O16 ARCHDEACON B. POTTER, M.A., ON 
If, however, the human will is something different from these, this 
is merely false analogy. 
(2) It is constantly assumed that if a motive is to be a cause at 
all it must be an irresistible one. This is “begging the question.” 
[This fallacy seems to be present on p. 299, and in other places in 
the paper. ] 
(3) The immediate consciousness of freedom (especially when it 
is supported by the whole practical experience of the human race, as 
shown in praise, blame, repentance or remorse) must be infinitely 
less liable to error than any roundabout calculations of probability. 
(4) As to some details : 
(a) On p. 299. “ But where the education is effective,” etc., 
appears to be obscurely thought out. There is no mark of 
a thing being effective except that it acts. So that the 
sentence appears to me equivalent to ‘‘ When the result 
follows, the result does follow.” 
I do not think that those who have had much to do 
with boys will feel that there is any certainty as to the 
eff ct on them of their (moral) education. This uncertainty 
is thought by ordinary persons to depend on their choosing 
or not chvosing to go the best way. And this really does 
not seem an unreasonable explanation. 
(>) Judgment of character (p. 301) is not really an exact science 
at all. I know no one who has not made or does not 
make mistakes in judging it. [There is here, one would 
think, an indication of the presence of an incalculable 
element. | 
The argument from history is not really sound at all. 
If one person chooses energy and another one slackness, 
the choice of one neutralises the choice of the other, and 
thus the choice is eliminated, leaving the balance of other 
causes to act in the nation asa whole. But in any case 
prediction in history has been so often wrong, and is so 
uncertain that it appears quite too unsound to contribute 
to the argument. 
(c) I do not think that the criticism of Illingworth on p. 306 
issound. It would only be necessary for Illingworth to go 
back a step or steps further. It is quite possible to contend 
that the man’s character is formed at various points, by 
