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/Aarine Biological Laboratory Library

Voods Hole, /Massachusetts

Gift of F.R. Lillie estate - 1977

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I

y

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

THE NEW SCIENCE SERIES

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Edited by C. K. Ogden

VOL. I. MYTH IN PRIMITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Bronislaw Malinowski

VOL. XL SCIENCE AND POETRY
I. A. Richards

VOL. III. FATALISM OR FREEDOM
C. JuDsoN Herrick

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"<

FATALISM

OR

FREEDOM

A BIOLOGIST'S ANSWER

BY

C. JUDSON HERRICK

The Uni'versity of Chicago

NEW YORK
W- W- NORTON & COMPANY, INC.

Publishers

Copyright, 1926,
W- W- NORTON & COMPANY, INC.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FOR THE PUBLISHERS BY THE VAN REES PRESS

PREFACE

This excursion by a biologist into a
field usually posted "No Trespassing"
from this side has a two-fold purpose:
first, to inquire how far it is profitable to
push the inquiry into the problems of hu-
man behaviour with the ordinary methods
of natural science and so to knit our con-
scious and social life in with the rest of
our world of experience in lawful fashion;
and second, to see whether the conclusions
thus reached shed any light upon the most
acute problems of human conduct — self-
control, self-determination, self-culture, so-
cial control, personal and social morality.

During the past ten years the writer
has repeatedly endeavored to formulate
these problems in strictly biological terms,
so far as possible uninfluenced by philo-
sophical tradition (of which, perhaps for-
tunately, he knows very little) and with-
out sacrifice of the scientific method by
yielding to the lure of mystical or meta-
physical short-cuts which take us to the
desired conclusions without troublesome
distraction by inconvenient factual evi-
dence.

[v]

PREFACE

This Inquiry has been prosecuted In
close collaboration with Dr. M. R. Gab-
bert, Professor of Philosophy In the Uni-
versity of Pittsburgh, to whom I here
make grateful acknowledgment for guid-
ance in that wide borderland where scien-
tific and philosophical methods overlap.
I am also indebted to Dean Frederick J. E.
Woodbridge of Columbia University for
helpful criticism. The argument upon
which this work is based has been pub-
lished In more condensed form In a paper
entitled "Biological Determinism and Hu-
man Freedom," International Journal of
Ethics, vol. 37, 1926. With the kind per-
mission of the editors of the Journal, parts
of this paper are here Incorporated.

The present work is directed, not to
the philosophical aspects of the subject,
but to a more practical end. When hu-
man life — all of it — is evaluated biologi-
cally, where do we come out of the mazes
of human origins and human destiny, of
the determining factors of human conduct,
of personal control and responsibility, of
social betterment — or do we come out at
all?

C. JuDsoN Herrick.

Chicago, Illinois.

[vi]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Problem .... 9

II. Biological Control . . 19

III. Human Control • • • 33

IV. Natural Freedom ... 50

V. Human Freedom . . . 57

VI. Natural Freedom is Real

Freedom 80

CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM

The ancients taught that the fabric of
our lives is woven by the sisters of destiny
and that our future is in their hands. This
fatahstic doctrine survives to our day.
Not being versed in the lore of classical
mythology I will enumerate under their
modern titles some of the fates of human
destiny as now recognized.

I. The eldest sister is heredity, stern-
faced, perdurable, conservator of good
and evil, mostly good. 2. Next comes
gestation, the kindly protecting nurse.
3. Birth, a fickle goddess, casting the lot
now into a hovel, now a palace. 4. Nur-
ture, presiding over the establishment of
physical and social norms. 5. Education,
Minerva, the school-mistress of intellec-
tual norms. 6. Religion, the moral norms.
7. Art, the esthetic norms. 8. Voca-
tion, craftsmanship, production, economic
norms. 9. Politics, civic norms. 10. Sex,
emotional norms, domestic norms.

There are many more residents of this

[9]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

pantheon. These and others spin the
threads of our destinies and weave the
patterns of our personahties. Their con-
trol is real. Our problem is as to its na-
ture and method of operation.

These fates are not independent and
all-powerful deities. They are organized
in hierarchies and all are subservient to a
larger power which we call nature, with
whose laws they must conform, for all of
them are natural processes. The funda-
mental law of cause-and-effect no one of
them can disregard or disrupt by a super-
natural intervention. There are no epi-
phenomena, or parallel phenomena, or
other pseudophenomena in this pantheon
of nature.

In the normal course of events these
fates that rule our destinies are benevo-
lent lesser deities who work together
quite harmoniously, resulting in sane and
ordered lives. So long as this is the case
we need not meddle with them. They are
modest folk and serve us well even though
we do not even know their names. But
if for any reason one or another of these,
our benevolent elves, is out of tune with
the others, is enfeebled by hereditary de-
fect, by disease, by abuse, or by disuse,

[10]

THE PROBLEM

or Is allowed to override the others and
dominate them, the resulting Imbalance
may work disaster. And so It Is that in
order to diagnose such organic dishar-
monies we need to know these guardian
spirits, or daemons, and something of their
ways of working.

The sisters are very unlike and they
may combine among themselves to form
little cliques or coteries or larger conspi-
racies which in the parlance of the day
we call complexes. These complexes in
ordinary normal life serve very useful pur-
poses as organized and automatized units
of experience and behavior, but sometimes
they get out of hand and may mismanage
and distort the whole subsequent course
of life. These malevolent demoniacal
possessions do not come in from the out-
side and capture the living body; they
are fabricated within the personal experi-
ence and to exorcise them it Is In many
cases necessary only to turn on the light
and expose their origins and mechanisms.

Clotho presides at the birth of every
human child. Whence come the fibers
which she spins Into the thread of life?
What determines whether that thread be
promptly snipped or spun out to a ripe

[II]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

old age? Lachesis casts the lot in ac-
cordance with which the thread of this
one life is woven with other threads into
the warp supplied by the world about.
The course of my life is thus inextricably
interwoven with the courses of other lives
and all must adjust to the world in which
our lots are cast. What part does
Atropos, the inevitable, play in this ad-
justment?

The final pattern of this fabric is my
life as it is lived in its environment. It
is open to inspection, from the outside by
my neighbors, from the inside by myself.
The former appraisement is my reputa-
tion; the latter is my self-consciousness,
self-esteem, and self-determination. How
is this pattern woven? Is it wholly a nat-
ural process or only partly so? This is
the riddle of human life. Can natural
science lead the way to the oracle and
interpret her cryptic utterances?

Heredity and environment are every-
where recognized as in control of hu-
man destiny, and in most of the recent
discussions these are played up as the
agencies through which alone the hope
of further advance in personal and social
welfare may be reahzed. Without belit-

[12]

THE PROBLEM

tling the part played by heredity and en-
vironment, Is It possible that In these dis-
cussions another and equally Important
element In the problem has sometimes been
overlooked — a younger sister of destiny
and the fairest of them all, whose control
over human conduct Is not less real and
indeed of greater Import practically in
personal education and social culture?
May Freedom be admitted to our pan-
theon of Nature?

The conflict between the feeling of free-
dom and the belief that we are Inexorably
ruled by unescapable necessity Is probably
as old as human thinking. In the earliest
times of which we have tradition man, so
far as he thought about the matter at all,
seems to have felt the helplessness of his
position as the plaything of external
forces. Accordingly he pictured himself
as the victim of the caprice of the gods.
Naturally he tried to placate the fetishes,
demons, and fates who peopled his world
and ruled his destinies.

Plato broke away from this naive
mythology, In part, and developed an ex-
plicit doctrine of freedom of choice. From
his time till now the conflict of the schools
has continued and to-day the fatalists are

[13]

FATALIS M OR FREEDOM

still appealing to the same old gods of
chance and necessity (under new names)
as if they were omnipresent and omnipo-
tent, while their adversaries, in the biolog-
ical field, invoke still other, but unknown,
gods under the euphonious but meaning-
less names of entelechy, elan vital, or
some other symbol of uncaused action.

Determinism (fate) and freedom still
perplex us. Human life is certainly con-
trolled to some extent by the forces of
nature in which we live and of which we
are part. We certainly do exert some
measure of control over the events of na-
ture and over our own conduct. What
Is the nature of this control? We enjoy
a feeling of freedom. Are we really free
in any sense? Is the control which we
actually exercise bound by natural laws
as the earth controls the orbit of the moon
in accordance with the laws of gravita-
tion, inertia, and other cosmic forces?
Are we actual causal agents, not merely
bits of mechanism passively shunted about
like the spindle of a loom?

In actual practice progressive, construc-
tive men of all times have acted as if they
were real creative agents, and the mod-
ern social fabric is knit together, strength-

" [14]

THE PROBLEM

ened and motivated by the invisible,
though strong, fibers of personal ac-
countability for conduct woven Into the
web of our lives either explicitly and con-
sciously or implicitly and perhaps unwit-
tingly. The question before us is whether
this appearance of freedom is an illusion,
a myth, a superstition; or is it a real factor
in human conduct, capable of being articu-
lated with the general body of experience
of nature (including human nature) and
so of holding a place in our scientific
thinking?

These big problems of human life —
how are we controlled and how do we con-
trol our environments and ourselves — are
solved, thoughtfully or heedlessly, by each
of us in some fashion that is adequate for
his daily needs, else human life and civili-
zation could not endure. The earlier and
simpler theoretic solutions have broken
down under the stress of increasing com-
plexity of living and more widespread
critical analysis of the facts as they are
experienced. The result is that those to
whom we look for guidance In fundamen-
tal matters of personal and social adjust-
ment are more sharply divided than ever
Into hostile camps and the rest of us are

[15]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

left groping as blindly In the dark as were
our paleolithic ancestors. They were like

An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.

With us the wail has become more vocal
and better articulated. We know better
what we want but there is no agreement,
even on the basic question, to whom shall
we address our invocations?

Some are quite content with the tradi-
tional faith which directs them to lay the
burden upon an external and beneficent
deity. Others in increasing numbers in
our community hark back to a more primi-
tive culture and place the responsibihty
for human conduct wholly on chance or
on external, impersonal and mechanistic
fate. This is, perhaps, the prevailing sci-
entific attitude. Still others, more prac-
tically minded, go out aggressively for
what they want without asking lief to do
so from anybody. Experience seems to
justify this third procedure, for these "go-
getters" are the people who have the larg-
est accumulations of material goods. Cer-
tainly those who adopt the first attitude

[i6]

THE PROBLEM

must admit that God helps those most who
also help themselves.

