CHOICE AND CHANCE. 49 
The difficulty of reaching precise results is increased by the impossibility of 
«ur making precise measurements of the influences about which we are talking. 
A person of rather limited information, who might happen to observe that 
his butcher is sending him less and less beef for a quarter of a dollar, and who 
might incidentally learn that the earth’s mass is being constantly increased by the 
fall of meteoric matter upon its surface, might possibly argue that this apparent 
rise in beef is due to the fact that it requires less beef to pull the index of the 
spring-balance down to the one pound mark. The reasoning is perfectly correct, 
but when we come to measure the zw/ensity of the influence it is found entirely in- 
significant. Such a person would need to learn that there are many other potent 
influences that affect the price of beef. 
So in the difficult subjects which we have been discussing. 
There may be secret springs in the human mechanism of which we are all 
wholly ignorant, and we may attach undue importance to many influcnces. 
However this may be, it seems to me possible to imagine beings of a higher order 
of intelligence, having perfect knowledge of men physically, mentally, morally 
and spiritually, and capable of predicting all our future surroundings, and all our 
future decisions. Of course this has nothing whatever to do with the zature of 
mental or spiritual operations. We may agree that they are as unlike ‘‘ merely 
mechanical” operations as we please. The infinite Being, particularly if He be 
assumed to be a Creator, can trace out the future of a man with much gieater 
precision than a ‘‘mere”’ manufacturer can trace out the future of a watch. Al- 
though the latter may be able to predict approximately what his watch will do, 7 
properly treated, he cannot know how it will be treated. With infinitely greater 
precision an infinite mind could trace out the totally different class of phenomena, 
known as spiritual and mental operations. He would know that at a certain mo- 
ment some one of us will be surrounded with peculiar dangers and temptation ; 
he would know whether the man. will be able to deliver himself without external 
aid, (from either a human or a superhuman source) and he would know whether 
or not this aid will be given, and the precise effect which it will produce. If 
there are beings who mow the future orbits of men, as astromomers know approx- 
imately the future orbits of planets, the question at once arises, in what sense are 
men free to decide, as distinguished from the freedom of a planet to move? If 
amy being knows absolutely that an event will happen, seeing clearly ai of the 
acting causes, is there a single possibility that it may not happen? Would notits 
failure to happen be taken as proof positive that there was no such knowledge as 
was assumed ? 
It is of course possible for me to decide to do a thing, avd to decide not to 
do it, but it is not possbile to do these things simultaneously. They must come 
“successively, and each decision would be determined by the mental forces before 
‘discussed. Each decision could be predicted. One of these forces might arise 
rom a desire to avoid the conclusions which here seem to force themselves upon 
us, and lead to an attempt to exert the mind in a purely arbitrary manner. 
it Iv—4 
