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the help of the natural reason. The early heretics were
free-thinkers in their rejection of the regulating author-
ity of the Church upon points connected with their
heresies, which they elaborated frequently upon
rationalistic lines; and the pantheists and others of
the schools criticized and syllogized revelation away in
true free-thought style. Both were in conseciuence con-
demned; but the spirit of excess in criticism and the
reliance on the sufficiency of human reason are as
typical of the free-thought of medieval times as of that
of the twentieth century.
From the Deists onwards, free-thought has un- doubtedly gained ground among the masses. Origi- nally tlie intellectual excess of the learned and the student, and rarely leaving the study in a form in which it could be expected to be at all popular, it began with .\nnet and Chubb (see Deism) to become vulgarized and to penetrate the lower strata of society. Its open professors have apparently always been less numerous than its adherents. Some stop short in a negative position, claiming no more than an autonomy for the science or philosophy they represent. Others carry on a bitter and unscrupulous warfare against religion. It is apparent in the various branches of science and criticism, as well as in philosophy; and though it generally pretends to a scientific plan it makes use of a priori methods more than a posteriori ones. One of its most dangerous forms, which gener- ally ends in pure religious scepticism, can be traced to the Kantian distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal. But its main positive positions are the denial of prophecy, miracle and inspiratfon, its rejection of all external revelation (including obviously ecclesiastical authority), and its assertion of the right of free speculation in all rational matters. On this latter frequently follows the negation of, or suspension of j udgment with regard to, the existence of God (athe- ism and agnosticism), the denial of the immortality of the soul or of its truth being susceptible of proof, and the rejection of the freedom of the will. Among the principal free-thinkers may be mentioned Voltaire, Thomas Paine (The Rights of Man), Renan, IngersoU, Strauss (Leben Jesu), Haeckel, Clough, and Holyoake.
UoBEKTSoN, A Short History of Frrtthoimhl, 2i\ ed. (London, ISi)!)); Wheeler. Biog. Diet, of Fr.. ihml:. rx (London, 1889); Gekakd. Modern Freelhouoht in Wc-^l'>nn^l> r Lrct'ires (London, r.>0.'>l; .MacCann, SefrularLsm: ujiphjl"xophirnl, immoral and anti-socinl (London, 1SS7); Flint, Anti-Thnstv: Theories (Edin- bdrsh, ISS.'x; Pearson. Positive Creed of Freethoughl (London, isssi; Caiuns, Unbilirf in the Eiuhteenlh Century (Edinburgh, ISS2); Statham, F rcclhouaht and True Thought (London. lS8i); .'ivNDAY. Freelhinking in Oxford House Papers. No. IX (1S86); The Fallacies of Atheism explored by a Working Man (London, 1882); also bibliography under Deism.
Francis Aveling.
Free Will.— The question of free will, moral liberty, or the libcrum arhUrium of the Schoolmen, ranks amongst the three or four most important philosophi- cal problems of all time. It ramifies into ethics, theol- ogy, metaphysics, and psychology. The view adopted in response to it will determine a man's position in regard to the most momentous issues that present themselves to the human mind. On the one hand, does man possess genuine moral freedom, power of real choice, true ability to determine the course of his thoughts and volitions, to decide which motives shall pre\-ail within his mincl, to modify and mould his own ch:inicter? Or, on the other, are man's thoughts and volitions, his character and external actions, all merely the inevitable outcome of his circumstances? Are they all inexorably predetermined in every detail along rigid lines by events of the past, over which he him- self lias had no sort of control? This is the real im- port of the free-will problem.
Rel.\tion of thp; Que.stion to Different BR.\NcnES OF Philosophy. — (1) Ethically, the issue vitally affects the meaning of most of our fundamental moral terms and ideas. Responsibility, merit, duty, remorse, justice, and the like, will have a totally differ-
ent significance for one who believes that all man's acts
are in the last resort completely determined by agencies
beyond his power, from that which these terms bear
for the man who believes that each human being pos-
sessed of reason can by his own free will determine his
deliberate volitions and so exercise a real command
over his thoughts, his deeds, and the formation of his
character. (2) Theology studies the questions of the
existence, nature, and attributes of God, and His re-
lations with man. The reconciliation of God's fore-
knowledge and universal providential government of
the world with the contingency of human action, as
well as the harmonizing of the efficacy of supernatural
grace with the free natural power of the creature, has
been amongst the most arduous labours of the theo-
logical student from the days of St. Augustine down
to the present time. (.3) Causality, change, move-
ment, the beginning of existence, are notions which lie
at the very heart of metaphysics. The conception of
the human will as a free cause involves them all.
(4) Again, the analysis of voluntary action and the
investigation of its peculiar features are the special
functions of psychology. Indeed, the nature of the
process of volition and of all forms of appet it ive or cona-
tive activity is a topic that has absorbed a constantly
increasing space in psychological literature during the
past fifty years. (.5) Finally, the rapid growth of sun-
dry branches of modern science, such as physics, biol-
ogy, sociology, and the systematization of moral sta-
tistics, has made the doctrine of free will a topic of the
most keen interest in many departments of more
positive knowledge.
History. — Free Will in Ancient Philosophy. — The question of free will does not seem to have presented itself very clearly to the early Greek philosophers. Some historians, have held that the Pythagoreans must have allotted a certain degree of moral freedom to man, from their recognition of man's responsibility for sin with consequent retribution experienced in the course of the transmigration of souls. The Eleatics adhered to a pantheistic monism, in which they em- phasized the immutability of one eternal unchange- able principle so as to leave no room for freedom. Democritus also taught that all events occur by neces- sity, and the Greek atoniists generally, like their mod- ern representatives, advocated a mechanical theory of the universe, which excluded all contingency. With Socrates, the moral aspect of all philosophical problems became prominent, yet his identification of all virtue with knowledge and his intense personal conviction that it is impossible deliberately to do what one clearly perceives to be wrong, led him to hold that the good, being identical with the true, imposes itself irresistibly on the will as on the intellect, when distinctly appre- hended. Every man necessarily wills his greatest good, and his actions are merely means to this end. He who commits evil does so out of ignorance as to the right means to the true good. Plato held in the main the same view. Virtue is the determination of the will by the knowledge of the good; it is true freedom. The wicked man is ignorant and a slave. Sometimes, however, Plato seems to suppose that the soul possessed genuine free choice in a previous life, which there de- cided its future destiny. Aristotle disagrees with both Plato and Socrates, at least in part.. He appeals to experience. Men can act against the knowledge of the true good ; vice is voluntary. Man is responsible for his actions as the parent of them. Moreover his particular actions, as means to his end, are contingent, a matter of deliberation and subject to choice. The future is not all predictable. Some events depend on chance. Aristotle was not troubled by the difficulty of prevision on the part of his God. Still his physical theory of the universe, the action he allots to the voCs 7roi7)7/(6s, and the irresistible influence exerted by the Prime Mover make the conception of genuine moral freedom in his system very obscure and difficult. The