These are not merely academic ques-
tions to be debated in the schools with
acute dialectic. They have assumed an in-
tensely practical aspect. Especially dur-
ing and since the Great War, when human
life was cheap, when conventional codes
of personal and social ethics were neces-
sarilv modified, when the courses of our
lives were evidently so largely determined
by forces quite beyond our control, have
our traditional standards of personal re-
sponsibility for conduct been greatly al-
tered. This widespread change has come
about unwittingly, not by deliberate pur-
pose. It has, however, been fostered by
scientific and pseudoscientific propaganda
and especially by appeals to biological
laws. And now the procedure of our law
courts, our medical practice, our admin-
istration of public and private philan-
thropy and our personal conduct are pro-
foundly influenced by the growing belief
that the human individual is only a bit
of froth floating passively on the stream
of circumstance.

Must we rest content with this, the old-
est and the simplest of all philosophies

[17]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

of nature, or else turn our backs on prac-
tical and scientific experience and appeal
to mysticism or the supernatural? Are
we drifting on the tides of time, driven by
hereditary impulses and predispositions,
buffeted hither and yon by cross eddies
of the stream of current events and by
the winds of chance? Or do we to any
extent control the direction of our courses
from within our own organizations, using
the energies of stream and wind to steer
to a haven of our own selection? And
by what natural right can we claim the
power so to determine our own careers?
Is that wondrous tree of knowledge, whose
fruits make us as gods knowing good and
evil, wholly mythical?

[i8]

CHAPTER II
BIOLOGICAL CONTROL

We may define nature as the sum total
of that which is experienced. This in-
cludes ail that is presented to us through
our senses and also the act of experiencing.
This is our cosmos of which each of us
is part. Natural processes are not dis-
orderly. And the life that experiences
these processes also runs an orderly course.
Natural science Is the aggregate of this
experience as formulated In an orderly or
lawful system. In natural science we
search for facts and their meanings, that
is, their relationships.

In a scientific inquiry we must first mar-
shall the facts as we experience them.
These experiences are then fitted together
in a unitary system of natural events and
the gaps in our knowledge filled in as best
we may by faultless logical process. Nat-
ural science is not merely facts, nor facts
classified according to some arbitrary
system. It Is facts in their natural rela-
tionships. And these relationships can be

[19]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

discovered only by observation and rea-
soning. The reasoning must square with
the observations. The scientific method
admits of no appeal to mystical agencies
which do not knit Into a unitary system of
natural processes and of no logical argu-
ments whose premises are not verifiable
experiences.

In the study of living things we recog-
nize two kinds of vital processes. One is
conservative, the preservation and repe-
tition of bodily forms and behavior pat-
terns time after time, typified by heredity.
The other Is progressive, constructive,
typified by growth, learning, and evolu-
tion. Patterns of structure and behavior
change. New patterns appear, some of
which never before existed. These new
things are not uncaused, but they are really
new. Growth and evolution, as truly as
heredity, go on In orderly or lawful ways.
They are natural processes.

Ordinary growth Is an act of creation.
The body form Is repeated (very nearly,
never exactly) time after time, generation
after generation. In each growing body
new structures and new ways of behav-
ing are made out of old stuff. The ma-

[20]

BIOLOGICAL CONTROL

terial used is drawn from the outside.
The power employed is a manifestation of
the vital energies, which also in last analy-
sis come from outside sources. This is
the natural functional expression of pro-
toplasmic organization and the growth im-
plies that the organization changes from
moment to moment as the process goes on.
Learning is a creative process of the same
sort. Every child builds up anew his own
store of knowledge just as he does his
body. Invention creates new arrange-
ments of materials in machines, new com-
binations of form and color in sculpture
and painting, new ideas in imaginative lit-
erature, which never before were expe-
rienced.

Evolution is the preeminent natural cre-
ative process. There is no evidence that
when life began on our planet or when
our cosmos began all subsequent history
was actually present enwrapped in that
primordial beginning. On the contrary,
the evidence is that all growth and all evo-
lution are genuinely creative events. At
every step new patterns are fabricated by
working over old materials; they are not
merely unfolded ready-made.

In growth and in every other vital func-

[21]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

tion the biologist recognizes a causal se-
quence. When he says that the present
activity has been determined by preceding
events, he means that the present struc-
tural organization of the body reacts to
stimulating agents (arising either outside
or inside the body) in ways which his ex-
perience shows are orderly. We find em-
pirically that when the rules or laws of
this order are correctly formulated we
can use these rules to embrace events past
or future which we have not observed and
that further observations of similar events
conform with them. A causally deter-
mined process as the naive biologist em-
ploys this expression, Is one whose progress
conforms to empirically determined rules.
By uncaused action he means events that
do not fit Into a unitary system of such
orderly processes.

The naturalist characterizes the causal
sequence as mechanistic or deterministic.
Living mechanisms conform to the same
general rules as dead machines, though
the details of the construction and per-
formance are very different. What is
meant by determinism in biology Is harder
to explain, for there Is apt to be a^
metaphysical Implication concealed In it

[22]

BIOLOGICAL CONTROL

somewhere. It certainly does not Involve
predeterminism In the sense of foreordi-
natlon as theologians use this word, nor In
the sense of preformation as biologists use
this word.

In the orderly sequence of vital proc-
esses we say the present act Is the result
of the preceding members of the series.
We say again that the present act Is a
causal agent (part of the causal complex)
which determines the next succeeding act
in the same sense In which It was deter-
mined. It Is a determining agent In the
sense that the succeeding history would
be different if it were not there, and In
this sense It Is a necessary component of
this particular causal sequence. A new
causal factor enters at every turn. This
process Is orderly, lawful, and Involves no
disruption of natural causal sequences as
biologists generally view them.

Having by this digression attempted to
clarify what we mean by causally deter-
mined behavior, we see that our mechan-
istic determinism resolves itself into a pro-
gressive determining.

Certain causal agencies which bear an
obvious relation to particular processes
are spoken of as controls of those actlvi-

[23]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

ties. Thus a dyke may control the flow
of a river. In this sense some of the vital
processes are said to control behavior.
Hereditary organization, the physiological
gradients described by Child, the activi-
ties of the ductless glands, and innumer-
able neuro-muscular mechanisms are illus-
trations of the apparatus of organic
control.

In reviewing the various kinds of ani-
mals as these are known scientifically and
in attempting to reconstruct the probable
course of animal evolution we are im-
pressed by the orderly progression in the
complexity of animal bodies and in the
efficiency of the correlated behavior pat-
terns. This efficiency is measured by the
range and variety of the animal's adjust-
ments to the surrounding world in which
he lives.

The worth and rank of living beings
everywhere are measured by our capacity
to assimilate the wealth of nature by
which we are surrounded, to build it into
the fabric of our own organizations, to
use these materials and these energies pro-
ductively, and to return them to the envi-
ronment in which we live, stamped with
the impress of our own individualities.

[24]

BIOLOGICAL CONTROL

This rule of life applies throughout the
whole range of living things, from coral
polyps to kings, the directors of industry
and finance and the inspired authors of
immortal creations in art and letters.

Thus we see that all living is a creative
process. And its value to the organism
and to the community in which one lives
is measured by the efficiency of the in-
ternal controls. Those organisms, in-
cluding those persons who are able to
adjust themselves to their environments
in more diversified ways, to assimilate into
their own personal organizations more
different kinds of things (material, dy-
namic, intellectual, esthetic, or whatever),
to exhibit more diversified and appropri-
ate behavior in every situation, and to
modify their behavior more readily after
untoward experiences — such organisms we
call higher. They live more and they live
better. They are more successful in what
Stevenson happily calls '^the continent art
of living well."

Every organism to some extent controls
the environment in which he lives, and the
pattern of this control of environment
through behavior is shaped by the internal
organization of the individual, which, in its

[25]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

turn, has grown up during the exercise of
these distinctively vital functions. Every
animal below man also controls his own
behavior to some extent from within his
personal organization. He does what he
does In part because of hereditary organ-
ization, in part because of present environ-
ing Influences, and In part because his in-
ternal organization at the moment has
been shaped by previous experiences in
the course of his individual life. This
Inner nature has grown up gradually
through the exercise of his own innate
powers in adjustment to situations as they
arise.

Man Is no exception to this rule. His
Inner nature is vastly more complex than
that of any other animal and the influ-
ence of his personal experience plays an
enormously greater role. Like Insects and
beavers and all other animal kind, we do
have ourselves under some measure of con-
trol, we do control to some degree the
world In which we live, and we make a
bigger job of It. We cannot deflect the
earth from Its orbit, but we can divert
Niagara from Its channel and set it to
work for us In a water mill. Beavers, too,
can dam a stream, but they cannot do as

[26]

BIOLOGICAL CONTROL

many things with the impounded water as
men can.

This control is real. It is no illusion
to mock our anguished striving. Control
of behavior and of environment is in fact
a basic vital function. The organism dif-
fers from the dead mechanism through its
control of the energies which play around
it so that these do not corrode and de-
stroy it, but on the other hand they nourish
and perpetuate it.

This is brought about because the liv-
ing body has the power to assimilate mat-
ter and energy and to shape these for its
own ends, that is, to control the course
of events taking place within its own sub-
stance in adaptive fashion. Control of
environment and of behavior by internal
processes, control of circumstances through
self-control — this is our measure of the
worth of life and the fullness thereof,
from Amoeba proteus to Homo sapiens.

This is not figurative language nor is
there anything mystical or esoteric about
it. It is a statement of commonly observed
fact which endures the most searching sci-
entific examination. The mechanisms of
this internal control have not been fully
explored, but there is a vast wealth of

[27]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

information on this subject which will be
found summarized in the manuals of
anatomy and physiology.

The environmental energies cause no
reaction at all unless the bodily organiza-
tion is in some way attuned to them. The
blind man is entirely unaffected by the
movement of a tarantula running down his
coat sleeve; the average man dashes the
vermin to the ground in terror; the natu-
ralist may eagerly capture the rare speci-
men for his collection. The behavior in
each case is determined by the internal or-
ganization at the moment, though this
mechanism is set on a trigger which must
be pulled by an external agency. The re-
action in both of the last two cases is
controlled, in one instance, by unreasoned
impulse firmly implanted perhaps In in-
stinctive endowment, in the other, by intel-
ligently directed purpose; and we wonder
whether the latter type of control can be
subjected to scientific analysis as truly as
the former.

