46 BULLETIN OF THE 



least one yet more striking example of the same kind. The ques- 

 tion of the freedom of the human will has, I believe? raged for cen- 

 turies. 'It cannot yet be said that any conclusion has been reached. 

 Indeed I have heard it admitted by men of high intellectual attain- 

 ments that the question was insoluble. Now a curious feature of 

 this dispute is that none of the cpmbatants, at least on the affirma- 

 tive side, have made any serious attempt to define what should be 

 meant by the phrase freedom of the will, except by using such terms 

 as require definition equally with the word freedom itself. It cam 

 I conceive, be made quite clear that the assertion, " The will is 

 free," is one without meaning, until we analyze more fully the differ- 

 ent meanings to be attached to the word free. Now this word has 

 a perfectly well-defined signification in every day life. We say that 

 anything is free when it is not subject to external constraint. We 

 also know exactly what we mean when we say that a man is free to 

 do a certain act. We mean that if he chooses to do it there is no ex- 

 ternal constraint acting to prevent him. In all cases a relation of 

 two things is implied in the word, some active agent or power, and 

 the presence or absence of another constraining agent. Now, when 

 we inquire whether the will itself is free, irrespective of external 

 constraints, the word free no longer has a meaning, because one of 

 the elements implied in it is ignored. 



To inquire whether the will itself is free is like inquiring whether 

 fire itself is consumed by the burning, or whether clothing is itself 

 clad. It is not, therefore, at all surprising that both parties have 

 been able to dispute without end, but it is a most astonishing 

 phenomenon of the human intellect that the dispute should go on 

 generation after generation without the parties finding out whether 

 there was really any difference of opinion between them on the 

 subject. I ventui'e to say that if there is any such difference, neither 

 party has ever analyzed the meaning of the words used sufficiently 

 far to show it. The daily experience of every man, from his cradle 

 to his grave, shows that human acts are as much the subject of ex- 

 ternal causal influences as are the phenomena of nature. To dis- 

 pute this would be little short of the ludicrous. All that the oppo- 

 nents of freedom, as a class, have ever claimed, is the assertion of a 

 causal connection between the acts of the will, and influences inde- 

 pendent of the will. True, propositions of this sort can be expressed 

 in a variety of ways connoting an endless number of more or less 

 objectionable ideas, but this is the substance of the matter. 



