from modern

cfcience am'
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/ ohn A O’Brien, Ph.D, LL.D.



Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2016

https://archive.org/details/iswillfreelightfOOobri



IS THE WILL FREE?

Light From Modern Science and Philosophy

By

John A. O’Brien, Ph.D., LL.D.

The University of Notre Dame

I. The Soul: What Is It?

II. Is the Will Free?

III. Shall We Live Again?

To deny the freedom of the will is to make morality

impossible.

—J. A. Froude, Short Studies : Calvinism.

THE PAULIST PRESS
401 West 59th Street

New York 19, N. Y.



Nihil Obstat:

Rev. T. E. Dillon,

Censor Librorum.

Imprimatur

:

© John Francis Noll, D.D.,

Bishop of Fort Wayne.

May 2, 1946.

Copyright, 1946, by

The Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle

in the State of New York

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED IN THE U. S. A.

BY THE PAULIST PRESS, NEW YORK, N. Y.

Deaetiiftecf



IS THE WILL FREE?

Where we are free to act , we are also jree to refrain

from acting, and where we are able to say No, we are also

able to say Yes.

—Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
,
Bk. Ill, ch. 5, sec. 2.

'T'HE foundation of man’s moral responsibility lies in

the freedom of the will. Upon this mighty truth

have been based our conceptions of reward and punish-

ment, our codes of ethics, and our system of laws with

all their varied sanctions, social, economic and penal.

This basic truth of philosophy and of psychology branches

out into ethics, natural theology, ontology, cosmology

and into all the departments of metaphysics. Its im-

portance can scarcely be over-estimated.

Its demonstration should logically determine one’s

theory of morality and one’s philosophy of life. It offers

striking evidence of the existence within man of a spir-

itual principle whose operations cannot be explained

by the pull and tug of material forces. Along with

the capacity of rational thought, it* constitutes the

basis of man’s unique dignity among all the creatures

of God.

Thousands of years ago Confucius recognized this

truth, when he thus proclaimed the inalienable endow-

ment of a free will: “The commander of the forces of a

large State may be carried off, but the will of even a

common man cannot be taken from him.” 1 Over in

ancient Greece, the mighty genius of Aristotle, after peer-

ing deeply into the springs of human conduct, etched

l Analects, Bk. IX, ch. 25.

[ 3 ]



deeply into his Nicomachean Ethics his conviction of

man’s untrammeled freedom. “Where we are free to act,”

he wrote, “we are also free to refrain from acting, and

where we are able to say No, we are also able to say Yes.”

Epictetus expressed the conviction of both Confucius and

Aristotle in the memorable utterance: “No one can rob

us of our free will.”
2

Among the philosophers of ancient Rome, we find the

wise Seneca proclaiming: “No action will be considered

blameless, unless the will was so, for by the will the act

was dictated.” Crystalizing the thought of the Romans,

comes to us the Latin proverb, whose origin is lost in the

mists of antiquity: Voluntas non potest cogi. (The will

cannot be forced.) The conception of the Anglo-Saxon

world finds expression in the classical lines of Milton’s

Paradise Lost .
3

Good he made thee, but to persevere.

He left it in thy power, ordained thy will

By nature free, not over-ruled by Fate

Inextricable, or strict necessity.

Lodged deeply in the mind of the race is the convic-

tion that man possesses liberty of the will and is re-

sponsible for his "actions.

Meaning of Free Will

Freedom of the will has sometimes been misunder-

stood and misrepresented. This has been true partic-

ularly in recent years. Much of the ostensible opposition

to it is really not against it, but against its caricatures.

Let us first remove these misconceptions by making clear

2 Discourses, Bk. Ill, ch. 22, awx. 105.

3 Bk. v. 1, 525.

[ 4 ]



what free will does not mean. It does not mean a cause-

less volition, a willing to do something for no motive

at all. This would be the characteristic not of a free

man but of an insane man. For only the latter acts for

no motive or reason. It is the mark of a rational person

to weigh reasons and motives and to choose the weightier

one.

Neither does free will mean that all of a person’s acts

are free. Many are not. Some are automatic, such as,

breathing and winking. Some are conditioned reflexes,

such as the knee jerk. Control over our thoughts seems

to cease in large measure during sleep. A long series

of thoughts may pass through our mind before we, by

an act of self-consciousness, avert to their indeliberate

and spontaneous character, and only then render them

deliberate and voluntary.

By will, or rational appetite in general, we mean the

faculty of inclining towards or striving after some object

intellectually apprehended as good. Free will may be

defined simply as the capacity of self-determination. It

means the power to choose between alternative courses

of conduct, the power to do an act or to refrain from

doing it. It affirms that the individual is not compelled by

external circumstances or by the internal forces of hered-

ity to make all his choices and issue all his volitions.