When we know what energies reverbe-
rate within the single cell of an ameba
while it goes about the humble business
of its simple life a long step will have
been taken toward an understanding of

[28]

BIOLOGICAL CONTROL

that masterful dominance of the human
brain which has made man the lord of
creation. And to know these forces ade-
quately is to be able to control them in-
telligently, to go beyond the simple tropism
or reflex where response follows stimulus
as immediately as the doorbell in my
kitchen rings when the pushbutton is
pressed, to replace the blind groping by
trial-and-error and the destruction of those
countless individuals who guess wrong by
intelligently directed foresight and pur-
poseful improvement of the living condi-
tions, in short, to shape the future course
of civilization.

These are not insoluble problems. In
fact, good progress has already been made,
and the spectacular results already
achieved have put the investigation of
these fundamental biological problems in
so dramatic a setting as to make biological
research the most exciting game on earth,
and for the biggest stake — nothing less
than the control of human destiny. And
we play to win.

The biologist is by natural right an
optimist. We have before us the actual
historical records, in the form of fossil
remains, of the history of animal evolu-

[29]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

tion covering a period of perhaps a hun-
dred milHon years, whose incontrovertible
teaching is that animal life, as a whole,
has slowly progressed, with many back
eddies and temporary reversals of the flow,
from lower to higher planes of living as
measured by the standards which we have
already adopted. Animal bodies have be-
come progressively more complex, their
behavior more varied, their adjustments
to conditions of life more effective. Life
is more diversified and richer, individual
efficiency tends to replace mass action, and
finallv, self-consciousness adds to success
the joy of striving and succeeding.

Through the biologist's lenses life is
seen in its broader sweeps as well as in its
microscopic details. Our vision is wide
enough to see that all enduring life is
successful life — some on a low plane, some
at higher levels — and conflict, pain and the
appalling mortality of all living things
are only minor tragedies in the unceas-
ing march toward better things, better as
measured in terms of successful accom-
plishment; indeed, these are the wages
which must be paid for constructive
biological advance, just as in our personal
experiences they form a necessary back-

[30]

BIOLOGICAL CONTROL

ground for repose, happiness and satisfac-
tion in achievement.

From these reflections it is clear that
control of behavior from within the or-
ganization is a fundamental vital property
common to all organisms from the lowest
to the highest. In the lower ranks of life
this control can readily be seen to be me-
chanically determined in accordance with
physiological laws, some of which are well
established experimentally. Causal se-
quences can be followed through in these
processes, from the incorporation by the
organism of external materials and ener-
gies to the return to the environment of
the material and equivalent amounts of
energy as muscular movement, heat, etc.
This physiological control is real and eas-
ily demonstrated by ordinary laboratory
methods.

Of course, this is only a partial state-
ment of the apparatus of biological con-
trol. All hving is interaction between a
protoplasmic organization and the ener-
gies of an appropriate environment. One
may analyze and evaluate the vital proc-
esses from the standpoint of either the
internal or external factors. We are con-
cerned here only with the former. The

[31]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

latter are taken for granted as essential
conditions for all living. The kind of life
that is lived is dependent in part on the
environment within which the body lives
and moves and has its being, and in part
upon the internal organization of the liv-
ing substance at the moment. It is the
internal organization or inner nature
whose characteristics we now wish to ex-
amine.

[32]

CHAPTER III
HUMAN CONTROL

When we come to apply these prin-
ciples in detail to a consideration of human
behavior we are confronted with grave
difficulties. That a part of our conduct is
mechanistically controlled in accordance
with physiological laws, no one questions.
But the mechanism and significance of this
control are not always fully appreciated.
There is general agreement that biological
control has grown In range and effective-
ness on the physiological plane from ameba
to man. Now how about the other com-
ponents of human life, the behavior colli-
gated with conscious motives, purposes,
choices, volitions? Are these genuine fac-
tors In human control? It is popularly
believed that they are. Can this belief
endure critical scientific scrutiny?

The assumption that the mental and the
physical belong to different and Incom-
mensurable orders of being appears in two
popular schools of philosophic thought

[33]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

known as parallelism and interactionism,
one of which allows no causal relation be-
tween the mind and its body, though these
seem in some mysterious fashion to run
parallel ways, while the other admits a
measure of such causal relationship on oc-
casion without defining the status of the
separate entities or why and how they
happen to enmesh with each other. As
if the mysteries of mind and matter were
not sufficiently baffling on their own ac-
count, these systems pile mystery on mys-
tery, only in the end to add frankly in-
soluble puzzles to what was before
obscure.

These are metaphysical, not scientific
solutions of our problem and their ac-
ceptance seems to close the road to further
progress by the method of natural science.
The admission of these dualistic philos-
ophies of nature brings our task to an
abrupt conclusion; for the naturalist can-
not deal with disembodied spirits.

It is quite the fashion now-a-days for
biologists, physicians, and psychologists to
adopt a different sort of short-cut solution
of the troublesome problem of the rela-
tion between mind and body. Because
nature is a unitary system of causal se-

[34]

HUMAN CONTROL

quences and because we do not see how
mind fits Into such a system, therefore (it
is argued) consciousness is an epiphe-
nomenon or a sort of by-product which
can be left out of the scientific reckoning
altogether. This does not follow. There
are no by-products in a total view of na-
ture. And the fact that we do not know
how these things are related does not
prove that there is no natural relation-
ship between them. This is a question of
fact to be determined on evidence. If pre-
judged, it can only be on metaphysical
grounds, and our "antimetaphysical" sci-
entific leaders must watch their steps lest
they become more hopelessly entangled in
metaphysics than the metaphysicians them-
selves.

The methods of the "objective psychol-
ogists" are sound scientifically as far as
they go and they have contributed much
to our understanding of animal and human
behavior. But they cannot claim to give
a complete and scientifically adequate ac-
count of human experience. When con-
sciousness (awareness of some sort) is
present in a situation, this is a fact of ex-
perience which cannot be neglected in a
total view of the experience.

[35]

FATALI SM OR FREEDOM

It has already been noted that "veri-
fiable experience" is the only legitimate
basis for a scientific inquiry. Some ob-
jective psychologists claim that since in-
trospective experience is a strictly personal
matter it is not a verifiable experience and
hence it is inaccessible to scientific investi-
gation. This is an arbitrary and unjustifi-
able limitation of the scientific method. It
it true that conscious experiences are un-
like those objective events that can be veri-
fied by anybody who will repeat the con-
ditions exactly. But one can experiment
with his own conscious experience and
modify the causal factors involved in suc-
cessive repetitions of approximately the
same experience. And with the aid of
language we can get some Insight into
other peoples' conscious processes and
compare them with our own. We must
employ a very different technique when
we investigate strictly subjective experi-
ence from that suitable for those experi-
ences which we objectify, and proper
scientific control of these observations Is
much more difficult.

Anger, for instance, is a conscious proc-
ess. We can investigate the physical con-
ditions which make us angry with the ordi-

[36]

HUMAN CONTROL

nary technique of objective science. We
can also compare one emotion of anger
with another and study these subjective
differences In relation to the antecedent
external, physiological, and conscious
causes and in relation to the subjective and
objective effects of the pulse of passion.
This is a difficult thing to do; but if we
rule out of science everything but the easy
tasks for which we already have suitable
technical methods, science will not make
much more progress.

Our subjective experiences are very real
to us and before throwing them into the
discard we may well inquire in an un-
prejudiced attitude whether they are not
genuine factors In a rigidly scientific study
of man, whose neglect leaves a fatal gap
in certain very significant causal sequences.
In fact the exclusion of the conscious proc-
esses from a total view of life as the
biologist must study it Is scientifically in-
admissible and, as I have elsewhere re-
marked,^ this procedure can be adopted
only by an appeal (usually cleverly
masked) to metaphysical, theological,
mythological or other unscientific preju-

1 Brains of Rats and Men. A Survey of the Origin
and Biological Significance of the Cerebral Cortex.
University of Chicago Press, 1926, p. 289.

[37]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

dices, or else as an expression of a subtle
form of intellectual indolence which, con-
fronted by a complex problem, seeks to
simplify it by ignoring the troublesome
factors. These problems will never be
solved by confusing mind with not-mind,
by taking refuge in the impenetrable murk
of a supposed unconscious mind, or by
defining mind as something else (say, bio-
logical adjustment, nervous functions in
general, or "behavior") and then limiting
the investigation to this other something.

This leads us back to our former ques-
tion, What is the place of mind in nature
and in human nature in particular?

Scientific men tend to take a radically
mechanistic view of all natural phenomena.
This is as it should be, for all of these
phenomena seem to be interrelated as
parts of a single natural system permeated
with causal sequences. Any break in the
chain of lawful or causal relationships, the
recognition of any epiphenomena (call
them mind, soul, spirit, or what you like)
which are not integrally articulated with
natural things and processes as these are
known or knowable to science, the injec-
tion of any metaphysical daemons, es-
sences, categories, or entelechies into natu-

[38]

HUMAN CONTROL

ral processes — these favorite expedients
of the philosophically-minded when con-
fronted with unresolved problems merely
bar the way to further scientific advance.
The coinage of a high-brow name for an
unknown factor Is not an adequate solu-
tion of a scientific problem, though this
subtle device has at times retarded scien-
tific advance for generations. If we de-
sire to keep this discussion on the scientific
plane (and this is our avowed purpose)
the recognition of any uncaused phe-
nomena in our scheme of natural things
must be rigorously excluded.

The argument up to this point leads to
a mechanistic view of matter and of mind.
The only escape from this conclusion,
which is repugnant to many people, is by
an appeal to mysticism which is repugnant
to the scientific mind or else by a prac-
tical negation of the reality and efficiency
of mind In nature which is merely a lazy
way of solving a difficult problem by ignor-
ing all of its troublesome factors — besides
flouting both scientific and common sense.

We have seen that biological control
throughout the whole realm of living
things Is a lawful expression of vital ener-
gies, that these energies are all derived

[39]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

in a last analysis from inorganic nature,
that the forms of their expression in living
bodies are shaped to a large extent by the
organization of these bodies, and that the
amplification of these mechanisms of con-
trol is perhaps the most significant factor
in animal evolution. Control of human
behavior is largely through mental power
and this, as the man on the street correctly
expresses it, is brain power. In the actual
operation of all these systems of control,
from ameba to man, they conform to the
natural laws of biology, that is, they are
all functions of specific structures related
in causal sequence and hence mechanisti-
cally determined and mechanistically de-
termining events. The more perfect the
control, the more elaborate and efficient
the mechanism.

There is abundant scientific evidence,
which cannot be reviewed here, that think-
ing is a function of the body (and of the
brain more particularly) just as truly as
walking is a function of the body (and of
the legs more particularly) . Both of these
functions have well-known, definitely as-
signable organs, and the scientific evidence
for relating the function with the organ
is of the same sort and is equally con-
vincing in the two cases.

