” 
306 ARCHDEACON B. POTTER, M.A., ON 
largely so, who would venture to deny. But that man is by 
deeds of will also in some sort the creator of his own character 
and the moulder of society and of nature who would venture 
to refuse to admit.” Again he says, “the character of a self 
always includes choices and the results of the choices, in 
exercising which it has been self-determining. On a basis of 
inherited potentialities, and under a variety of influences from 
the total constantly changing environment and in a certain 
subjection to the principle of habit the self nevertheless pro- 
gressively determines its own character. Habit is strong, and 
its bonds often difficult to be broken; but habit itself is itself 
very largely a record of self-determining choices, a child of 
moral freedom.’ This all seems true, but is it comprehensible, 
for the original acts which produced habit were themselves the 
result of habits and character then existing. 
Illingworth puts it thus: “The freedom of the will does not 
mean the ability to act without a motive. But it does mean 
the ability to create, or co-operate in creating, our own motives, 
or to choose our motive, or to transform a weaker motive into 
a stronger by adding weights to the scale of our own accord, 
and thus to determine our conduct by our reason.” Again, 
“IT can present to my mind appetite, pleasure, utility, as 
objects to be attained, and choose between them, nor is it to 
the point to say I am determined by my character, for my 
character is only the momentum which I have gained by a 
number of past acts of choice.” Here this writer seems to 
forget that these past acts of choice were influenced by 
previously existing character and motive. Consequently, he 
is as far as ever from a definite conception of real free-will. 
Must we not then accept the position as the result of our 
deliberation, that the will is in some mysterious way both free 
and determined ; able to take part in shaping its own character, 
and yet in a sense the slave of previously existing character, 
and that although the truth of these apparently opposite facts 
is incomprehensible to the human intellect, it must nevertheless 
be accepted as a guide to human life. 
Professor Fowler seems to fall in with some such conclusion 
as this, when he says: “ Here then we seem to be on the con- 
fines of human knowledge, and to be compelled to recognize 
that in the sphere of human action, as well as in that of 
metaphysical speculation, there are apparent contradictions 
which we cannot reconcile. However unwillingly, we must 
perforce acquiesce in the limitation of our faculties.” Male- 
branche says: “La liberté est un mystere.” 
