react alters, but the character does not alter; and further, nothing falls outside the character, it includes the whole individual. And this being so, we might have a stimulus, if not perfectly indistinguishable, yet so much the same that we can say, what has solicited once may solicit again; and, if so, what has been willed once must be willed again. I do not deny that there are some facts on the side of this view, but we must reject it; since, apart from the metaphysical and psychological objections to which it lies open, it is impossible to reconcile it with the palpable fact that characters at least sometimes do alter.'

On the above view our abstract statement was as near fact as general statements need be. But let us suppose the opposite view to be true. If character is not fixed at all, if it alters perpetually, then if you have what would have been the same stimulus, you may always have a different reaction. Here the doctrine, 'same character, same stimulus, same act,' is not positively incorrect, but is quite idle, and tells you nothing worth knowing. But this second view, again, is in collision with plain facts, since more or less you can count on human action. Indeed on this view there would be no such thing as character at all.

What facts point to is, however, a third view; and that we may express by saying Character is relatively fixed.' Having once been formed from the disposition and circumstances, it may alter so little, and so unessentially, that we have a right to say it remained the same. Facts tell us that with many men there is a system of principles, conscious or unconscious, from which most of their acts proceed, and which we can presume upon. Again, others alter so much that, as to the man you counted on some years ago, you know not what he will do in such or such a case. And then there are persons who undergo 'conversions,' and we have to say, 'Since such a time he is quite another man.'

On this view, 'Same character and stimulus, same act' is again more than not positively incorrect. It stands for something more or less real, and holds good more or less as characters are more or less fixed. But it never loses its hypothetical nature.

Nay more, unless regarded as standing for the abstraction of an element which really is inseparable from other elements, it is positively false. Here we come back to the second question we asked. Are we not forced to recognize something beside character

This view has been not originated but most clearly and recklessly developed by Schopenhauer. It is interesting to see how with him one one-sidedness leads to the other. Having first supposed intellect to have nothing to do with character, he is then forced by facts to admit the 'acquired character,' which, as I understand him, is nothing but intellect.

and stimulus? If so, if the act issues from anything beside the character, then it is downright false to say, 'Same character, same act;' unless all you mean is, 'Supposing that to take place which perhaps does not ever take place, supposing that you never had anything but character, then you would have the same act.'

Thus, really to appreciate the truth of 'same character, same act,' we have to keep in view, (1) That characters are alterable; (2) That acts do, or may, proceed from something beside the character. And these two qualifications, which are closely connected, we must try to understand more fully.

Character is fixed, but only relatively fixed. When we see how the first comes about, we see that the latter is true. The material of the character is disposition in relation to circumstances. The character is what I have made myself into from these elements, and the reason it remains fixed is that the conditions have so to speak been used up and realized into the individuality. What I am I have made myself, out of, in relation to, and against my raw material with its external conditions. The external conditions are more or less permanent, and the raw material is more or less systematized. Hence well-nigh everything is now subsumed under, and takes its quality from my character. The self is more and more determined and realized, and so excludes possibilities, fixes and closes itself; in short, gets hardened.

Hence, knowing a man to be a certain system (conscious or unconscious), we can tell how things will present themselves to him, and how he will manifest himself against particular stimuli. And we say the man is settled and made, and we know what he is and have a practical certainty that he will always keep so, because we are sure that nothing will happen to him which he has not had before in some form, and which has not some principle in his character under which it will be brought. This is what we mean by the character being fixed.

There is always a

But the fixedness is not more than relative. theoretical possibility of change, and sometimes a good deal more than this. The reason is twofold. (1) We can not exhaust all possible external conditions; (2) We can never systematize the whole self.