[40]

HUMAN CONTROL

We know something of the physical and
chemical processes involved in muscular
contraction, in nervous conduction, and in
thinking. It is true that our knowledge
of none of these processes is complete, and
we know less about the actual working of
the bodily activities during thinking than
of many other functions. But fortunately
in this latter field we have direct aware-
ness, not of the physical processes of nerv-
ous conduction, etc., but of the experience
as such. There is mystery here but not
necessarily mysticism. Ignorance is not an
impassable barrier to scientific progress.
The thing to do is to widen our experience,
our factual knowledge, not to close the
door to such advance by magical formulae.

When we think, there is protoplasmic
activity, chiefly In the brain, just as truly
as when we walk there Is protoplasmic
activity, In this case chiefly In the legs.
The internal activities and the organs em-
ployed are as different In the two cases as
are the functions themselves.

Our awareness of what is going on (that
Is, of part of it) Is only one of the mani-
festations of a very complex process which
may include an external stimulus, various
Internal processes that can be demon-

[41]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

strated objectively, and the subjective ex-
perience. The latter is not a disembodied
function. It is part of the vital process.

The function which I know introspec-
tively as thinking would appear to another
observer as protoplasmic activities of very
complicated sorts, provided he had ade-
quate technique to observe all that is going
on in my body. Some of the radical be-
haviorists claim that the complete objec-
tive account of the process as made by
such a hypothetical observer would include
all there is of it. But this I do not admit,
because another observer of my thinking
process is incapable of having the experi-
ence which I have and his "complete ob-
jective account" does not and cannot
express the whole of the situation. His
account is still incomplete, for my experi-
ence includes an awareness component
from which he is debarred by the nature
of things. This awareness as a function
of my protoplasm cannot at the same time
be a function of his differently organized
protoplasm. The experienced character
of subjectivity is just this personal quality
which cannot be shared with another. As
we are constituted this Is the way we ex-

[42]

HUMAN CONTROL

perience. I do not understand this. I
accept it as a datum of experience.

Our common and trustworthy experience
is that mental acts (thoughts, emotions,
volitions, and the like) are causative fac-
tors in human conduct. This can be
articulated with the rest of the natural his-
tory of living only by recognizing that
these acts are protoplasmic functions.
Even in those cases where we do not know
the whole of the process, where we are
ignorant of the organs involved, we must
assume that the mental process, the expe-
rience which we actually have, has its struc-
tural and physiological correlates. The
process, as a whole, including both the
known and the unknown components, is
causally related with the rest of my vital
processes. When therefore, we say that
conscious experience is a causative factor
in human behavior it must be understood
that we regard this experience as one part
only of a protoplasmic activity involving
structural changes in the nervous system,
whether we know what these latter are or
not. Thinking is a part of living and all
living involves structural alterations of
the vital substance.

There is a certain minimum mass of

[43]

FATAL ISM OR FREEDOM

brain and complexity of its internal texture
below which no higher mental processes
are possible. A human brain with less
than this minimum of organization, if
taken from the body and preserved in a
museum jar, will be immediately diagnosed
as that of an imbecile by a neurologist
who knows nothing of its previous history.
Our mentality is adequate for getting
along in the world and for doing things
which would be impossible without it.
These activities which we know best intro-
spectively comprise for us human folk the
best and most important part of our vital
processes. We must, therefore, take ac-
count of them in the natural history of
human life. And by so doing we tremen-
dously enlarge the scope of our analysis
of human nature without sacrifice of sound
scientific method. This "functional view"
does not mean that thought Is a "secretion
of the brain" any more than it means that
walking is a secretion of the muscles. Nor
is it more objectionably materialistic than
is the statement of the relation of any
other function with its anatomical organ.
What may be the relation between any
organ and its function, any material and
its properties, matter and energy in gen-

[44]

HUMAN CONTROL

eral — the answer to these philosophical
questions must square with the facts as
they are discovered, but into this specula-
tive field we need not now enter. We are
here interested only in the scientific and
practical aspects of the question/

The word mind Is used here in the ordi-
nary traditional sense. It implies an
awareness of some sort. Some of our ex-
periences we objectify as external things;
another complex of experience we objectify
as our own animal bodies; still other ex-
periences we do not objectify at all and
call them ideas, hopes, sentiments, aspira-
tions, Ideals, and so forth. These are just
as truly functions of our body as Is our
breathing. They are natural events.
Their causes are preceding natural events,
some outside our bodies, some Inside, some
easily demonstrable physiologically, some
known only Introspectively. Their results
are still other natural events, some men-
tal, some physiological, some perhaps pro-
found changes in external nature.

A man may "make up his mind" to
start a forest fire. Certain physiological
processes ensue, resulting in striking a
match. The result is the destruction of

^ See Brains of Rats and Men, chapter xvi.

[45]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

a million dollars worth of property. If
our knowledge of this sequence of events
were complete we could unfold an un-
broken chain of causally related members,
beginning with certain hereditary traits,
following through the development of a
malevolent personality which cherishes a
grudge against a brutal foreman, and cul-
minating in the arrest and conviction of the
felon. Some of the factors in this se-
quence we can describe as external events,
some as bodily processes demonstrable as
physiological functions. Others we can
describe only In subjective terms because
we do not yet know what cerebral, endo-
crine and other bodily processes have the
peculiar properties which at present we
can only describe as revenge, hate, pur-
pose and the like. To ignore the mental
components of this causal sequence because
we do not know as much as we would like
about the related bodily processes is a
travesty of scientific method, for we can
practically deal with revenge as a motive
of conduct in common life, in the law court,
and in a scientific analysis of the behavior.
We must therefore recognize conscious
acts, that is, processes which we know best
introspectively, as by far the most im-

[46]

HUMAN CONTROL

portant agencies of control of human be-
havior.

Mental processes with their related
bodily changes are unquestionably the most
significant causal factors in human life,
in both our personal and social relation-
ships. Among these mental processes are
the fabrication of language and other sym-
bols, generalization from experience, and
the formulation of laws of uniformity of
natural processes. The exercise of these
functions enables us to project these laws
into the future and so to predict coming
events.

With power of prevision and prediction
comes ability to shape my present conduct
with a view to its probable effect upon the
future. In case the external situation per-
mits two or more different reactions to an
excitation, which of these will be taken
is determined by the internal state of the
organism at the moment. The discrimina-
tion may be made unconsciously, reflexly;
and the essential mechanisms of this sort
of discriminative reflex are fairly well
understood. When, however, the discrimi-
nation is made consciously in view of the
probable future consequences of each of
the possible ways of reacting to the situa-

[47]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

tion we call the act a choice. The choice
Is causally determined as truly as is the
reflex; but there is nevertheless a world
of difference between the two acts. A de-
liberate choice In view of possible future
contingencies requires an enormously more
complex nervous organization than does
the reflex; this organization is chiefly in
the cerebral cortex, and its grade of elabo-
ration marks the chief difference between
man and brute. The human cerebral cor-
tex is more than twice as large as that of
an ape of equal body weight.

The cerebral cortex is the chief organ
of human control, Is the most distinctive
structural peculiarity of the genus Homo
and unquestionably the most intricate, the
most marvelous, and the most mysterious
mechanism on our planet. Nevertheless,
we can view this amazing organ biologi-
cally only as mechanism In action. Its
regulatory control over conduct is undoubt-
edly knit Into the total organization of
our being in lawful patterns.

The most characteristic functions of the
human cerebral cortex are thinking and
the other acts of our conscious life. Bio-
logically considered, these are functions
of definite organs. There is no escape

[48]

HUMAN CONTROL

from this conclusion without breaking over
the confines of scientific evidence. And
common experience makes it clear that
these conscious acts are the most important
controlling agents in human conduct. Of
ail our conscious acts, those which enable
us to forecast the future and to shape our
present conduct in view of possible future
contingencies and of our desires for per-
sonal and social gratification are the most
significant for the purpose of the follow-
ing discussion. The ability to do this
marvelous thing is part of our human
nature, of the inner nature of man.

These human choices in view of the
efiect of a present act upon future events,
as we have seen, are causally related.
They are, however, commonly regarded
as free choices. In what sense are they
free? We must next inquire what we or-
dinarily mean by freedom. Is the concept
necessarily mystical or is there a natural
freedom?

[49]

CHAPTER IV
NATURAL FREEDOM

In popular usage the word "free" is
employed in two quite different senses
which are often confused. These will here
be termed natural freedom and mystical
freedom.

By mystical freedom is meant the belief
that in human conduct there are acts which
are absolutely self-determined independ-
ently of natural causal sequences. There
seems to be such an implication in the use
by some people of the expression "a free
choice" or "a free agent." Such a belief,
in so far as it implies uncaused action,
cannot be admitted in a naturalisitc argu-
ment. We, therefore, have no further
concern with mystical freedom in this dis-
cussion.

In scientific usage, as in common life,
the word "free" is generally used to de-
scribe a variety of natural processes which
are carried through in orderly or lawful
ways, as a freely flowing stream, "free
air" at a garage, the free course of a rifle
bullet, a freely twining vine, the free flight

[50]

NATURAL FREEDOM

of a bird, a free man who has just been
released from jail. This is natural free-
dom, for all of the processes mentioned
follow In orderly causal sequences.

Water flows freely if unconfined; that
is, it is free to move In accordance with
the laws of gravity, friction. Inertia, etc.
But water In the mill-pond behind the dam
is not free in this sense. On the other
hand the water of the mill-pond may be
free to the traveler who wishes to dip and
drink, while that of a free-flowing spring
near by is privately owned and sold to
thirsty travelers for a price. To the way-
farer It Is not free. Water which is free
to flow mav not be free to drink. The
meaning of the word "free" in the two
illustrations appears to be very different,
and so it is. Yet in each case there is a
definite context within which no outside
agent can trespass if freedom is to be pre-
served. Water free to flow must not be
confined, though It may be sold; water
free to drink may be bottled, but It must
not be sold.

A locomotive is free to make sixty miles
an hour on the track but not across coun-
try. We may, in fact, conceive a self-
stoking and self-oiling locomotive which is

[51]

FATAIJ SM OR FREEDOM

free to start from Chicago at 12 o'clock
and run to New York over a clear track
on a definite schedule. But it is not free
to run to New York on the same track
occupied by other traffic. Because the loco-
motive, when its run is over, is not free
to go out and get drunk, why deny it the
limited freedom that it has?