While these may profoundly influence him, and even in

some cases tip the scales in one direction or another, our

thesis contends that man is the master of his own decrees,

that he has the essential freedom to choose between vari-

ous alternatives, to do a thing or to refuse to do it. Free

will thus implies that volitions are freely exerted by the

Ego, by that spiritual principle which is back of man’s

cognitive and volitional acts, and which owes allegiance

to no sovereign under the sun.

It is to be noted that freedom implies the capacity to

[S]



conceive of an end of action and to choose the means

by which it may be attained. No being can be free,

unless he is capable of the perception of an end and of

the relation of the means to that end. Intelligence which

manifests itself in the perception of relations is thus seen

to be the joundation and the guarantee of freedom.

Freedom does not imply indifference to one end rather

than to another. Man is driven by his very nature to

seek happiness. Thus we are not free to will happiness

or not to will it. It is a necessary volition.

The means of achieving happiness, however, are by no

means perfectly clear. A great variety of means looms

up before the imagination. These the intellect can ex-

plore, and scrutinize the closeness of their relationship

with the end sought. Among these various means the

will can freely choose. Freedom manifests itself not

in choosing to be happy, but in choosing the means that

make one happy. This does not reduce freedom to a

mere question of intellectual discernment. For the search

for happiness involves the inhibition of desires and the

restraint of impulses driving to contrary ends. “Happiness

has so many forms/’ observes Prof. T. V. Moore, “and

human beings have so many desires, that to know happi-

ness and to seek it involves not only the power to under-

stand ends and the relation of means to ends but the

ability to drive the steeds in the chariot of human

nature.”
4

The Evidence From Consciousness

The first line of evidence which we shall present is

the direct testimony of our own consciousness. The

reasoning runs as follows:

4 Dynamic Psychology, p. 392.

[ 6 ]



That which consciousness universally testifies, within

the sphere of its legitimate jurisdiction, must be true.

Otherwise man would be deceived by his very nature, and

to distinguish between truth and error would be forever

impossible. But consciousness universally testifies to the

freedom of some of our actions. Therefore, they must

be free.

Our major premise affirms that in the domain of men-

tal phenomena consciousness is the ultimate court of ap-

peal. Beyond this neither the philosopher nor the psy-

chologist can go. Who can tell me as authoritatively and

as accurately concerning the character of my own choice

as my own consciousness? Who else is present to per-

ceive it and to testify to its precise character? Obviously

no one. Just as we are obliged in all philosophical in-

vestigations to grant the validity of the human mind to

know, so too are we obliged to concede the truth of that

which consciousness universally testifies. The failure

to recognize either of these two primary truths would

lead inevitably to the denial of knowing anything

whatsoever and would plunge mankind into universal

skepticism.

If any conclusions of philosophy or any generaliza-

tions of science appear to conflict with the immediate

truths of consciousness, they must be re-examined and

modified until they harmonize with the latter. If they

cannot be so harmonized, then they stand disproved. Such

generalizations are at best inferences reached by a process

of reasoning whose liability to error is generally in pro-

portion to the number of links in the chain. A scrutiny

of all such links, involving initial assumptions, alleged

facts, judgments, and inferences from such combinations

of principles and facts, and the final generalization, dis-

closes that none of them can claim an authority higher

than the direct and immediate testimony of consciousness.

[ 7 ]



No end result of such a lengthy and involved procedure,

with error besetting it at every step, can usurp the unique

authority of the immediate affirmation of consciousness.

The Testimony of All

Now for the minor premise. Here we can but affirm

the fact that our own consciousness clearly testifies to

the freedom of our volitions and that the testimony of

mankind is to the same effect. “Universal usage/
7

ob-

serves Prof. Thomas Dwight, “throughout civilization,

and indeed in uncivilization, tells us that in every detail

of intercourse among men we recognize the existence of

free will. The state of mind that denies it is not one of

enlightenment, but of muddleheadedness .”
5

Neither

riches nor the dungeon, neither the gallows nor the mar-

tyr’s fire, can coerce the naked soul of man. Wordsworth
(!

epitomizes all history when he says:

But who would force the Soul tilts with a straw

Against a Champion cased in adamant.

Why do the peoples of every land, regardless of race,

environment and civilization, affirm unhesitatingly that

certain actions are deserving of reward and others of

punishment? Why, in fact, do they actually administer

those rewards and punishments? Is it not because they

perceive that men are free to do such acts or not to do

them? If they perceived that they were compelled to

do them, and thus had no choice in the matter, they would

have no such sense of merit or blame.

Why does our country, in common with every other

country, confer awards for valor and gallantry in action

upon soldiers, sailors and aviators? Because she knows

5 Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist, p. 1SS.

§ Ecclesiastical Sonnets, Pt. Ill, 7.

