But this again is fallacious. For suppose he decides to toss up and
be guided by the result, this is still what he has chosen to do, and
his action, therefore, is following his choice. Or suppose, again,
that he remains passive and does nothing--his passivity is his
choice.
I can see no way out of it unless either frankly to admit that
contradiction in terms is the bedrock on which all our thoughts and
deeds are founded, and to acquiesce cheerfully in the fact that
whenever we try to go below the surface of any enquiry we find
ourselves utterly baffled--or to redefine freedom and necessity,
admitting each as a potent factor of the other. And this I do not
see my way to doing. I am therefore necessitated to choose freely
the admission that our understanding can burrow but a very small way
into the foundations of our beliefs, and can only weaken rather than
strengthen them by burrowing at all.
Free-Will otherwise Cunning
The element of free-will, cunning, spontaneity, individuality--so
omnipresent, so essential, yet so unreasonable, and so inconsistent
with the other element not less omnipresent and not less essential, I
mean necessity, luck, fate--this element of free-will, which comes
from the unseen kingdom within which the writs of our thoughts run
not, must be carried down to the most tenuous atoms whose action is
supposed most purely chemical and mechanical; it can never be held as
absolutely eliminated, for if it be so held, there is no getting it
back again, and that it exists, even in the lowest forms of life,
cannot be disputed.
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