COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



science presented none more difficult ! Con- 

 fused and inaccurate verbiage is responsible 

 for the chronic disputation upon this subject. 

 Nowhere else is Berkeley's complaint so thor- 

 oughly applicable, that in deahng with meta- 

 physics men first kick up a dust and then wonder 

 why they cannot see through it. Those who 

 have come to regard the question from a purely 

 scientific point of view also regard it as thor- 

 oughly settled; and the need for refuting such 

 arguments as the one above cited, they class 

 among the needs, too often thrust upon us, 

 of refuting fallacies already thrice exploded. In 

 illustration of this, let us notice the theory which 

 the free-will argument implies concerning the 

 nature of volition. 



The theory implies that over and above par- 

 ticular acts of volition, there is a certain entity 

 called " The Will," which is itself a sort of per- 

 sonage within the human personality. This en- 

 tity, called " The Will," is supposed to have 

 desires and intentions of its own, which the 

 causationists are supposed to declare constantly 

 liable to be frustrated by external agencies. In 

 opposition to this imaginary heresy, it is as- 

 serted that this autocratic Will is " free," and, 

 sitting in judgment over " motives," may set 

 aside the stronger in favour of a weaker, or may 

 issue a decree in defiance of all motives alike. 

 Some such crude conception as this is implicitly 

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