[ 8 ]



that they were free to expose themselves to added dangers

to life and limb or not to do so. Otherwise they would

be no more worthy of reward, than the leader who deserts

his soldiers in the heat of battle, or the traitor who be-

trays his country for yellow gold. George Washington

and Benedict Arnold would differ not a whit in moral

character, in merit or in blame, if they were both mere

automata responding to the compulsions of forces within

or without them, and thus enjoyed no measure of freedom.

The conviction that men are free in deciding their course

of conduct is thus seen to be embodied in the laws of all

nations, in their remunerative and in their penal codes,

and to be mirrored in the ethical judgments of all man-

kind.

If an individual should persist, however, in affirming

that he is different from the rest of mankind in experienc-

ing no such consciousness of freedom in his choices, we

would make two observations.

First, we would point out that such an individual dif-

fering so radically from the rest of mankind might well

seek the attention of a psychiatrist. This would be par-

ticularly true if his statement, that he experienced no tes-

timony of consciousness as to the freedom of his actions,

was borne out by the repeated commission of actions, such

as stealing, setting buildings on fire, which he morally

disapproved, but which he felt powerless to resist doing.

Pathology may affect the mind as well as the body, and

such a case would obviously call for psychiatric treatment.

Society recognizes the existence of mental abnormalities

and, when they are socially dangerous, provides asylums

for such cases.

Secondly, if the denial of the consciousness of freedom

were not corroborated by the commission of deeds con-

trary to the choice or volition of the individual, then we

would seek to elicit more clearly the consciousness of his

[ 9 ]



evident freedom. This we would do by a simple illus-

tration, in which we address ourselves directly to the in-

dividual.

“Take this book in your hand and hold it a foot above

the table. Now are you free either to continue to hold

the book or to drop it? Before answering, listen for a

moment to the testimony of your own consciousness. Does

it not tell you with unmistakable clearness that you are

free to do either of these actions? Throw aside all pride

of opinion. Listen attentively to the testimony of your

own consciousness. Then speak aloud its verdict. If you

will perform that simple experiment, and be honest in

proclaiming the verdict of your own consciousness, you

will find that you do not differ in the matter of freedom

from the rest of mankind.”

The affirmation of consciousness comes out most

clearly in the moment before the deliberate choice is

made. This affirmation is thus described with accuracy

and penetration by H. Sidgwick: “It is impossible for

me to think at such a moment that my volition is com-

pletely determined by my formed character and the

motives acting upon it. The opposite conviction is so

strong as to be absolutely unshaken by the evidence

brought against it; I cannot believe it to be illusory. So

far it is unlike the erroneous intuitions which occur in

the exercise of the senses; as e. g., the imperfections of

sight and hearing. For experience soon teaches me to

regard these as appearances whose suggestions are mis-

leading; but no amount of experience of the sway of

motives even tends to make me distrust my intuitive

consciousness that in resolving after deliberation I exer-

cise free choice as to which of the motives acting on me

shall prevail.”
7

7 Methods of Ethics, Bk. I, ch. V, p. 2, 1st Edition.

[ 10 ]



How To Make a Motive Prevail

The observation is sometimes made that what really

determines every decision is the strongest motive. This

would reduce the matter to one of mere intellectual dis-

cernment and not of will. The matter, however, is not

that simple. For the will can make a motive strong or

weak as it chooses. Howt ? By focusing attention upon

one motive, and considering exclusively the advantages to

be derived from following it, that motive actually grows

in psychological power and strength. Contrariwise, by

keeping the attention away from the motive and by re-

fusing to consider the advantages it offers, that motive

though it might be, intrinsically and objectively con-

sidered, the weightier of the two, actually grows weak and

becomes psychologically feeble and ineffective.

Here then is disclosed the enormous and decisive role

played by the will in determining the outcome of the

struggle of initially conflicting motives. It holds the reins

of power. It can tip the scales one way or the other as

it chooses. It can do this, as we have pointed out, by

choosing to focus attention exclusively upon the one

motive which it wishes to prevail. Hence the freedom of

the will, in our judgment, is manifested even more vividly

in the moment or moments antecedent to the decision,

while the will is focusing the searchlight of attention upon

the motive of its choice than in the actual act of decision

issuing often in some overt act. Freedom of the wall, of

course, is apparent in both acts. We merely wish by this

piece of careful psychological analysis to point out how

conspicuously it is present in the moments immediately

antecedent to the final decision—moments wherein its
freedom has not commonly been noted or stressed.

The fact that a motive can be strengthened or weak-

ened, by the deliberate direction of the attention upon it

[ill



or away from it, has far-reaching implications for both

psychology and ethics. It reveals the close relation be-

tween attention and the act we decide to perform. Even

in matters of a non-moral nature, it is important to know

the psychological technique of strengthening the motive

which you wish to have prevail. In matters of a moral

character, the importance of this insight can scarcely

be overstressed.

