the ludicrous, so much the better. Suppose that on several occasions our man finds that another has said beforehand what fruit he would choose from a large variety, and on no two occasions the same. He would be much surprised; but if told by the other, ‘I knew you would do it, because I have noticed you, and you always have done it,’ I believe he would be satisfied at once. But failing this, and failing a conclusion to his choice from any of his habits or ways, I think he would be most uncomfortable. His feeling would be, that the other man knew something he had no right, and which was not his, to know. And we might see the same thing in a number of instances, as the reader will find by considering the matter.
At present we have only to discover the facts, and no doubt so far they appear irrational; but the next illustration will, I hope, begin to enlighten us. As we have already remarked, the ordinary man would probably be little short of horrified to find that the whole of his history, everything which has gone to settle his character, every element in the evolution which has made him what he is, had been foretold in detail before his birth. If I am right, he would be inclined to say, ‘The growth of my character has been predicted when I was not; and how then can I have had anything to do with it?’
We are certain, unless we are careful, to miss the important point here. It is not the mere fact of his present character being beforehand an object of knowledge, which troubles him so much. For his notions are not clear, as they well may not be. He is his self, and his self is his character; and he being born, his character, when he so considers it, is likewise born. And thus, sinking the fact of the process of his developement, he is what he is; he is such, and may be known as such, and the sooner or later are unimportant considerations, which may be dropped out of sight. And hence the prediction is the prediction of his character with its actions, which in no way troubles him. But what he was horrified at was to find the qualities of his being, deduced from that which is not himself. He can not bear to see the genesis of himself, or his self in becoming. And so, if I see the facts rightly, when we put out of view the results of his character, it is not the irrational
