variability of the factors in quantity and quality shows the justice of Dr. Pioger's remark: "There is no one human will, there are several human wills; there is not one will in Peter or in John, there are wills in Peter and in John, varying according to age, state of health, circumstances and conditions of life." Psychic phenomena are as rigorously determined as are physical and biological phenomena. On this subject I may quote the words of Kant "If it were possible to penetrate sufficiently deeply into the manner of thinking of each man, and if the most insignificant springs and all the circumstances influencing a man were known, one could calculate exactly his manner of action in the future, just as one calculates an eclipse of the sun or the moon." As proof of the existence of free will, many of its adepts argue as follows: I am free to will at my own pleasure. Thus try to prevent me from willing something and immediately I will it all the more. Defy me to spring from the top of a rock upon the shore, and I will spring, proving thus that I am free to will or not to spring. The supporters of free will reason thus without perceiving the incomplete analysis which leads them to this conclusion. Opposition made, defiance aroused, constitute motives which have determined the individual to a foolish action, in order to prove a nonexistent liberty. This opposition to motives, called by Schopenhauer the "motive of contradiction," is the great argument upon which Jules Simon depends to maintain free will. He never perceives that this contradiction is in truth a determining motive. Some partisans of free will have fought determinism with the following argument: "Show me a man who is a profound philosopher and who denies free will; I will not dispute at all with him, but put to the proof the common occasions of life, that he may be confounded by himself. Suppose that the wife of this man was unfaithful, that his son disobeyed him, and despised him, that his friend deceived him, and that his servant robbed him. I would say to him when he complains of them: Do you not know that none of them did wrong, that they were not free to do otherwise? They were too, by your avowal as inevitably obliged, to wish as they wished, as a stone is to fall when nothing supports it. Is it not then certain that this whimsical philosopher, who dares to deny free will in the study, will nevertheless consider that in his own house he is unquestionable, and will be as implacable against these people as La Vie et la Pensee, p. 183. if he had all his life maintained the dogma of the greatest possible liberty? This argument of Fénélon is brought forward by M. Fabreguettes as his own,* considering it as a proof of the existence of free will. One is really somewhat astounded to see such arguments advanced as a proof of moral freedom! If our "whimsical philosopher" supposes free will in his household, and opposes it in his study, that does not prove that free will exists. This contradiction between the theory and practice of our "whimsical philosopher" shows only his want of logic. It is an excellent proof that there is no agreement between his acts and doctrine, which is frequently the case when the doctrine is principally a product of the reason, and the acts are principally the result of sentiment and character. M. Fabreguettes is wrong when he repeats after Fénélon: "Do you not know that neither of them did wrong?' As a matter of fact the friend and the domestic did do wrong to act as they did act. A determinist would not say: "None of them did wrong." He would say: "They were wrong, but they were not free to do otherwise, for their wills were determined." One can do wrong to do a thing and yet not be free not to do it. The case imagined by Fénélon as proof is no proof of the moral liberty of the agent. It would be possible to act as Fénélon supposes, and that would show that he was bound to act thus, on account of all the causes of which his will was the result. The mode of arguing simply childish, and of Fénélon and M. Fabreguettes is then To conclude, "every psychic condition is invariably bound to a nervous condition of which reflex action is the most simple type." This is the psycho-physiological axiom we may thus express in the words of Professor Debierre. Psychic life forms a continuous series which commences with sensation and finishes with movement. At one end there are the sensations and images bound up with psychic states. At the other end there are the desires, sentiments, and volitions bound to psychic states. Between the two there is no terra incognita presenting other relations than those established in the natural phenomena of every order. We know only partially the multitude of factors of which the Société, Etat, Patrie. pp. 217-218. Paris 1897. will is the result. We are ignorant of the power of each factor, its degree of intensity, the part which belongs to it in the genesis of the act. Whatever our ignorance, however, it is a sure and palpable fact that in the genesis of the act no element of liberty enters. At no point of the process, of which the act is the end, have we found free will. It is an illusion arising from an absence of analysis or from a superficial analysis of the psycho-physiological process which leads to action. The only liberty which the human being possesses is that of acting according to his will, his own tastes, his leading inclinations, or his own motives. This is sufficient, M. Manouvrier has justly remarked, to make us free. As for our will it is itself a result determined by organic and extra-organic components, in no wise independent. Bayle, Hobbes, Voltaire, and many others have already asserted that liberty of action was the only form of liberty we possessed. They placed liberty in the power to act as one wished. Rationally they demonstrated that this was the only