Nature and Freedom. 73 



assuming that the miracle is a violation of law. If this were the 

 case, then the contrast between the free subject, and the passive 

 object in which we always discover law, would be greater. But 

 exemption from law would be irrational, immoral, blind chance, 

 precisely what the soul is not. But this freedom is consciously 

 and intelligently taking to one's self a law which, as the " catego- 

 rical imperative," is reason's universal law, this free self-discovery. 

 It is by this that we are brought into due relation to the world 

 of rational beings, and freely take our place among them, citizens, 

 not slaves, in that illustrious commonwealth. 



It is e^o, also, which discerns law in nature, and, by assenting 

 puts its free self under that, using nature's laws for its own ends 

 and purposes. Because freedom is not in nature, we could not 

 think of advising crystals how to form, nor of counseling the so- 

 ciety of bees, nor of exhorting the birds ; though we may sepa- 

 rate and combine the energies of these slaves of nature to serve 

 our plans. But because we believe that other men also have self- 

 freedom, and language utters free thought, we speak of rights, 

 justice, counsel, advice for free men. If sciences of nature have 

 no place for these, and I do not see that consiatentl}'' they have 

 any, then empirical, inductive sciences are not exhau.stive of truth; 

 and, instead of awkward attempts to insert them where they do 

 not belong, it would be better frankly to acknowledge the two- 

 sided aspect of the truth. 



2. It maybe objected that if a man's character, if all his ante- 

 cedents, circumstances, motives, were known, his actions could be 

 infallibly predicted, and, consequently, he is a part of nature, and 

 his mind wholly an object of scientific induction. 



But I reply : 



1. That this proposition itself is not a scientific induction from 

 observed facts. For these are only of the present ; the past is re- 

 tained by mind ; the future is not given at all. Neither in this 

 case can we verify our prophecies, and so confirm our hypothesis^ 

 since all turns upon an if. The subjective sphere to which the 

 objector refers is only known in our own consciousness ; so he 

 either begs the question, or asserts only that self, under these con- 

 ditions can predict its own acts. 