"Let's Join the Boys"

Let us illustrate. John Smith is strongly tempted

to accept the invitation of some boon companions to go

with them to a certain tavern where he knows from past

experience he is likely to imbibe excessively.

“Come, John/’ they say, “let’s join the boys at the

tavern. You’ve been working hard all week. This is

Saturday night. You need to blow off some steam.

Besides,” they add, “you only live once.”

The image of the tavern, the sound of the music from

the juke box, the smell of the liquor in his nostrils, its

taste in his mouth, the thought of the carefree cameraderie

of his customary companions, all swoop upon him with

powerful appeal. If he allows himself to dwell exclusively

upon these considerations, the appeal of the tavern and

the already kindled appetite for liquor will become so

strong that his chance of resisting will speedily go a

glimmering. What is it supremely important for him to

do? To turn the spotlight of attention from these luring

features to the advantages of remaining at home.

Let him consider the promises which he has already

made to himself, to his wife, to his confessor to remain

away from that tavern in which he has been squandering

his pay-check, his health and the happiness of his family.

Let him recall the warning of the doctor that a con-

tinuance of his drinking habit will incapacitate him for

[ 12 ]



his work, impair his nervous system and bring him pre-

maturely to a drunkard’s grave. Let him remember the

misery and shame which he has brought upon his wife

and children by his drunkenness.

Let him consider the after effects of his overindulgence,

the torture of his abused nerves, the head that seems as

if it will burst with pain. Let him hold the spotlight

firmly upon these considerations, coupled with the thought

of the joy which he will bring to his family, and the grow-

ing sense of redemption from his own shame and misery,

and he will win the victory.

“No, boys,” he will be saying, “I’ve had enough of

that, yes, too much of it. It has brought me too much

grief already. Include me out. I’m staying home with

my family.”

"He Who Hesitates . .
"

While the influence of attention in strengthening all

motives is great, its influence upon those involving sexual

gratification is especially marked. The ideo-motor theory

finds its best and speediest exemplification in sensual

images and imaginations. They tend to kindle motor

responses with the speed and violence of dynamite ex-

plosions. Hence spiritual writers are unanimous in point-

ing out the danger of dilly-dallying with any such thoughts

or imaginations, and the supreme importance of turning

the attention instantly from them to thoughts of an

opposite character. Here, above all other fields, is

exemplified the truth of the motto: “He who hesitates

is lost.”

The experience of temptation, the siren voice urging

us to tone down our ideals for some passing pleasure or

consideration, is universal among mankind. Who is there

who has not felt the pull and tug of conflicting motives,

[ 13 ]



of opposing forces in our inner life? The struggle is not

always easy, nor is it invariably successful. But what

conviction emerges more clearly from those experiences

than the conyiction that the decision, at which we finally

arrive, represents our own free choice? Whether the

decision be favorable to my ideals or not, I feel no in-

clination to attribute the outcome to anyone but to my

own self. “I willed the act,” I say, “and I will take the

consequences, good or bad.”

Let us now address ourselves in a friendly manner

to a determinist: “Let us suppose for the moment, that

we are really free. How could consciousness give any

clearer or stronger testimony than it now gives that we

are free? It thunders unequivocably at every moment

of my struggle against a predominant passion that I can

yield or I can painfully persevere. Throughout the con-

flict I realize clearly enough that it is wrong to yield,

and I admit that the ideal of virtue has a genuine attrac-

tion for me. But it is by no means true to say that my

perception of the ideal renders its reduction to practice

such a pleasure that it outweighs the agreeableness of

the gratification and inexorably tips the scales in its

favor.”

It would be just as credible to say that the tempta-

tion doesn’t exist at all, as to say that I am not freely

resisting, freely struggling Against the easier and the more

pleasant course. The fact is then that the hum&n mind

cannot conceive how consciousness could tell me more

clearly or more unequivocably that I am free than it

now so testifies. Hence if consciousness gives us any

assurance at all, it is the assurance that we are free.

From that conclusion there can be no escape.

[ 14 1



The Ethical Argument

Moral liberty is the basis of ethics and the indis-

pensable condition of morality. Without it, there can be

neither duty, obligation, responsibility, nor merit. While

Kant differs from us in some of his concepts of ethics, he

is one with us in acknowledging that without free will

there can be no ethics. He appeals to the undisputed fact

of moral obligation as irrefutable evidence of liberty.

