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by the Will are undetermined — that all experiences are 
only votes given in favour of a certain .course — and that, be 
the voting what it may, the Will has a casting vote which 
can set aside any amount opposed to it, and by its simple 
decree compel the organisation to act as it pleases. To 
establish his proposition Mr. Spencer is bound to overthrow 
this doctrine. As we have seen, he has not advanced one 
real argument ; he has only made assertions. The advo- 
cates of Freedom can make counter-assertions, and, for all 
that Mr. Spencer has contributed, the matter stands where 
it was. 
11. In the next sentence there is the same unsupported 
statement. 
12. The next suggests that what he calls the subjective 
illusion that our will is free is strengthened by an objective 
illusion, produced by the extreme complexity of the amounts 
and directions of the motives that urge it, which complexity 
is such as to make its action incalculable ; and he shows that 
in proportion as material masses are acted upon by many 
forces do they move in a line which cannot be predicted, and 
hence they seem , to be free. Any trained scientific intellect 
will, I think, see the worthlessness of this argument. Every 
mathematician will say in a moment that if a million forces be 
acting on a body, it will obey the resultant of them all, — and 
that between this and freedom there is a difference as wide 
as logical contradictories can make it. 
No doubt the fiight of a bird through the air seems to be 
free ; but it seems so only to the untrained intelligence, and 
any one accustomed to the severities of scientific thought sees 
quite clearly that every movement of its wings is held in the 
bonds of fixed law as completely as a planet is held in its 
place in the heavens. Mr. SpenceFs is only an ad captandiim 
argument ; the illusion would impose on no student of science. 
13. Mr. Spencer then makes one final effort — a sort of 
closing charge, intended to sweep all opponents from the 
field, — he brings out one of his great generalisations, which 
are, as a rule, so far-reaching in their range and so penetra- 
ting and deadly in their sweep. Here, however, his artillery 
is loaded only with blank cartridge ; there is a great appear 
ance, but no force. He says, To reduce the general ques- 
tion to its simplest form : Psychical changes either conform to 
law, or they do not. If they do not conform to law, this work, 
in common with all works on the subject, is sheer nonsense ; 
no science of Psychology is possible. If they do conform 
to law, there cannot be any such thing as free-will.^^ 
This last sentence seems to show in what way Mr. Spencer 
