SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-WILL 



assertors of " Free-Will " maintain that causa- 

 tion is inconsistent with liberty." ^ The so- 

 called necessarians assert that liberty and causa- 

 tion are quite consistent with each other. To 

 which we must now add, that it is not causation, 

 but the absence thereof, which is as incompati- 

 ble with liberty as it is with law. 



For the causationist, believing that volition 

 invariably follows the stronger motive, endeav- 

 ours to increase the relative strength of all those 

 emotions whose outcome is virtuous and up- 

 right conduct, while he strives to weaken those 

 feelings whose tendency is toward base and ig- 

 noble conduct. Knowing that by continual in- 

 dulgence desire is reinforced, while by constant 



1 ** The law of bondage throughout the universe is the law 

 of cause and effect. In the violation, then, of this law, true 

 freedom must consist." Ferrier, Lectures and Philosophical 

 Remains f vol. ii. p. 255. One might expect such a remark 

 as this from Mr. Goldwin Smith, who speaks of being ** bound 

 by the chain of certain causation ; ' ' but from so acute a 

 thinker as Professor Ferrier, it is surprising. To adopt, in a 

 somewhat altered sense, Kant's happy illustration, — the spec- 

 tacle of a bird denouncing as an encumbrance the air by which 

 alone it is enabled to fly would be a fitting parallel to the 

 spectacle of those philosophers who decry that regularity of 

 sequence through which alone has ** freedom " any meaning. 

 As Lessing long ago said, with well-bestowed contempt, ** Le 

 beau privilege d'etre soumis a une puissance aveugle qui ne 

 suit aucune regie ! En serait-je moins le jouet du hasard parce 

 que ce hasard residerait en mot ? ' ' 



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