“Thou canst because thou oughtest” is a familiar note

sounded in his writings and in those of the greatest

ethicians. “To deny the freedom of the will,” points out

James A. Froude, “is to make morality impossible.”
8
The

inference is well grounded. “It is a moral postulate,”

declares Prof. William James, “that what ought to be can

be, and that bad acts cannot be fated, but that good ones

must be possible in their place.”
9

The ethical argument may be thus epitomized: The

sense of moral obligation, of “oughtness,” is present in

all mankind. But the sense of oughtness implies the

power to do a thing or not to do it. It would be absolutely

meaningless, if the individual had no alternative open to

him. Therefore man has the power of choosing between

alternative courses of conduct, or in other words, he enjoys

moral freedom.

Belief in moral freedom alone harmonizes with the

universal practice of mankind, to which we have already

alluded, in rewarding good deeds and in punishing evil

ones. On the determinist theory, man has no more con-

trol over his movements than has a cork, tossed hither

and thither by the waves, over its own movements. Like

the brute or the maniac, man feels, whilst the cork does

not. But there is no essential difference as to the volun-

tariness and consequently as to the morality of his acts.

8 Short Studies'. Calvinism.

9 Principles of Psychology, vol. II, p. 573.

[ 15 ]



His actions are the inevitable resultants of his heredity,

his environment, and of the forces playing on him at the

moment.

He is like a bird without wings, a king without a

throne. He is like a ship without a rudder, unable to

steer his course, but must go wherever the waves of hered-

ity and the winds of environment drive him. Such a

view is contrary not only to the testimony of our own

consciousness but also does violence to the universal sense

of moral obligation present in mankind. The waves may

beat fiercely against his bark, and the winds may blow

in a directly opposite direction, but man is conscious

from his own experience that he can hurl defiance at these

elements and steer the vessel of his soul toward whatso-

ever port he chooses. It isn’t the winds but the set of

the sails that determines the way he goes.

The Sense of Remorse

The reality of the sense of moral obligation is further

verified by the sense of remorse present at sometime or

other in every human. Remorse is essentially different

from mere regret. Remorse is the gnawing pain of guilt

which flows from the twofold conviction: 1. That we were

free in committing an act. 2. That we ought not to have

done it. A person stubs his toe and regrets it because

of the pain which ensues. An individual loses his pocket-

book, and regrets the loss immensely. But in neither case

does he experience the gnawing of remorse. Why?

Because he did neither of these acts deliberately or freely,

but only accidentally. Between the sense of mere regret

and of remorse there is a world of difference, as every

person who has experienced both, can testify.

The feeling of repentance stems from that of remorse

and mirrors both the sorrow of the penitent and his pur-

pose of amendment. Who has not felt remorse, sorrow,

[ 16 ]



and purpose of amendment? Why, they are among the

most profound and universal experiences of mankind. As

the slanting rays of light falling across the western sky

at sunset point to the source from which they come, so

do these deep human emotions point to their common

source in the universal sense of moral obligation. This

sense would be without rhyme or reason, however, if man

is not free to do other than that which he ought to do.

Hence we are again driven by a different line of evidence

to the conclusion that man possesses moral freedom.

The Metaphysical Argument

The freedom of the will is also established by a line

of reasoning known as the Metaphysical Argument. While

somewhat more subtle than the preceding considerations,

it has the advantage of showing the cause of our freedom,

and the natural continuity of that freedom as long as

reason remains with us in this life.

The will, we have already pointed out, is a rational

appetite. It embraces nothing of necessity, save what is

apprehended as desirable in every respect . Now the

rational will can be irresistibly drawn only by that which

the intellect proposes as so completely and absolutely

attractive that it contains no disagreeable element. As

long as the intellect is able to detect any such element,

the will does not have that for which it is naturally yearn-

ing, namely, perfect happiness, and is consequently able

to reject the proposed object. By concentrating the atten-

tion upon the undesirable feature, the object can always

be made to lose its enticing force.

In this life, however, there is no object which presents

itself as attractive under all aspects. Any finite good has

its disagreeable features, either in the difficulty of its

acquisition, or in the uncertainty of its retention, or in

[ 17 ]



its possible incompatibility with our highest good. Even

the infinite Good, God Himself, is so imperfectly and

obscurely apprehended in this life that the will is not

drawn irresistibly. The intellect perceives all too readily

the difficulty of duty, the disagreeableness of restraining

the carnal appetites, and the thorns which beset the path

of virtue. Easy indeed is it for the intellect to concen-

trate on the hardship of carrying the cross, so that the

will turns away from the via dolorosa to tread the prim-

rose path of pleasure. Hence the will is not drawn irre-

sistibly to any object, but is
.

free to choose between the

manifold kinds of goods conceivable by the intellect.

Free will is thus seen to be a result of man’s posses-

sion of a spiritual faculty of cognition which is capable

of conceiving unlimited and unalloyed good. Where such

a spiritual faculty is absent, as in brute animals, moral

liberty does not exist. The power of choosing freely, un-

coerced by forces within or without us, shows that inde-

pendently of the intellect, we are endowed with a spir-

itual faculty whose operations transcend matter and its

forces as heaven transcends the earth. For such spiritual

activity must proceed from a spiritual and immaterial

substance, which is what we mean by the human soul.

