of 

 " Free Will and Determinism," reprinted from 

 the Contemporary Review for March 1904, may 

 conveniently be here reproduced : 



The conflict between Free Will and Deter- 

 minism depends on a question of boundaries. 

 We occasionally ignore the fact that there must 

 be a subjective partition in the Universe separating 

 the region of which we have some inkling of 

 knowledge from the region of which we have 

 absolutely none ; we are apt to regard the portion 

 on our side as if it were the whole, and to debate 

 whether it must or must not be regarded as self- 