This natural freedom, as applied to in-
organic and simpler vital activities, means
that a thing or process with specific organi-
zation is able to exhibit the behavior
characteristic of or typical for that organi-
zation in an appropriate environment.
There must be no external or internal bar
or impediment to the orderly progress of
the particular behavior in question. Such
freedom must be defined in each case with
reference to the specific factor of the total
situation whose typical manifestation is
under consideration. It may be impaired
or abolished by defective (atypical) in-
ternal organization or by inappropriate
(atypical) environing conditions. If a
thing is free from a monetary standpoint
a charge cannot be made for it. A caged
bird is not free to fly. A cripple is not
free to run. A bankrupt is not free to
endow a college.

[52]

NATURAL FREEDOM

There is a popular impression that this
freedom is opposed to control, but this is
obviously fallacious, for the orderly proc-
ess of cause-and-effect sequence is the
indispensable condition for the manifesta-
tion of any free activities whatever.
Otherwise we have chaos, not freedom.
Disorder, or the disruption of normal pat-
terns of performance, abolishes freedom.
Freedom must appear within the lawful
system, not opposed to it; but in a situa-
tion, where a particular type of freedom
is designated, the activity characteristic
of that situation must not be inhibited if
freedom is preserved.

The perfection of this freedom depends
upon the smoothness of the adjustment of
internal processes to environmental agen-
cies. Its value depends on the pattern of
the organization and the setting or total
situation within which it operates. An air-
plane may be said to have a wider range
of freedom than an automobile, and the
motor-car a wider range than the ox-cart.
The larger and better the internal appa-
ratus of control of behavior the more di-
versified is the behavior and the wider the
scope of the natural freedom.

[53]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

The argument so far comes to this.
The concept of freedom cannot be defined
or even discussed scientifically outside the
sphere of orderly or lawful causal se-
quences. Within this sphere, a process,
or a thing, or a person may be said to be
free in respect to some definite context.
It is wholly a relative matter. A man who
Imagines that he is free to disregard all
the laws of nature promptly terminates
his career unless restrained in the asylum.
And is any one of us in a position to
choose to which of the laws he will con-
form? No, we must obey them all
whether we like it or not. Within this
lawfully determined and determining natu-
ral system we recognize in our common
speech a natural freedom which, though
limited, is real. The meaning of the word
must, however, be carefully defined in each
case where it is used with reference to the
particular behavior under consideration.

Political freedom is obviously natural
freedom as here defined. A nation is free
though controlled by civil, criminal, and
international laws, but only in so far as
these laws do not obstruct the social and
political evolution of the people. And the
declaration of our fathers that all men are

[54]

NATURAL FREEDOM

born free and equal means just this and
nothing more. The constitution of our
Republic guarantees to every man the op-
portunity to develop these natural powers
without undue interference by the state.
And the spirit of this constitution is vio-
lated by social injustice and by the neglect
to provide the means of free individual
and social advancement just as truly as by
illegal seizure of goods or restraint of the
person. Political freedom develops within
a system of political laws just as natural
freedom everywhere operates within the
realm of natural laws.

This natural, or common-sense freedom
is generally admitted. But what of its
value? Is it a mere play upon words, a
derisive mockery, to yoke together this
pitiful fragment of freedom with the crea-
tive freedom of will so generally regarded
as man's noblest attribute?

In considering natural freedom one is
perhaps first impressed by the poverty and
Impotence of so meager a dole. Is so
contracted and exiguous a freedom worthy
of the toil and anguish which mankind has
expended upon Its quest? Can nothing
better be said of so mean a mistress than
to characterize our Audrey as

[55]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

"A poor virgin, sir, an ill-favored thing, sir,
but mine own"?

Before adjudicating this question we
must inquire further into natural freedom
as exhibited in human conduct. We shall
endeavor to adhere strictly to the scien-
tific method in our examination of human
freedom, its characteristics, its limitations,
and its practical significance in personal
and social adjustment.

[56]

CHAPTER V
HUMAN FREEDOM

Human conduct, including human think-
ing which is one of the mainsprings of our
behavior, follows in causal sequence just
as truly as does the behavior of a soap bub-
ble or a reflex arc; but the causal sequence
is very different in the three cases. Each
of the mechanisms involved is free to work
out and bring to expression its own inner
nature except in so far as the dynamic pat-
tern of its organization is distorted or
obstructed.

The organization of any man at any
moment, as we have seen, is the result of
the interaction of the original nature
(heredity) and the second nature (nur-
ture). None of his adult characteristics
were present as such in the original germ
cell within which the causal sequence which
we call a personality began; but this germ
cell was endowed with the potentiality to
develop into the particular* person that I
call me or you (that Is, to unfold Its orig-
inal nature) only under the influence of

[57]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

the environmental agents that are normal
and typical for the species. Any consid-
erable departure from this typical environ-
mental setting results In atypical or
abnormal development, and further de-
parture results In failure to develop at all
— death. And even within the normal
range of environmental variables the
course of the unfolding of the original
nature and the fabrication of the added
patterns of the second nature within this
original warp and weft are shaped from
day to day by the previous day's experi-
ence.

This experience may affect the external
form of the body, as in Chinese foot-bind-
ing, it may affect the chemical balance of
physiological processes, as in deficiency of
the pancreas, resulting In diabetes, It may
affect the mental vigor, as In psychic
trauma or nervous shock. The Illustra-
tions chosen are of subnormal develop-
ment arising from defect or a limitation
imposed upon free growth and freely run-
ning physiological processes. Conversely,
free growth in all of these fields is pro-
moted by exercise, by the normal use of
the native capacities, mental as well as
physiological.

[S8]

HUMAN FREEDOM

The natural freedom of which we are
now speaking is nothing other than the
freedom of any organization to "run true
to form," that is, to operate in accord-
ance with its own inner nature in situations
appropriate for that operation. It is the
nature of a spruce tree to grow in a definite
way and so to exhibit a characteristic
form; it is the nature of a grapevine to
grow in a different way; and each will
assume its own peculiar adult form, if
free to do so, that is, if its natural or
"free" growth is not prevented by atypi-
cal internal or external conditions. This
same rule of natural freedom applies in
the human realm. The child or the man
is free to unfold and develop his original
nature (whatever that may be), unless
this process is restrained by atypical or un-
favorable external conditions. If the orig-
inal nature is defective and the man is con-
sequently feeble-minded, the range of his
natural freedom is to that extent con-
tracted, a fact that is recognized both in
law and in morals by a corresponding re-
laxation of his responsibility or account-
ability for his acts.

The original nature of man includes his
inherited bodily form, his reflexes and

[59]

FATA LISM OR FREEDOM

instincts, and certain potentialities for
further development whose exact patterns
will be determined by the environment in
which he lives, that is, by the educative
processes to which he Is subjected. On the
structural side, his Inner nature at any
stage of his life is his protoplasmic organi-
zation at that moment. His conduct is
determined by the reaction of that Inner
nature to the environmental conditions
then prevailing.

Some of our personally acquired proc-
esses, moreover, have the remarkable and
mysterious property that we have an
awareness of what is going on (or part
of it) while they are acting. These are
set over against all of the others as the
components of our own conscious experi-
ence. And when this conscious experience
becomes sufficiently elaborated so that
from the totality of single experiences we
are able to build up general ideas or ab-
stractions and to express and fixate these
by the use of language and other symbols,
we have acquired the mental instruments
and technique necessary to evaluate ex-
perience In terms, not only of its past sig-
nificance (generahzation) but also in

[60]

HUMAN FREEDOM

terms of Its possible future significance
(prediction).

The prevision of possible consequences
of an act is a causative factor in deter-
mining present action. If the discharged
employee to whom reference was made
above, when he is inclined to light a forest
fire, foresees inevitable capture and con-
viction for his crime, his hand will be
stayed and the lighted match is extin-
guished. And the emotional thrill which
goes with the evaluation of a contemplated
act, the approval or disapproval with the
welling up of wish or desire or aversion
— these, too, are causal factors in shaping
the act.

An intelligent choice is a freer choice
in contrast with unconsciously determined
processes in that one looks ahead to the
consequences of action and this prevision
Is a real component of the causative com-
plex. Because we can see consequences we
choose between them. And this choice is
free In the ordinary sense of the term (if
we leave the mystical concept of "un-
caused" out of the reckoning). It is not
that I have foreknowledge of what I am
compelled to do. But the foreknowledge
of possible consequences is a true causative

[6i]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

factor in determining what I actually
shall do.

This ability to forecast the probable
future result of a course of action not yet
undertaken marks a critical stage in the
evolution of human control. I foresee two
possible ways to adjust to a present situa-
tion and I weigh their relative advantages.
Deliberative choice now replaces uncon-
scious physiological discrimination in the
resolution of problems of behavior. Both
ways are open. I am free to choose one
or the other so far as external compulsion
is concerned. I may take the right-hand
path because it leads toward the comforts
of home. A honey bee or an ant would
do the same.

But in my own case I have a vivid mental
picture of the reception that probably
awaits me there. If I have been hunting
for a destitute household and am return-
ing at dusk empty-handed, a moment's re-
flection may check the homing instinct and
I deliberately turn to the left, taking the
longer way home in the hope that its better
cover for game may favor a lucky shot
and a supper for the children. Which-
ever alternative I may choose it is clear

[62]

HUMAN FREEDOM

that every step is causally determined in
the same sense that my reflexes are said
to be causally determined. If I yield to
fatigue and discouragement and take the
direct path homeward it is perhaps because
my lot has before been cast in pleasant
places and a soft and carefree life of ease
has left both muscles and determination
flabby from disuse. But if previous train-
ing in adversity has kept both bodily and
mental vigor fit and has developed a sturdy
independence of will and a sense of respon-
sibility for my dependents, a snappy choice
to keep at the job regardless of fatigue
or discomfort comes by second nature
without delav or cavil.

With self-consciousness in a social en-
vironment comes enlargement of the self
to include the socius. To self-preservation
and self-realization are added the pres-
ervation of the family and the clan, and
from these motives arise the social sanc-
tions which when seen in clearer mental
perspective become ideals and moral sanc-
tions. Out of these social relations grow
our codes of responsibility and account-
ability for behavior. These finer humani-
ties and their cerebral organs grow with
use as does our muscular skill or they

[63]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

atrophy and revert to bestial levels if neg-
lected.

The conclusion Is that the ability to use
language, numbers and other symbols In
thinking and the rational prevision of fu-
ture contingencies gives greater capacity
for control of nature and of our adjust-
ment to It and for control of the social
progress of the community In which we
live. These same powers lead to the de-
velopment of personal Ideals which become
dominant motives of conduct and which
may eventuate In a large measure of self-
control, all In lawful patterns of cause and
effect sequences. These thoughtful judg-
ments and consciously fabricated Ideals and
their related emotions and sentiments are
real causal factors In shaping all future
conduct because they are biological com-
ponents of the vital process; and In so far
as they do influence behavior the range of
natural freedom, that Is, freedom to un-
fold the original nature of the organiza-
tion In lawful patterns, has been by so
much enlarged.

