plainly that her master's
convictions as to it are precisely the same things as her own.
Everywhere, indeed, in all the life that surrounds us--in the social and
moral judgments on which the fabric of society has reared itself, in the
personal judgments on which so much depends in friendship and
antipathies--everywhere, in conduct, in emotion, in art, in language,
and in law, we see man's common belief in will written, broad, and
plain, and clear. There is, perhaps, no belief to which, for practical
purposes, he attaches so important and so plain a meaning.

Such is free-will when looked at from a distance. But let us look at it
more closely, and see what happens then. The result is strange. Like a
path seen at dusk across a moorland, plain and visible from a distance,
but fading gradually from us the more near we draw to it, so does the
belief in free-will fade before the near inspection of reason. It at
first grows hazy; at last it becomes indistinguishable. At first we
begin to be uncertain of what we mean by it; at last we find ourselves
certain that so far as we trust to reason, we cannot possibly have any
meaning at all. Examined in this way, every act of our lives--all our
choices and refusals, seem nothing but the necessary outcome of things
that have gone before. It is true that between some actions the choice
hangs at times so evenly, that our _will_ may seem the one thing that at
last turns the balance. But let us analyse the matter a little more
carefully, and we shall see that there are a thousand microscopic
motives, too small for us to be entirely conscious of, which, according
to how they settle on us, will really decide the question. Nor shall we
see only that this is so. Let us go a little further, and reason will
tell us that it must be so. Were this not the case, there would have
been an escape left for us. Though admitting that what controlled our
actions could be nothing but the strongest motive, it might yet be
contended that the will could intensify any motive it chose, and that
thus motives really were only tools in its hands. But this does but
postpone the difficulty, not solve it. What is this free-will when it
comes to use its tools? It is a something, we shall find, that our minds
cannot give harbour to. It is a thing contrary to every analogy of
nature. It is a thing which is forever causing, but which is in itself
uncaused.

To escape from this difficulty is altogether hopeless. Age afte