APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS

Hokitika Guardian, 19 February 1932, Page 1

APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS

Lastly, with respect- to the old riddle of the freedom of tile will. In tin: only sense in whieli the word Iroedom is intelligible to me—that is to

say. tile absence of any restraint upon doing wlmt one likes within certain limits-—physical science certainly gives no more ground lor doubting it than the common sense of mankind does. And if physical science, in strengthening mu- belief in life titli versality of causation and abolishingchance as ait absurdity, leads to t-lic conclusion of determinism, it does no more than follow ihe track of consistent and logical thinkers in philosophy ant! in theology, before it existed or was thought of. Whoever accepts the universality of the law of causation its a dogma of philosophy, denies the existence of uncaused phenomena. And the essence of that which is improperly called the freewill doctrine is that occasionally, at any rate, volition is sell-caused, that is to say, not caused at ;il! ; for to cause one self one must have anteeeded oneself—which is. to say the least of it, dilfeuit to imagine.-