The establishment of the freedom of the will thus offers

additional and striking corroboration of the mighty truth

that man possesses a spiritual soul which elevates him

above all the visible creation and renders him like unto

God.

Conservation of Energy

We have completed the presentation of the evidence
for moral freedom from consciousness, ethics and meta-

physics. Let us now consider the difficulties. Most of

these arise from a failure to understand what is meant

[ 18 ]



by freedom of the will and to recognize the limitations

we place upon it. Many of the objections stem from

the false notion that the freedom of the will implies-

motiveless or causeless volitions. Others think that the

libertarian view holds that man is always free and that

heredity and environment exercise no influence upon

volitions. These, as we have pointed out, are caricatures

of our true position.

One objection, however, remains. It asserts that free-

dom of the will would be a violation of the law of the

conservation of energy, as it would introduce new foun-

tains of energy of an utterly incalculable character, which

would thus change indefinitely the existing quantum.

This difficulty is based on a misconception. The will

does not create but simply directs the application of energy

already in existence. By directing the application of

existing forces, the will can change their alignment and

hence the resultant.

The law states that “the sum of the kinetic and poten-

tial energies in the universe remains constant.
5
’ This

simply means that when one form of physical energy is

transformed into another, the quantity of the second form

is equivalent to that of the first. The generalization is

confined to physical energy and consequently does not

apply to the activity of a spiritual, immaterial principle.

Physics as such knows nothing about psychical activities

as forces and hence makes no attempt whatsoever to en-

close them in a framework of physical laws.

This is clearly pointed out by the eminent authority

on physiological psychology, Prof. Ladd of Yale: “The

law of the conservation and correlation of energy—as far

as it has been observed, or can reasonably be assumed to

hold good—offers no valid objection to the existence of
a real causal connection between the mind and the brain.

[ 19 ]



The present position of this law is that of an empirical

generalization, found to hold approximately true for a

large number of classes' of phenomena, and presumably

true for yet other cases. To exalt it to the place of a

universal and necessary relation among all phenomena of

every class—mental as well as physical—would be un-
warrantably to extend its application.”

10
In other words

the law of the conservation of energy does not touch the

question of the activities of a spiritual principle, the

human soul, the source of volitional operations.

Striking corroboration of this truth comes from the

leaders of modern physics. Mirroring the conclusions of

Millikan, Compton and others, A. E. Eddington declares:

“In the old conflict between will and predestination, it has

seemed hitherto that physics comes down heavily on the

side of predestination. . . . Here I have set forth the

position of physical science on this matter so far as it

comes into her territory. It does come into her territory,

because that which we call human will cannot be entirely

dissociated from the consequent motions of the muscles

and disturbance of the material world. On the scientific

side a new situation has arisen. It is a consequence of

the advent of the quantum theory that physics is no

longer pledged to a scheme of deterministic law.

Determinism has dropped out altogether in the latest

formulations of theoretical physics.”
11

Theory vs. Practice

Let us now advert to a few general considerations

which bring out vividly the untenable and inconsistent

character of the determinist view.

Herbert Spencer was in theory a determinist. In

actual life and practice, he was the direct opposite. Thus

10 El. of Phy. Psychology, p. 657.

n The Nature of the Physical World, pp. 293, 294.

[ 20 ]



he wrote two huge biographical volumes in which he por-

trays in microscopic detail his difficulties and discourage-

ments and his strength of will in overcoming them. The

claims which he makes for himself, as W. H. Mallock

rightly observes, “are intelligible only on the supposition

that he possessed a free will of his own, which, while dis-

missing it in theory as a village gossip’s illusion, he
,
like

everybody else
,
accepted it in practice as a reality. Thus

one of the few deterministic thinkers who have deliberately

attempted to interpret concrete life by determinism is in

his own person one of the most interesting witnesses to

the impossibility of interpreting it intelligibly without a

covert reintroduction of the plain man’s belief in free-

dom.”
12

In this respect Spencer is a typical example of

all the other determinists who, after proclaiming in the

lecture room that they have no free will, proceed to use it

conspicuously, not once, but a dozen times every hour of

the day.

"You Didn't Do It On Purpose . . . ?"

The unreasonableness of the determinist viewpoint

becomes apparent when one undertakes to interpret human

life and action in accordance with its basic assumption.

Prof. Janies cites the case of a particularly atrocious mur-

der which occurred in his day at Brockton. Deciding to

get rid of his wife, a man inveigled her to a deserted spot

in the country. Disentangling his hand from hers, he

pulled out a revolver and shot her four times. Lying

on the ground, she said:

“You didn’t do it on purpose, did you, dear?”

