208 



at variance with that benevolent necessity displayed in the 

 progressive evolutions of the correspondence between the 

 organism and its environment.''''* This clearly indicates that 

 Mr. Spencer^s idea of law is simply that of " necessity.''^ 

 Only he says benevolent necessity ■'■' ! What can he mean by 

 the use of such an adjective ? Benevolent is really good- 

 wiUing, and luilling necessitij, I confess^ is to me a refractory 

 phrase_, whether the willing is good^ bad^ or indifferent. If I 

 understand the word at all_, necessity can be neither bene- 

 volent nor malevolent ; it cannot be volent at all, any more 

 than ^es ''^ can be " yio." Moreover, it cannot be " law/^ 

 for it admits of no breach/^ nor does it admit of obedience.''^ 

 Necessity has no law is an irresistibly evident proverb. No 

 doubt, Mr. Spencer dreads the admission of that which would 

 make his works sheer nonsense ; but the heavens might 

 not fall even if that calamity should come. A good many 

 authors, and their readers too, would still see sense in those 

 works, which contend that volitions in very many cases do not 

 conform to benevolent law. 



I, for one, am greatly easy as to the fate of necessitarian 

 psychology when I venture to think that true law not only 

 may, but must, involve free-will ; in other words, it must be 

 a part of, at least, benevolent law that there should be true 

 freedom. It surely may be one of the decrees, and as fixed 

 and irrevocable a decree as any other, that within certain 

 limits, a scope of action shall be provided for minds, so that 

 they shall be truly free to conform to benevolent order, and 

 so to act in breach of it. If a philosopher declines to see that 

 this is the case in reality, and is no illusion,^^ it furnishes 

 only another instance of human folly which will sometimes 

 show itself even in the very greatest.^'' Books must be very 

 bare of sense if the admission of such an idea converts them 

 into nonsense. 



There is a remarkable tendency to leave out by far the most 

 important fact in an argument manifest in a certain class of 

 minds. We have an illustration of this in the case of Professor 

 Tyndall, when speaking of matter and force,''^ and one which 

 is to the point in our present subject. Look at him performing 

 an experiment before a meeting of working men, and you will 

 see what I mean. He takes a drop of water, in which a crystal 

 has been dissolved, and places it on a piece of perfectly clean 

 glass. t Listen to what he says, and notice how completely 

 he forgets himself. He is the only efficient cause in the case ; 



* Principles of Psychology, p. 620. f See Fragments of Science, p. 84. 



