350 THE REIGN OF LAW 



Positive vocabulary, but some other word is gene- 

 rally inserted before it, to prejudice the common 

 understanding of it, or to impart some element of 

 meaning which can with more plausibility be de- 

 nounced. Thus the Will which is denied in Nature 

 is often described as an " arbitrary " Will or a 

 " capricious " Will. But surely these qualifying 

 epithets do but add to the confusion. It is true, 

 indeed, that the Will we see in Nature is not a 

 capricious Will. But this is not the question. The 

 question is, whether there is, or is not, such a thing 

 possible as caprice in Will. If there be such a 

 thing as caprice, then the existence of it, and the 

 power of it " to control phenomena," cannot be 

 denied. If there be no such thing, then " capri- 

 cious " is of no meaning as an epithet applied to 

 Will. Caprice implies not only changeableness, 

 but, so to speak, a double degree of changeable- 

 ness — a changeableness which has no rule or 

 reason in its shiftings. It is a fact that there 

 are human Wills of this character, and the 

 mischief they have done in the world arises 

 from the power they possess, in common with 

 all other Wills, of changing phenomena after 



