SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-WILL 



nomena, already generalized for us by astrono- 

 mers, geologists, biologists and psychologists, we 

 know that neither at any time nor in any place 

 is law interfered with, — that yesterday, to-day 

 and forever, the effect follows the cause with 

 inevitable and inexorable certainty. And yet 

 we are asked to believe that in one particular 

 corner of the universe, upon the surface of one 

 little planet, in a portion of the organism of one 

 particular creature, there is one special pheno- 

 menon called voHtion, in which the law of cau- 

 sation ceases to operate, and everything goes 

 helter-skelter ! 



Such is the demand which Mr. Froude makes 

 upon our powers of acquiescence, and such is 

 the theory which Mr. Goldwin Smith, in the 

 interests of theology, pronounces it unphiloso- 

 phical, if not impious, for us to reject. Of the 

 Science of History, Mm Smith asserts that " it 

 extinguishes all sympathy ; " it " must put an 

 end to self-exertion ; " it " would dissolve the 

 human family ; " it makes man the most help- 

 less of animals, no better in fact than " a beast 

 or a blade of grass ; " it degrades humanity to 

 mere clay ; it establishes " a strange contradic- 

 tion between our outward observation and our 

 inward consciousness ; " it makes us " render up 

 our personality," and become "a mere link in 

 a chain of causation, a mere grain in a mass of 

 being ; " it builds up, " with much exultation," 

 253 