(1) You never can say, a man has withstood all sorts of temptations and all combinations of them; and thus there remains the theoretical possibility of some unknown and fatal kind. And (2) the man's self and his character never quite coincide. The character is always the narrower; and moreover, its materials shift, or may shift. This must be, because a man's body changes through change of climate, disease, or age, and so too

desires change their force and their nature; and the character to the last, though made, is always in making, and hence there is a possibility of change in it. And to the former consideration, that a man's character does not exhaust his self, it is quite as necessary to keep our eyes open. Character is the 'second nature;' but, beside that, there is something of the first nature left. The raw material of the disposition is not all systematized in the character, but some element or elements probably remain beside, or rather beneath, the conscious self which affirms itself in the world. Hence, given some new external condition, some strange psychical combination, and the, so to speak, underground self comes to light as a felt want or known desire; and the result of the volition is uncertain. The self is now the abstraction, not from what has been brought under the character, but from that plus a new desire; and what emerges can not be predicted with theoretical certainty. Everybody must feel that he has unrealized possibilities; and what would he do if there was a chance of realizing them, if, so to speak, they could be let loose?

Now so far as the habitual self is both well systematized, and wide enough to cover possibilities, we are pretty safe. But, as we have seen, no man can order his whole self with all its underground longings. Hence something might always come up, if not kept down by the habituated self. Suppose now that this takes place, and there ensues a collision between desire and principle; then, as the conclusion is not through habit a foregone one (there is only a general habit of acting on principle, not on principle against this desire), the strength of the temptation can not be calculated, and so also not the issue. Take for example an elderly man, who never has had temptation in the way of sexual love, and now, through some accident, is in love where the passion ought to remain unsatisfied. Here such a temptation has not been resisted by the character. The volition results not merely from the habituated or principled self, but from that plus a new force; and if the volition were a 'resultant' only, the result must be different. As it is, all we can say is that it may be.

If there is thus no theoretical certainty of the future with a systematic principled character, how will it be when the habituated self involves contradictions? Here we must guess by analogy, but we can do no more than guess. The act depends on the whole conscious and unconscious self; and if that is more or less

'Let me observe that this consideration destroys the last refuge of the 'freedom' which rests on abstract possibility or mere chance. Where the act can not be accounted for by what is before the mind, we have still to consider what is in the mind,

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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; 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.

NOTE C.-FREEDOM.

I am not going to try to treat such a subject as this by the way,. but a very few words may be of use to the beginner. If we put it in as ordinary language as we can, the main difficulty is thisIf there is a 'because' to my acts, responsibility seems to go; and yet we have an irresistible impulse to find a 'because' everywhere. But is it not the sort of because' which gives all the trouble?

(1.) We may say there is one kind of because,' and one only. Then I am put on a level with nature; and whether you take your 'because' from mechanism, or start from will and put nature on a level with me, makes no practical difference, since in neither case do you distinguish.

(2.) We may say there is no 'because' for us, and may say, (a) We know will, and it is beyond the 'because.'

It

(b) Will is unknowable. 'Because' is for thought only, and for intelligible objects.

Neither of these assertions can hold; for, apart from metaphysical difficulties, we actually do predict volitions to a large extent.

(3.) We may admit the 'because' (or rather, since our will is rational, we may demand it), but may say, there is more than one sort of 'because.' There is mechanical 'because,' but that is not adequate to the lowest life, still less to mind. And if we take this line, we may find that the 'because' which excludes accountability, is only the 'because' which does not apply to the mind, but to something else.

If 'must' always means the 'must' of the falling stone, then 'must' is irreconcileable with 'ought' or 'can.' Freedom will be a bare 'not-must,' and will be purely negative.

But how if the 'must' is a higher 'must'? And how if freedom is also positive-if a merely negative freedom is no freedom at all? We may find then that in true freedom the 'can' is not only reconcileable with, but inseparable from, the 'ought;' and both not only reconcileable with. but inseparable from, the 'must.' Is not freedom something positive? And can we give a positive meaning to freedom except by introducing a will which not only 'can,' but also ought to' and 'must,' fulfil a law of its nature, which is not the nature of the physical world.

There is a view, which says to the necessitarian, 'Are you not neglecting distinctions?'; to the believer in 'liberty', 'Are you sure you are distinguishing? Is there the smallest practical. difference between external necessity and chance ? Can you