liberty we possess. To-day by the positive method we have arrived at the same demonstration: The human being does not possess free will, he only possesses liberty to act. This liberty of action is the possibility to translate into an act any volition whatever, if no impediment intervenes to prevent it. It is the possibility to co-ordinate the movements of our organs for the execution of a voluntary act. This liberty of action is a property inherent in the individual and common to all. Free will or determinism! These are the two only theses which ought really to be put in opposition. Under examination free will succumbs. The discoveries of the biological sciences have reduced free volition to nothing. And nevertheless this illusion has taken such a hold on the human mind that man has sought every possible means to reconcile his desire with the reality. Not being able to determine to abandon free will, certain philosophers have sought to purify it, dilute it, attenuate it, sometimes to the point of rendering it unrecognisable, and of falling back into the determinism which they denied. Thus M. Fouillée, vanquished by the scientific evidence, avows that moral liberty does not exist as an arbitrary power of will. In spite of this avowal, he endeavours, together with M. Siciliani,* to demonstrate the existence of free will, as an ideal force, tending to its own realisation. "Man is not free, but he tends to become free." Of this attempt at demonstration we may say with E. Ferri: “This, in spite of the philosophic talent of the eminent writer, is a mere play upon words, fantastic theories under the verbal surface in which there is nothing positive nor fruitful."‡ This is pure logomachy. Reflection shows it to be empty, and inconceivable. For M. Foyau§ free will is the power to choose oneself and do the good, to do the bad willingly being an impossible and inadmissible thing. It is difficult to understand what this means, the more so that the bad and the good do not exist of themselves, for the conception we have of them differs according to individuals. M. Fulci|| admits a kind of moral liberty. He bases it upon that which Schopenhauer has called "the motive of contradiction." The opposition to motives when they can conquer other motives, proves, says he, the existence of free will. Our will is certainly determined by motives. Nevertheless it can prove its liberty, of which we have such intimate consciousness, just in opposing itself to motives "which at least have not an irresistible force." M. Fulci's conception is not very clear. For him, in fact, free will is the power to prove our liberty of volition. The opposition to motives, the basis on which his vague conception rests, is really a motive which limits the individual. Then the will finds itself always limited or determined by motives, even when it opposes itself to motives. In short, trying to scrutinize M. Fulci's idea, we find that his theory is only another representation of the old theory of free will, of effect without a cause. These attempts at dishing free will up again having piteously failed under examination, many upholders of free will have sought refuge in vague and unprecise interpretations. Some have so called the special energy of each individual to develop himself in a par Le Questioni Contemporanee e la libertå morale. La Liberte et le Determinisme. * Sociologie Criminelle, p. 266. Edition, Francaise § Liberté Morale. Paris, 1888. Evoluzione del diritto Penale. T ticular manner, different from the development of others. This is pure determinism, for this energy is only a manifestation of mental activity limited or determined by all the ambient influences together, that we have considered. Certain obstinate defenders of the expression "free will," more than the idea, have regarded it as the absence of obstacles to the development of our tendencies, that is to say, as physical liberty, or more exactly the liberty of action. This again is pure determinism, since we have just seen that liberty of action is the one liberty that we possess, according to determinism. Some, while still maintaining free will, have more or less considerably reduced it. Dr. Leo Warnots denies the existence of absolute free will, but he admits a relative free will, attenuated and restricted. The Abbé de Baets is of the same opinion. "The liberty of man is not perfect and absolute, it cannot operate without the continual and important intervention of the organism, whose functions develop according to the fixed laws which govern matter."* There are in man movements which are beyond the reach of free will. There are others over which it has an indirect influence. Free will does not incite to all acts, many are begun without its command. Nevertheless it can stop actions already begun. The old scholastic idea maintained: Free will does not exercise a despotic and absolute power over human activity.† In short free will in this conception is an entity having a distinct existence in itself. It acts on the individual by means of the material organism, subjected to the influence of a multitude of causes. Free will is then found attenuated by these causes. cannot act entirely in an absolute manner. On the other hand it has a partial influence on certain acts in certain cases. Man has then a relatively free will. The Abbé de Baets seeks to reconcile science and revelation-the Catholic dogma. His conception necessitates the establishment of an immaterial entity not subjected to any influence, choosing without motive. It amounts in the end to the complete conception of free will, since its attenuation comes only from the instrument which it uses to manifest itself. The possibly perfect musician, if his instrument is bad, will play badly. Les bases de la morale et du Droit. † De Baets. L'Ecole d'Anthropologie Criminelle, pp. 44-47. Gand, 1893. It |