But to deny free-will is to deny moral responsibility, and we are
landed in absurdity at once--for there is nothing more patent than
that moral responsibility exists. Nevertheless, at first sight, it
would seem as though we ought not to hang a man for murder if there
was no escape for him but that he must commit one. Of course the
answer to one who makes this objection is that our hanging him is as
much a matter of necessity as his committing the murder.
If, again, necessity, as involved in the certainty that like
combinations will be followed by like consequence, is a basis on
which all our actions are founded, so also is freewill. This is
quite as much a sine qua non for action as necessity is; for who
would try to act if he did not think that his trying would influence
the result?
We have therefore two apparently incompatible and mutually
destructive faiths, each equally and self-evidently demonstrable,
each equally necessary for salvation of any kind, and each equally
entering into every thought and action of our whole lives, yet
utterly contradictory and irreconcilable.
Can any dilemma seem more hopeless? It is not a case of being able
to live happily with either were t'other dear charmer away; it is
indispensable that we should embrace both, and embrace them with
equal cordiality at the same time, though each annihilates the other.
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