SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-WILL 



tlon between the act and the motive, which yet 

 is not a causal connection. Such connection, if 

 it exist, must be a case either of conditional in- 

 variable sequence, or of unconditional invaria- 

 ble sequence. On the first supposition, we have 

 a case like the succession of day and night, in 

 which both terms of the sequence are condi- 

 tioned upon a third fact ; so that here we do 

 not escape causation. The second supposition 

 is but an assertion of causation in other words. 

 While to take refuge in the postulate that this 

 assumed connection is a case of variable se- 

 quence is to affirm and deny connection in the 

 same breath. 



But it is said that consciousness declares the 

 Will to be free ; and therefore that any attempt 

 to disprove its freedom by reasoning is suicidal, 

 since all such reasoning must end by impugn- 

 ing the veracity of that consciousness on which 

 its own data are ultimately based. An ingenious 

 argument truly, the conclusion whereof would 

 be more readily admitted if its premise were 

 true. Consciousness, which is so confidently 

 appealed to as establishing by its infallible ver- 

 dict the doctrine of free-will, in fact says no- 

 thing about the matter. That volitions are un- 

 caused is a proposition altogether too indirect 

 for consciousness to sit in judgment upon, and 

 it can neither be proved nor disproved by sim- 

 ple introspection. It would have been equally 

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