This freedom, I repeat. Is real. The
normal man In normal environment Is free
to work out his own Inner nature and to
enlarge and refine It. He Is free to de-

[64]

HUMAN FREEDOM

sire a multitude of things, to work for
these and to enjoy their attainment. Sloth,
whether due to hookworm or any other
cause, is an impassable barrier to this free-
dom. But all experience shows that a
healthy and vigorous mind does have the
power to whip sluggish and jaded muscles
Into fresh effort, and that the quickening
of some interest or curiosity or hope or
fear may be an adequate excitation to
transform apathy into a frenzy of intense
mental and physical effort. A stump
speaker In a fervid political campaign may
mount the platform of his tenth speech
for the day in a daze of fatigue, but at
the end of five minutes he may be firing
his audience with his best oratorical per-
formance and answering the hecklers with
keenest repartee, only to collapse as soon
as off the stage.

We cannot create these mental energies
out of nothing, for they are functions of
bodily organs,^ but we do have the power
by Intelligent choices so to direct our con-
duct that we place ourselves in receptive
attitudes toward the sources of mental
strength just as we can decide whether

1 On the mechanisms of these vital reserves see
chapter xvii of my book, Brains of Rats and Men.

[65]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

to eat and nourish our bodies or to diet
and reduce our weight. To follow the
lines of least resistance in the mental field
leads backward toward our biological
origins, toward bestial reversals; to make
full and intelligent use of our native en-
dowments looks forward toward richer
and freer life, to have life and to have it
more abundantly. And we do make these
choices.

This power to choose, that is, to shape
our conduct in view of one out of several
possible future contingencies, is no super-
natural or miraculous endowment which
enables us to flout the laws of nature; it
operates within the natural realm and in
harmony with natural law.

There is a widely current impression
that the recognition of this "power of
choice" or of making an intelligent selec-
tion of one out of several apparently pos-
sible ways of reacting to a situation implies
uncaused or lawless action. "Mystical
freedom," however, we have eliminated
from this discussion, and no one who in-
sists upon admitting it here can follow the
subsequent argument. Our "intelligent se-
lection" is not disorderly or lawless.

Take the case of an unintelligent selec-

\_66]

HUMAN FREEDOM

tion. Here is a box of floor-sweepings,
containing sawdust, a few iron nails, bits
of leather, sand, pebbles and other odds
and ends. A magnet is stirred around in
the mixture and it draws out all the nails
and nothing else. The magnet makes a
selection but not a choice as we have de-
fined it.

Again, a man observes the box of sweep-
ings and wishes to recover the nails. He
selects the magnet from a rack of miscel-
laneous tools and in a moment he has the
nails in his hand. Are not his wish to
have the nails and his choice of the magnet
causally related with his previous experi-
ence and present bodily organization just
as truly as the magnet's power to select
iron is related with its previous history
and present organization? They cer-
tainly are if our previous reasoning is
valid.

What determines the selection of the
Iron by the magnet? We know the mech-
anism of this process pretty well and the
physicist can explain the rules of magnetic
action in detail. But even here he soon
reaches a point in his explanation of mag-
netism where he must say, "I do not
know."

[67]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

What determines the selection of the
magnet by the mechanic who wishes to
find a handful of lost nails? He reflects
upon where he was working when he last
saw them, upon what he was doing, upon
the other events of the time and place. He
looks upon the floor and notices that it
has been swept. Where are the sweep-
ings? He hunts up the janitor's dust bin.
Are they in there? It will be a messy job
to find out. A moment's further reflec-
tion suggests a sieve, but none is handy.
As his eye roves over the shop it falls
upon the magnet. Just the thing!

The cause of his choice of the magnet
is, of course, the total situation, but the
decisive factor was the "accident" of the
incidence of an image of the magnet upon
the man's retina at just that moment. If
the magnet had not been in the rack, if the
mechanic had overlooked it, or if he were
ignorant of the properties of magnets, this
choice would not have occurred. The
choice was not made by some extraneous
spiritual entity working upon or through
the man's body. It was made by his body
working in normal fashion in a particular
external situation. The fact that the on-
looker or the mechanic himself may have

[68]

HUMAN FREEDOM

no clear awareness of the "accidental"
glimpse of the magnet in the rack or of
innumerable other factors in the causal
complex may lead to the belief that the
choice was "spontaneous" or uncaused.
But critical examination shows that it was
nothing of the sort. The inference that
it was a deterministic process throughout
is no more invalidated by our ignorance
of all of the details of the physiological
mechanism employed in seeing and think-
ing than is our belief that the magnet
itself is a natural mechanism invalidated
by the fact that we do not know the ulti-
mate nature of magnetism and electrons.
Does the man's intelligent selection
therefore differ in no significant way from
the magnet's unintelligent selection? It
does not differ by the addition of any
mystical or supernatural features or in
being less truly a natural process; but it
does differ by just this quality of intelli-
gence w^hich we have no evidence is there
in the case of the magnet. This we can
judge objectively by comparing the be-
havior of men and magnets. And if I am
the man in question I have experience of
the intelligence and of the wish and the
voluntary impulse directly. I do not ex-

[69]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

perience directly the correlated changes in
the structural organization of my cerebral
cortex — its metabolism, changes in elec-
tric potential, etc. — though I have indi-
rect evidence of structural changes here
just as truly as I have in the case of the
magnet.

The difference between men and mag-
nets is certainly significant and not the
least of these differences resides in the
fact that human behavior is the expression
of an organization one of whose mani-
festations is intelligence. The intelligence,
with the related bodily changes (whether
we know the latter or not), is therefore a
real component of the human choice, and
an essential component. The behavior
would be different if it were not there. Its
admission as a causal factor implies no
break in the causal sequence, but it does
involve the recognition of a factor of a
very different sort from that seen in
inorganic and simpler physiological be-
havior.

The belief that any one of several
courses of action may be chosen is also
a real factor in the causal complex result-
ing in the behavior finally exhibited. In
so far as this factor is operative, belief in

[70]

HUMAN FREEDOM

freedom is a real component of the be-
havior, even though it should later be evi-
dent that the grounds for the belief are
partially or wholly fallacious. It is clear
that judgments which have been reached,
whether factually and logically valid or
not, may be real causes of subsequent ac-
tion. The judgment or opinion, let us not
forget, is not a disembodied function; it
results from changes in brain texture just
as truly as movement of my arm re-
sults from changes in the texture of my
muscles.

If I honestly do not believe that I am
free to choose, it would appear that no
amount of foreknowledge of possible fu-
ture contingencies can lead to any possible
modification of my behavior in view of
this knowledge. I will passively await my
fate with whatever of stoic calm I can
command.

But this no normal man can do without
long training in the subordination of his
natural impulses to an unnatural philosoph-
ical dogma. And these impulses can never
be fully subjugated. The biological in-
heritance of struggle for existence and
mastery is too strong. The reflex discrimi-
nation and unconscious "physiological

[71]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

choices" which from time immemorial
have shaped his conduct cannot forthwith
be abrogated by an intellectual dogma.
When attacked he may spring to the de-
fensive utilizing every ounce of his
strength and every resource of his skill.
And into this stream of biologically di-
rected energy he will pour all of intelli-
gent insight and foresight that he can
command. This he will do, even though
convinced by irrefragable logic that he
has no freedom of choice whatever in the
matter.

If, now, our hypothetical fatalist is a
railroad magnate fighting for control of
a competing line, he will follow similar
rules, though in this case the struggle may
be prolonged for decades. Every step in
his campaign is carefully planned in ad-
vance in view of all possible future con-
tingencies and of the effect of the proposed
action upon each of these contingencies.
His final decision after mature reflection
is a free choice in the commonly accepted
sense of the term, and this natural free-
dom is in no wise destroyed or impaired
by the recognition of the fact that every
step in his progress follows in causal
sequence, provided only that we also rec-

[72]

HUMAN FREEDOM

ognize that the mental acts, including
prevision of possible consequences of his
various overt operations, are integral parts
of the causal sequence. No matter what
his philosophy teaches him, he must behave
practically by making one decision or an-
other, or the struggle automatically comes
to an end. The belief that he is free is a
powerful aid to his decision. And people
who do not make decisions do not become
railroad magnates. Indeed, In extreme
cases such people may be committed to a
mental hospital under the diagnosis of in-
sanity of doubt (folic dii doiite). Here
pathological deterioration of natural free-
dom of choice Is an expression of an or-
ganic breakdown.

Centuries of dialectic have contributed
little toward the solution of these prob-
lems. An ancient dogma affirms that con-
sciousness, being a spiritual entity, can
have no efficient causal connection with
matter. But common experience replies
that actually It does do just this impossi-
ble thing. We have no well-authenticated,
recorded Instance where faith alone has
removed a mountain; but faith joined with
engineering skill (which Is also a conscious
process) and supported by a sufficient

[73]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

equipment of explosives, steam shovels,
etc., can do so and has repeatedly done It.
This result would not have followed in the
absence of these causal factors.

Faith as a motivation of human conduct
has been appealed to by mystics from time
immemorial. But the mystics have no
monopoly of faith. Modern scientific
medicine is as little touched by mysticism
as is any field of human endeavor; and
here is what Osier said about faith : ^

"After all, faith is the greatest lever of life.
Without it man can do nothing; with it, even
with a fragment, as a grain of mustard-seed, all
things are possible to him. . . . While we
doctors often overlook or are ignorant of our
own faith-cures we are just a wee bit too sen-
sitive about those performed outside our ranks.
We have never had, and cannot expect to have,
a monopoly in this panacea, which is open to all
free as the sun, and which may make of every
one in certain cases, as was the Lacedemonian
of Homer's day, *a good physician out of
Nature's grace.' Faith in the gods or in the
saints cures one, faith in little pills another,
hypnotic suggestion a third, faith in a plain
common doctor a fourth. In all ages the prayer
of faith has healed the sick, and the mental

1 In 1901. Quoted in Cushing's The Life of Sir
William Osiers vol. i, p. 546, Oxford, 1925.

[74]

HUMAN FREEDOM

attitude of the suppliant seems to be of more
consequence than the powers to which the prayer
is addressed. . . . The faith with which we
work, the faith, indeed, which is available to-day
in everyday life, has its limitations. . . . But in
spite of these nineteenth-century restrictions,
such as we find it, faith is a most precious com-
modity, without which we should be very badly
off."

