rance of your own ends. There is no
intention here to rob them of responsibility by depriving them of
free-will while saddling _you_ with responsibility as a free agent. As
your environment they must be accepted as inevitable, because they _are_
inevitable. But as centres themselves they have their own
responsibility: which is not yours. The historic question: 'Have we
free-will, or are we the puppets of determinism?' enters now. As a
question it is fascinating and futile. It has never been, and it never
will be, settled. The theory of determinism cannot be demolished by
argument. But in his heart every man, including the most obstinate
supporter of the theory, demolishes it every hour of every day. On the
other hand, the theory of free-will can be demolished by ratiocination!
So much the worse for ratiocination! _If we regard ourselves as free
agents, and the personalities surrounding us as the puppets of
determinism_, we shall have arrived at the working compromise from which
the finest results of living can be obtained. The philosophic experience
of centuries, if it has proved anything, has proved this. And the man
who acts upon it in the common, banal contracts and collisions of the
difficult experiment which we call daily life, will speedily become
convinced of its practical worth.

XI

AN INTERLUDE

For ten chapters you have stood it, but not without protest. I know the
feeling which is in your minds, and which has manifested itself in
numerous criticisms of my ideas. That feeling may be briefly translated,
perhaps, thus: 'This is all very well, but it isn't true, not a bit!
It's only a fairy-tale that you have been telling us. Miracles don't
happen,' etc. I, on my part, have a feeling that unless I take your
feeling in hand at once, and firmly deal with it, I had better put my
shutters up, for you will have got into the way of regarding me simply
as a source of idle amusement. Already I can perceive, from the
expressions of some critics, that, so far as they are concerned, I
might just as well not have written a word. Therefore at this point I
pause, in order to insist once more upon what I began by saying.

The burden of your criticism is: 'Human nature is always the same. I
know my faults. But it is useless to tell me about them. I can't alter
them. I was born like that.' The fatal weakness of this argument is,
first, that it is based on a complete falsity; and second, that it puts
you in an untena