“No,” he replied, “I didn’t do it on purpose,” as he

raised a rock and smashed her skull.

Who is to blame for this dastardly deed? The mur-

derer? “Not at all,” replied the determinists. “The

12 Reconstruction of Religious Belief, p. 87.

[ 21 ]



universe is to blame. The laws of matter and energy,

working out their fixed and inexorable course, are re-

sponsible for this act, as they are for all actions on this

planet.” They spare the villain by indicting the uni-

verse. They jump from the frying pan into the fire.

Hitler—Not To Blame?
We think that the irrational character of the determin-

ist view may be even more vividly shown by applying it

to the case of a man, who has killed not merely one per-

son, but who has given the orders for the killing of vast

multitudes. We refer to the late archvillain of the world
-—Adolph Hitler. Putting thousands of Jews to death
by starvation and torture in concentration camps, drop-

ping bombs on the people of Poland without a word of

warning, invading one neutral country after the other,

sending his military machine to run like a Juggernaut

over the men, women and children of Russia, with whom

he had a “friendship” pact, he has brought suffering,

agony and death to incalculable millions of people. In

the far-reaching consequences of his villainy, the Brock-

ton murderer, Jesse James, John Dillinger, A1 Capone,

are but babes in the woods. Upon him is heaped the

execration of the world as upon no one man in all history.

Yet according to the teaching of determinists, he is

utterly blameless. He is no more responsible for his

murderous deeds than is the mother who keeps her night

vigil by the bedside of her sick child. Who is responsible?

The universe. For its forces, acting upon him from with-

out and from within, compelled him so to act. Can any

sensible person believe that? It is difficult to see how

he can. Instead of placing the blame, where it belongs,

upon the perverse will of this murderous villain, the de-

terminist places it upon the whole universe.

Even here, however, he runs into a flagrant contradic-

[ 22 ]



tion. For the universe that compels Hitler to perpetrate

his wholesale murders is the same universe that inspires

the rest of humanity with horror and repulsion at his

crimes. Thus does the determinist run headlong into a

contradiction, direct, violent and irreconcilable. What

could bring out more vividly the utter absurdity and the

sheer bankruptcy of the whole determinist theory?

The Death Knell of All Thought

Its inconsistency, however, does not stop here.

Determinism spells a denial of the freedom not only of

our actions but of our thoughts as well. This means then

that one person is compelled to accept determinism, while

another is compelled to reject it. Intellectual judgments

become as mechanistic as volitions. Thinking loses all

meaning. Thus the determinist rejects the freedom of

the will not because his arguments are superior, but sim-

ply because heredity and environment determine that he

shall think so.

“Accordingly, if the determinist is right,” observes

Prof. B. H. Streeter of Oxford, “reasoning can prove

nothing: it is merely an ingenious method for providing

us with apparently rational excuses for believing what in

any case we cannot help believing. But if all reasoning

is a ‘pathetic fallacy/ then the reasons for believing in

Determinism itself are fallacious. Not only that; unless

reason is that which can discriminate, there is no criterion

of truth and falsehood, all knowledge collapses; one hy-

pothesis is as good as another, and Science itself is a

fairy tale.”
13

The determinist view would thus sound the death knell

of all thought as well as of all volition. Steming from a

thoroughly materialistic view of life and the universe, it

13 Reality, p. 76.

[ 23 ]



conceives of all life, even the mental life of man, as but

the play of matter and energy in accordance with physical

laws. Human life and all the thoughts and aspirations of

humanity are predetermined with an iron-clad necessity

by conditions obtaining in the cosmos a billion years ago.

The dreary view of such a materialistic fatalism is vividly

portrayed in the lines quoted by Prof. James in The

Dilemma of the Determinate

With earth
y

s first clay they did the last man knead,

And there of the last harvest sowed the seed

And the first morning of creation wrote

What the last dawn of reckoning shall read.

To Sum Up

To sum up: We have demonstrated the freedom of

the will by the testimony of consciousness, by the uni-

versal sense of reward and punishment, of responsibility,

duty, merit and blame, of remorse and repentance. We

have presented the metaphysical argument showing that

the will can choose from among the unlimited number

and forms of good, conceivable by the intellect, the one

closest to its heart’s desire. We have shown that the law

of the conservation of energy offers no difficulty to the

freedom of volition, when both are properly understood.

We have pointed out the untenableness of the necessitarian

view by disclosing how it escapes placing the blame upon

the perverse will of an individual only by placing it upon

the whole universe. The inconsistency and bankruptcy

of that viewpoint were further revealed by showing how

it leads to the denial of the validity and significance of all

thought and of all volitions.

Doubtless by this time the reader is asking: Why go

to such pains to prove a truth which virtually every man

and woman of good sense will readily admit? Why pile
14 The Dilemma of the Determinist, p. ISO.