It is, therefore, possible to say that, in
a certain limited sense, the belief in free-
dom Is freedom. But It must be reiterated
that this belief is a natural result; It is
also a natural cause.

So far as the evidence available at pres-
ent goes we must conclude that the lowest
animals act In response to present excita-
tions In ways that have been shaped by
their previous personal and racial experi-
ence. They live In a present and a past.
They know no future. Mankind lives In
the future also. By an exercise of imagi-
nation possible future events are pictured
as present and so participate In shaping
present conduct. This Implies no magical
powers. It Is a natural function of the
human type of nervous system. It has
doubtless grown up naturally In the course
of human evolution.

[75]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

The actual exercise of discriminative
reactions, physiological choices, behavior
adapted to benefit the organism or its off-
spring in future contingencies, social be-
havior of a sort (as in a hive of bees),
these manifestations of biologically adap-
tive behavior have evidently antedated,
historically, human choice, social responsi-
bility and altruism. These latter func-
tions have grown up within the former.
People, too, have acted intelligently, pre-
sciently, and morally before the laws of
these behavior patterns were codified, just
as they spoke correctly before the gram-
matical rules of syntax were formulated.
Moral freedom grew up within natural
freedom of simpler sorts, but it has not
thereby become mystical freedom. Our
natural science embraces the sum of experi-
ence and our moral freedom is part of
human experience.

We wish here to turn the spotlight on
the characteristics of mankind that are
different from those of brutes and to in-
quire into the nature of these differences.
Mentality of the human type is a new evo-
lutionary pattern and the enlargement of
man's powers resulting from the develop-
ment of these mental faculties is stupen-

[76]

HUMAN FREEDOM

dous. Its importance can hardly be exag-
gerated. This is the natural basis of the
material advances in the history of human
civilization. And it is far more than this.
I can predict with some degree of as-
surance the effect of a proposed course of
action upon coming events and upon the
behavior of my fellow men. And, what
is far more important, I can predict its
influence on my own character. By delib-
erate choice I can shape (to some degree)
my own further mental and moral nature.
This gives to us a technique of control,
and of self-control in particular, which so
far as we can judge is not available to any
other species of animals. This theme I
have elaborated elsewhere,^ from which
the following passage is quoted:

"I can 'make up my mind' to become a physi-
cian, and I can deliberately subject myself to the
hardships of the rigorous training necessary to
qualify for this profession. It is not within my
power as I leave the high school with my
diploma, to enter at once into a lucrative prac-
tice; but it is within my power to imagine
myself doing so ten years hence, to determine
that I will do so, and to take the first step
necessary to create in myself the capacity to

^Brains of Rats and Men, p. 359.

[77]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

do so. All of these steps and all of the succeed-
ing steps during the long apprenticeship are
casually related, and not the least of these causes
is the will to achieve, a will that can be strength-
ened by use and guided by wise instruction as
truly and as efficiently as my muscles and 'wind'
can be trained for a foot race."

In so far as I thus Intelligently shape
my courses of action In view of ideals of
personal character and social responsibil-
ity I am also a partner in the business of
shaping my own Inner nature. I am en-
gaged in character building. My part in
this process is real. And these acts are
moral choices in the ordinary sense of this
term, whether or no I recognize any fur-
ther accountability to ethical or religious
ideals. And let us not for a moment lose
sight of the fact that all of these choices
which thus share In the process of fabri-
cating my own Inner nature, In shaping
my character, are natural functions of my
bodily organs.

The "free agent" who makes such
choices and sets before himself ideals of
personal and social conduct is exercising
his natural freedom not only to express his
present inner nature but also to revamp
this nature in conformity with some new

[78]

HUMAN FREEDOM

pattern. This is all that we mean by hu-
man freedom in common usage if the mys-
tical concept of uncaused action is ex-
cluded, and it includes what we commonly
call moral freedom in so far as this is
definable in scientific terms. These
choices are certainly free in the naturalis-
tic sense in which we have used the word.
The natural freedom of man conforms
to the definition with which we started; it
means that the human being with a specific
organization which has grown to be w^hat
it is by natural process is able to exhibit the
behavior characteristic of or typical for
that organization when living in an appro-
priate environment. What sets off human
freedom from other kinds of natural free-
dom is the immeasurable difference be-
tween the inner nature of man and that of
all other natural objects.

[79]

CHAPTER VI

NATURAL FREEDOM IS REAL
FREEDOM

The actual operation of natural free-
dom as exhibited in human conduct may
be illustrated by an example.

The young child cannot swim. Unlike
the dolphin, ability to swim is not part of
his Inherited capital. He grows up, let us
say, on the river bank among other boys,
some of whom swim and some do not.
His own attitude toward the water is
shaped largely by environmental and so-
cial influences. The drowning of a play-
mate may fill his mind with dread of the
water. But the ridicule of the other boys
urges him toward it. There is an acute
Internal struggle the outcome of which
determines whether he learns to swim or
stays on the bank. And this in turn deter-
mines years hence whether In a boating
accident he acts the part of a hero and
saves his companion or himself miserably
perishes.

The causal sequence is woven through

[80]

REAL FREEDOM

this whole complex pattern of events with-
out a break. There can be no doubt of
this. But a significant factor in this se-
quence Is the internal, that is, the mental,
reaction of the child who stands trembling
on the river's brink In an agony of inde-
cision, torn by conflicting fears of death
In the water and of the jibes of his play-
mates. The normal healthy boy usually
rises to the situation in manful fashion.
He weighs over against the unknown ter-
rors of the water, with at least a sporting
chance of successful achievement, the cer-
tainty of unremitting torments of ridicule,
and he takes the plunge. It Is a real
choice. He must do one thing or the
other. And his full awareness of the fu-
ture consequences of the choice is the de-
cisive factor with him.

This choice is determined by hereditary
endowments, environmental Influences,
and previous choices, which have resulted
In the gradual formation of mental atti-
tudes and what we call character. And
the choice is a determining agent with ref-
erence to subsequent acts and the further
development of character. The timid boy
expresses the ''Inner nature" of his charac-
ter and temperament when he chooses to
step from the bank Into deep water with

[8i]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

assumed sang froid. The prevision of
consequences, the Impulsive drive, and the
emotional thrills, the wavering doubt, the
mind "made up," and the will to achieve
success or perish — these internal processes
are as truly factors in the resolution of the
problem of conduct as are the depth and
swiftness of the water and the boy's in-
herited bodily organization.

And the fact that the boy believes that
he is free to enter the water or stay out
is not a negligible illusion which can be
invoked only by resort to a trick of dialec-
tics. It is a real causative factor. If the
river is deeply frozen he knows that he
is not free to swim in it and the choice
does not arise. So also if his muscles
have been hopelessly crippled by infantile
paralysis or his mind kept flabby and his
boyish Ideals aborted by injudicious cod-
dling. The mollycoddle, like the physical
cripple, is not free to swim; he knows it;
and the choice is never really presented to
him. Kant's dictum, "You can because
you ought," must be reversed: "You ought
because you can," if the moral issue is to
be admitted here at all.

Our feeling of freedom is one of our
greatest satisfactions. This feeling arises
naturally during the free expression of our

[82]

REAL FREEDOM

vital functions, by reason of conscious par-
ticipation in the performance of those
functions. Most of us do not analyze this
feeling of freedom but we enjoy its exer-
cise. And the belief in freedom, as we
have seen, is at times a real causative fac-
tor in determining a course of action. If
one attempts to find a rational justifica-
tion for this belief, his judgment may be
true or faulty. The causal efficiency of
the belief remains in either case as long as
the feehng of freedom endures.

If now one should become convinced
that his former belief in freedom is not
well founded, that for instance the mysti-
cal freedom that he supposed he possessed
is fictitious, then he may decide that there
is no such thing as freedom, and thereafter
his conduct may be radically different from
what it was before. Self-culture, personal
and social Ideals have lost their controlling
power as determining motives of conduct.
But the more elementary instincts and Im-
pulses of self-preservation and selfish
gratification persist, released from the in-
hibitions of higher control. The person-
ality deteriorates. We have too often
seen this tragedy enacted.

But there is a true human freedom that
embraces the finest and the best that we

[83]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

have in our natures. This natural free-
dom has no mystical powers, but its recog-
nition is a tremendously effective human
motive. We have only to rationalize our
naive feeling of freedom to see its value
and to cherish it as one of the priceless
birthrights of our common humanity.

The freedom of which we speak grows
up within the life of the individual, is
strengthened by exercise, atrophied by dis-
use, destroyed by disease, and propagated
by precept and example. Its facies changes
from day to day. In the development of
vigorous, sturdy, aggressive character it
thrives and plays a mighty role in the
march of individual and social evolution.
As each day's choices are made, its battles
fought and won, the will to strive and to
achieve takes on new and lustier strength.
In this progressive movement the particu-
lar choice which is the battleground of
freedom to-day is left in the rear to-mor-
row. Habit enters, and freedom of con-
scious choice is replaced by more elemen-
tary forms of behavior. This process is
irreversible, and what I am free to choose
to-day I may do as an unconscious autom-
atism to-morrow.

The mechanism of this conscious free-
dom is very different indeed from those of

[84]

REAL FREEDOM

the free movements of inorganic and sim-
pler living bodies. Its biological and so-
cial significance is different. Its personal
significance is different. Let us examine
the last point.

The conscious personality not only takes
intellectual cognizance of certain of the
events which are going on in his world;
he also has satisfactions and dissatisfac-
tions related with this knowledge. And
here we may find a key which will open
the door looking into the wider vistas of
human personal freedom.

In riding in an airplane one does not
need to control the machine in order to
enjoy the view and the exhilaration of mo-
tion. The passenger has certain satisfac-
tions of which we may assume the ma-
chine itself to be incapable. The pilot has
still other satisfactions denied to the pas-
senger. Each of the three exhibits natural
freedom.

Now every normal, healthy man guides
his life as the pilot guides his plane. Each
must play according to the rules of the
game or he crashes in disaster. Each lays
out a course to follow and hopes to arrive
at a chosen destination. The pilot's daily
flight is only a part of his living as a hu-
man being. He has larger plans for his

[85]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

future, for his personal advancement, his
social obligations and privileges, for the
ripening and stabilizing of his character.
And he knows that the attainment of these
ideals depends largely upon his own ef-
forts. This is not theory. It is based
upon the sum of human experience. He
has satisfaction in these attainments.

