chaotic, it must be variable and subject to mere accident; nor, given a fresh combination of the elements, so far as I can see, is it possible theoretically to deduce the result. The result is not a mere ‘resultant.’
It has been remarked that before the time comes it is not possible to have an absolutely certain knowledge, how we shall act. The reason partly, no doubt, is that particular knowledge of details is wanting to us; but this is not all the reason. The act does not answer to the mere theoretical application of a principle. The desire in the presence of the object can not be excluded from the calculation, nor can that desire always be forerealized by the presentation of the object before the understanding and imagination. In the act the will is the reaction of the whole self against the presented object, and we can know how that will be determined, only so far as the self, which we have not habituated and do not know, can be excluded.
Thus the self we have habituated ourselves into, is the only self to be counted on, and so none of us are quite safe. Many of us show selves to ourselves and the world, which are not the realization of another element which we take about with us, and which quietly, or it may be longingly, remains below the ‘floor of consciousness,’ perhaps never to appear, perhaps to burst out in we know not what, in light and love, or in ‘dirt and fire.’ But this should be a mere theoretical possibility; and if it really comes about, yet the self that we know should be strong enough to make the best of it.
This consideration (though in most cases there is little need for it) will help to explain mysterious conversions and changes; but we must bring this note to an end.
Our result is that we may have practical certainty that a man will not change; and hence, knowing his ways, we may be pretty sure what he will do. But since the conditions he will meet with can not be theoretically exhausted, and his habituated self does not cover his whole nature, therefore theoretical possibility of fresh act and change of character remains;[1] and this is important; for we see, on the whole, that it is only a part of the facts which is covered by ‘same character and stimulus, same act.’
- ↑ This bears on a practical difficulty. Often we feel tolerably sure that this or that old reprobate is hopelessly hardened, but we can not say there is no chance of his turning again. Hence the theoretical justification of the practical religious maxim not to give up any man as lost.