[ 24 ]



the evidence sky high, when our own consciousness testi-

fies, with an intimacy and a clarity which cannot be sur-

passed, that we are free? We have done so not because

the average reader needs to be convinced, but because we

want him to be forewarned and forearmed against the

determinist sophistries, no matter how specious and en-

ticing, which he may encounter at any time in his life.

We think it desirable to have him perceive the truth

of moral freedom, from its center to its circumference,

because it constitutes the spinal column of moral re-

sponsibility and the • foundation of man’s ethical life. A

clear and profound insight into the rational bases of this

great truth will constitute for the individual an invaluable

stimulus to initiative, courage and determination in strug-

gling to convert his velleities into volitions, his'aspirations

into realities, and will be his best insurance, against the

crippling spirit of defeatism, fatalism and pessimism.

While the will is free, it may lose its freedom and be-

come enslaved through habits of indolence, passion and

vice. Like all living faculties, the will is subject to the

laws of habit formation. It is of supreme importance to

form as early in life as possible habits of labor, of per-

sistent effort in the realization of high ideals, of resistance

to the passions, and of self-control. Not only do such

habits safeguard the freedom of the will, but they also

strengthen and develop it. They make it, what the will

should be in every well-rounded and integrated personal-

ity, the ready and obedient servant of a sensitive con-

science. In the attainment of will power, human char-

acter sounds its climactic note and finds its crowning

glory. It is the indispensable key to achievement and

success in all the fields of human life.

[ 25 ]



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[ 27 ]



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QUESTIONS

I (Pages 3 to 8)

1. Why is the freedom of the will important?

2. What did Confucius say about the will? Aristotle?

Epictetus? Seneca?

3. Does freedom of the will mean causeless volition?

4. Are all of a person’s acts free?

5. What is meant by freedom of the will?

6. What is the foundation and guarantee of freedom?

7. Are the means of achieving happiness perfectly

clear?

8. What does Professor T. V. Moore say about the

pursuit of happiness?

9. Prove the freedom of the will from the testimony

of conscience.

10.

What is the testimony of mankind concerning free-

dom of the will?

II (Pages 8 to 13)

1. Why do the people of every land administer re-
wards and punishments?

2. On what supposition would George Washington and

Benedict Arnold be the same in moral character?

3. If an individual maintains that he lacks freedom of

choice, what two observations would you make?

[ 29 ]



4. What simple illustration might be used to drive

home the freedom of choice?

5. At what moment does conscience testify most

clearly to freedom of the will?

6. What does Professor Sidgwick say on this point?

7. Can the will make a motive strong or weak? How?

8. The fact that a motive can be strengthened by

focusing attention upon it has implications for

what?

9. Give an illustration of your own, showing how

moral victory can be won by focusing the attention

upon the proper motive?

10.

Why is the influence of attention especially marked
in matters of a sexual character? Explain the

motto : “He who hesitates is lost.”

Ill (Pages 14 to 16)

1. What conviction emerges most clearly from the

decisions you have made?

2. What observation could you make to a determinist

on this point?

3. Can the human mind conceive how conscience could

tell us more clearly that we are free?

4. Why is liberty a necessary condition of morality?

5. What does Kant say on this point? Froude?

Professor James?

6. Summarize briefly the ethical argument for moral

freedom?

[ 30 ]



7. What belief alone harmonizes with the universal

practice of mankind in rewarding good deeds and

in punishing evil ones?

8. A person devoid of free will might be compared to

what?

9. Remorse flows from what twofold conviction?

10.

How does the feeling of repentance indicate free-

dom of the will?

IV (Pages 17 to 20)

1. Summarize the metaphysical argument for freedom

of the will.

2. Is there any object which presents itself as attrac-

tive under all aspects?

3. Free will is the result of man’s possession of what

spiritual faculty?

4. Why is free will absent from brute animals?

5. Freedom of the will serves to corroborate what

great truth?

6. What objection to moral freedom is drawn from

the conservation of energy? How can you answer

that objection?

7. What does the law of conservation of energy really

mean?

8. To what realm is that law confined?

9. What does Professor Ladd say on this point?

10. What does Professor Eddington say concerning

determinism?

[311



V (Pages 21 to 25)

1. What was Herbert Spencer in theory? In practice?

2. What observation does * Mallock make about

Spencer?

3. Narrate the case cited by Professor James. What

truth does it illustrate?

4. How can the irrational character of determinism

be shown most vividly?

5. According to the determinist viewpoint, why would

Hitler be blameless?

6. In what flagrant contradiction does the determin-

ist involve himself?

7. How does determinism spell a denial of the freedom

of thought?
*

8. What observation does Professor Streeter make on

this point?

9. Sum up the case for freedom of the will.

10.

Why is it supremely important to discipline and
train th£ will early in life?

[ 32 ]





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