These satisfactions, too, are natural
functions of our bodies. And they are the
functions that make the life of a self-con-
scious personality worth while to him.
While he is consciously participating in the
orderly processes which constitute his life
he experiences a joy of living, of striving
and succeeding. And even beyond this he
has satisfaction in his unrealized hopes,
his Ideals and idealizations.

All living Is a creative process in that
old materials are fabricated in new pat-
terns, and in organic evolution some of
these patterns are preserved and from
them ever new designs are constructed.
Progressive organic evolution, that is, the
unfolding and elaboration of the inner na-
ture of the living substance in lawful pat-
terns, is a natural causal sequence. It is
creative. New organic patterns appear at
every turn of the evolutionary process.
These new patterns are designed and fab-

[86]

REAL FREEDOM

rlcated by orderly Intrinsic forces reacting
to a particular system of environing ener-
gies. The process In Its entirety Is an ex-
pression of natural freedom.

Now, In human evolution and In the
personal development of every human In-
dividual similar natural causal sequences
are manifest, though the patterns of the
performance are more varied, more color-
ful and of vastly greater significance In de-
termining subsequent events. The fact
that In the case of the man there Is some
awareness of what Is going on Is by no
means a negligible epiphenomenon; for as
we have seen, this awareness Itself Is a
causative factor In the process. We act
In view of possible future contingencies;
that Is, possible results of future action
become causative factors In determining
present action.

This, too, is a creative process. New
standards of attainment are consciously
fabricated, new personal and social ideals
are formulated, and present conduct is
shaped with reference to these Ideals. The
contrast between this sort of creative evo-
lution and that of the lower organic ranks
is the contrast between man and brute.

All of our movements are orderly as a
part of the total cosmic pattern of our nat-

[87]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

ural sequence. We see something of this
pattern and we take delight in it. We
know that we are part of the flowing pat-
tern and we enjoy our roles, however hum-
ble. It is good to be alive, and the
broader the life the deeper the satisfac-
tions of life. As we look backward and
forward and see how our lives have been
shaped by events of which we ourselves
were part and how our present acts and
desires and hopes may share in weaving
vital patterns yet to be, the finest human
satisfactions come to expression. This is
our freedom. It is freedom to live and
grow, to know that we do it and to enjoy
this knowledge, to forecast the probable
or possible future course of life and of
personal development, and consciously to
participate in the control of the future de-
velopment. This natural freedom is real
and in it we take satisfaction.

The fact that we can see some of the
patterns of the progress of natural events
and enjoy the process of intelligently
adapting our living with reference to them
makes us conscious partners in the drama
of creation and not merely tiny cogs or
wheels or pinions automatically and uncon-
sciously playing a minor role in the cosmic
mechanism. Indeed the eye of faiith QSii

[88]

REAL FREEDOM

see the substance of things hoped for and
make this substance a reality as a motive
of present conduct and character building.
We have eaten of the tree of knowledge
and natural freedom on the human plane
literally makes us as gods, knowing good
and evil, enjoying the good, fearing the
evil, consciously shaping conduct and char-
acter and so creating new Ideals of social
and personal welfare. There Is satisfac-
tion In good achieved, in Ideals approxi-
mated. In progress recognized. In hope en-
tertained. These are all natural functions
of our bodies. And the fact that we are
free to perform these functions which are
denied to the brutes, makes of human free-
dom to live, to grow and consciously to
participate In shaping human life and evo-
lution, a supernal achievement. This free-
dom carries with it the highest human
satisfactions. It is worth the price that
mankind at his best has always been will-
ing to pay for his freedom.

But who am I who claim this real free-
dom? Is there still the suspicion that in
this ostensibly scientific discussion the
metaphysical ego of the schoolmen has
slipped In by the back door while we were
looking the other way? I think not. The
"I" who makes decisions and exercises free

[89]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

choice (as already defined) is first and
last a protoplasmic organization. This
organization has grown up by natural
process and everything that It does is a
natural event. To put it bluntly in the
current jargon of science, I am matter in
motion. True, it is a very complex and
peculiar organization of matter, and its
motions transcend our present powers of
analysis. Again it is true that we do not
yet know what matter Is, nor what energy
is, though practically we use and measure
them. But the simplest, and indeed the
only, way in which human life can be
treated scientifically is to Incorporate it in
its entirety Into the unitary causal se-
quence which In the aggregate comprises
our world of experience. The person who
experiences, who feels, thinks, chooses,
and wills, is part of this same world of
experience. At this moment he Is the sum
total of all the experiences that have come
down from time Immemorial to converge
In his personaHty. And the personality
will change and grow as long as its or-
ganization continues to experience. This
is the ego which chooses and wills and by
the exercise of these and other vital func-
tions plays its part In creative evolution.
Right living, as we have seen, is an

[90]

REAL FREEDOM

orderly or lawful process. Chance Is said
to be a fickle goddess. The fact Is, she is
no divinity at all. She is an arrant faker
who must be thrown out of our pantheon
of nature. This has been made very clear
by Dr. F. H. Hanklns,^ who shows In a
well-reasoned paper that a world of pure
chance would be a world of utter chaos,
and further that only on the assumption
of a determinism which Is Itself a deter-
mining Is knowledge possible or any con-
trol of natural processes within our reach.
He also disposes of the popular fallacy
that radical determinism leads to fatalism.
If human destiny is controlled by arbitrary
caprice of the Fates (call them Chance, or
what you will), the process Is essentially
lawless; but such philosophies or theolo-
gies are the opposite of determinism,
which assumes the reign of law every-
where. And if it be recognized that hu-
man life and consciousness evolve within
this same lawful realm, that the human
mind (and of course the colligated bodily
processes) is knit into the same natural
causal sequence, that mind is not only a
result, but also a true cause of natural
events, that the foreknowledge of the con-

^ Individual Freedom with some Sociological Im-
plications of Determinism. Jour. Philos., vol. xxii,
1925, p. 617.

[91]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

sequences of present action Is a causative
factor in shaping this action, and that
these powers are part of the apparatus of
human control, then It follows that "such
control is the only possible freedom and
is removed by an Infinity of human satis-
factions from the fatalism Into which man
would be plunged by a genuine Indeter-
minism." Again Dr. Hankins says, "Strict
determinism alone makes possible a
genuine freedom, because It alone makes
possible self-expression and self-realiza-
tion."

Our biological analysis of human nature
has led us to the same conclusion. There
is no escape, except by reaching out be-
yond experience Into mysticism. And such
an appeal to transcendentalism adds noth-
ing of practical value to what we already
have within our grasp. Common and sci-
entific experience provide a natural frame
within which feeling, thinking, willing,
purpose, self-culture, moral sanctions,
choice, freedom, faith, hope and charity
find their places, all in orderly patterns
of determined and determining cause-and-
effect processes.

Woodbridge has remarked, "Human
life is a moral event." It is equally true
that human life — all of it — is a natural

[92]

REAL FREEDOM

event, and we do not need to leave the
realm of natural causal sequences to rec-
ognize that it is also a moral event.

The naturalist, with his present lim-
itations, may not be able to envisage the
whole of living and experiencing. There
is a great wealth of experience which can-
not be fully explored by any of the meth-
ods of natural science now available. Sci-
ence is content to see art, metaphysics and
religion go their own ways with their own
technical procedures, and the scientific man
refreshes and enriches his own life with
the priceless fruits of their labors. But
it is a satisfaction to him to believe that
these appreciations, aspirations and moral
sanctions are after all natural expressions
of his inner nature. I am living one life —
physiologically, mentally, morally — whose
component parts interact and reinforce one
another. There are no air-tight compart-
ments, in one of which I eat, in another I
think, and in another I worship. The
whole life as we mortals live it on this
planet, is a natural process, though the
methods of science are not as yet adequate
to unmask all that we experience in some
of its aspects.

In the preceding pages the attempt has
been made to evaluate human freedom in

[93]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

terms of the common meaning of the word
in so far as this can be done within the
limits set by the methods of natural sci-
ence. This naturalistic treatment requires
that the concept of uncaused action and
all metaphysical categories, absolutes and
sanctions be rigorously excluded. Such
limited freedom will not be acceptable to
those who demand the divine privilege of
creating something out of nothing or of
choosing to which of the laws of nature
they will conform their actions. The peo-
ple who make claim to these powers have
difficulty in making good in practice. But
natural freedom as here defined meets
every practical need; and it embraces the
noblest human capacities and satisfac-
tions.

We can now cast aside those crudely
fatalistic dogmas which deny to the man
those powers which every brute possesses,
powers to control in some measure his
own behavior through forces which come
to expression within his own internal or-
ganization. For when we recognize that
human nature is different from that of
brutes, that our powers of self-control
and self-culture are vastly greater than
theirs, we have before us the instrumen-
talities of a freedom that is enlarged in

[94]

REAL FREEDOM

corresponding measure. A denial of the
reality and efficacy of my power to shape
my own character In accordance with con-
sciously fabricated Ideals and so to exer-
cise genuine freedom to enlarge, purify,
and ennoble my personality Is a reversion
to a primitive and tawdry fatalistic
mythology of a barbarous age.

The natural fruits of such a primitive
mythology are reversion to barbarism. If
I delude myself with the pretense that I
have no control of myself, my environ-
ment or my fellow-men, my personal prob-
lems are greatly simplified. The moral
Issue cannot be raised. This seems to
satisfy some people. Not feeling account-
able for their actions to themselves or any
other power, they justify themselves in
all sorts of Indulgence and antisocial prac-
tices. And they condone such practices in
others with resulting weakening of the ma-
chinery of social control all along the lines
from family discipline to courts of law and
legislative assemblies.

These vicious tendencies can be suc-
cessfully combated In some quarters by
moral and religious appeals. In some other
circles these motives are less effective,
apparently because they seem to be at
variance with a defective philosophic or

[95]

FATALISM OR FREEDOM

scientific determinism which places the con-
trol of human destiny wholly outside the
personality. The fallacy lies in failure to
understand the actual organization of the
human personality and to see it in its
proper setting in the world's events.

Of all the fates that control my destiny
the youngest sister is by far the most
comely and the most significant. She is
the imminent divinity of creative evolution
in the human realm. I know her most
intimately, for she is that face of my con-
scious personality that looks forward and
points the way. She directs and controls
my steps, sometimes in a pulse of heedless
passion out into the dark and sometimes
on a path brightly illumined by the lamp
of rational judgment and foresight. I
know her well, for she is myself in my
moments of self-appraisement, of delib-
erate self-determination, of fabrication of
purposeful motives and ideals, of creative
impulses, of social and moral responsi-
bility.

The conclusion of the whole matter can
best be expressed in the words of an an-
cient scripture: "Ye shall know the truth
and the truth shall make you free."

[96]

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