they, in their results, pass into effects in the physical universe, are in this form subject to the physical law of cause and effect, as well as any other physical phenomena; and this fact is very fruitful in its suggestiveness. But volitions, as volitions, so far from violating the physical law of cause and effect, as it is often said that they do, are superior to it. It is as absurd to say that the law of physical causation is violated unless volitions are subject to it, as to say that the law of gravitation is violated, because the love we bear our country or our kindred is not subject to it; or that a circle violates the law of the parallelogram, because it has not opposite sides that are parallel to each other.
2. In the article in question there is a logical equivocation in the use of the word 'aim' or 'purpose.'
Miss Ritchie says that human character is the result of inheritance and environment, and that it is no more possible that a man, in given circumstances, should act otherwise than he does than that a lily should produce rosebuds. Man is, therefore, a mechanism, but a conscious mechanism, as the author explains, and this fact of consciousness makes the human mechanism free.
Now, it is clear that without the unity of self-consciousness, capable of experiencing two or more different motives and of comparing them together, there could be no choice between them. But the question is whether this is all that is necessary to constitute freedom. Miss Ritchie explains further that a knowledge of an end in view is the essential differentia of free activity. This sounds like an echo of Professor Green, but it is Professor Green with Professor Green's saving clause left out. He holds (Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 158) that the will is not to be distinguished from desire and thought, and is one as much as the other; but he carefully explains that desire means here, not desire as it affects the man, but desire that proceeds from the man, not thoughts that occur to us, but thoughts to the realization of which we direct ourselves. Whether it is not darkening counsel unnecessarily to refuse to give an independent name to so distinct an activity as self-direction, we cannot stop here to discuss. It is true that Miss Ritchie also goes on to state, when she is reconciling determinism with freedom, that a man is free when the act is his own,—an outcome of his essential personality. And yet this essential personality is formed for him and not by him: "it is no more possible he should act otherwise than that the lily should produce rosebuds."
But, Miss Ritchie replies, though acts are determined by ante-
