CH. XVII.] SOCIOLOGY AND FREE-WILL, 189 



and since all control over character is impossible unless de- 

 sires and volitions occur in a determinate order of sequence ; 

 it is the doctrine of lawlessness and not the causationist 

 doctrine which is incompatible with liberty and destructive 

 of responsibility. The rhetoric which Mr. Goldwin Smith 

 lavishes, on the strength of a set of misapplied phrases, might 

 therefore be justly retorted upon him, on the strength of a 

 psychologic analysis. And this, which is the conclusion of 

 science, we have seen to be also the conclusion of common ■ 

 sense. Whatever may be our official theories, we all practi- 

 cally ignore and discredit the doctrine that volition is lawless. 

 Whatever voice of tradition we may be in the habit of 

 echoing, we do equally, from the earliest to the latest day of 

 our self-conscious existence, act and calculate upon the 

 supposition that volition, alike in ourselves and in others, 

 follows invariably the strongest motive. And upon this 

 ineradicable belief are based all our methods of government, 

 of education, and of self-discipline. Finally, in turning our 

 attention to history, we have found that the aggregate of 

 thoughts, desires, and volitions in any epoch is so manifestly 

 dependent upon the aggregate of thoughts, desires, and 

 volitions in the preceding epoch, that even the assertors of 

 the lawlessness of volition are forced to commit logical suicide 

 by recognizing the sequence. Thus, whether we contemplate 

 volitions themselves, or compare their effects, whether we 

 resort to the testimony of psychology or to the testimony of 

 history, we are equally compelled to admit that Law is coex- 

 tensive with all orders of phenomena and with every species 

 of change. 



It is hardly creditable to the character of the present age 

 'or scientific enlightenment that such a statement should need 

 to be made, or that twenty-six pages of critical argument 

 should be required to illustrate it. To many this chapter will 

 no doubt seem much like an elaborate attempt to prove the 

 truth of the multiplication table. Nevertheless where such 



