SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-WILL 



of by the same definition scarcely needs point- 

 ing out. Yet for the sake of still greater clear- 

 ness, our present results may fitly be supple- 

 mented by a new class of considerations. 



That volitions differ from all other pheno- 

 mena by their capability of occurring without 

 any cause is the opinion of the free-will phi- 

 losophers; and Mr. Smith, in criticising the con- 

 trary opinion, remarks that "if comets formed 

 their own future" (/'. e. were endowed with 

 volition), " they would be rather embarrassing 

 subjects of science." Without attempting to 

 decipher the vagaries in which these cosmical 

 bodies might in such case take it upon them- 

 selves to indulge,^ it will be enough for my 

 present purpose to point out some of the shoals 

 on which the free-will doctrine must land its de- 

 fenders. If volitions arise without cause, it ne- 

 cessarily follows that we cannot infer from them 

 the character of the antecedent states of feeling. 

 If, therefore, a murder has been committed, we 

 have a priori no better reason for suspecting 

 the worst enemy than the best friend of the 



1 In point of fact a comet does '* form its own future ** in 

 the same way that a man does. The state of a heavenly body 

 at any given moment is a product, partly of the forces, molar 

 and molecular, with which it was endowed at the preceding 

 moment, and partly of the forces simultaneously exerted upon 

 it by environing heavenly bodies. The case of human volition 

 differs from this in nothing save the number and complexity, 

 and consequent relative incalculableness, of the forces at work. 

 0.6^ 



