COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



murdered man. If we see a man jump from a 

 fourth-story window, we must beware of too 

 hastily inferring his insanity, since he may be 

 merely exercising his free-will ; the intense love 

 of life implanted in the human breast being, as 

 it seems, unconnected with attempts at suicide 

 or at self-preservation. We can thus frame no 

 theory of human actions whatever. The count- 

 less empirical maxims of every-day life, the em- 

 bodiment as they are of the inherited and or- 

 ganized sagacity of many generations, become 

 wholly incompetent to guide us ; and nothing 

 which any one may do ought ever to occasion 

 surprise. The mother may strangle her first- 

 born child, the miser may cast his long trea- 

 sured gold into the sea, the sculptor may break 

 in pieces his lately finished statue, in the pre- 

 sence of no other feelings than those which be- 

 fore led them to cherish, to hoard, and to create. 

 To state these conclusions is to refute their 

 premise. Probably no defender of the doctrine 

 of free-will could be induced to accept them, 

 even to save the theorem with which they are 

 inseparably wrapped up. Yet the dilemma can- 

 not be avoided. Volitions are either caused, or 

 they are not. If they are not caused, an inex- 

 orable logic brings us to the absurdities just 

 mentioned. If they are caused, the free-will 

 doctrine is annihilated. No help is afforded by 

 the gratuitous hypothesis that there is a connec- 

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