on in terms; for everything is chance, and
nothing is chance. And you may take it that all is chance or nothing
chance, according as you please, but you must not have half chance and
half not chance--which, however, in practice is just what you _must_
have.

Does it not seem as though the older and more confirmed the habit, the
more unquestioning the act of volition, till, in the case of the oldest
habits, the practice of succeeding existences has so formulated the
procedure, that, on being once committed to such and such a line beyond a
certain point, the subsequent course is so clear as to be open to no
further doubt, and admit of no alternative, till the very power of
questioning is gone, and even the consciousness of volition? And this
too upon matters which, in earlier stages of a man's existence, admitted
of passionate argument and anxious deliberation whether to resolve them
thus or thus, with heroic hazard and experiment, which on the losing side
proved to be vice, and on the winning virtue. For there was passionate
argument once what shape a man's teeth should be, nor can the colour of
his hair be considered as even yet settled, or likely to be settled for a
very long time.

It is one against legion when a creature tries to differ from his own
past selves. He must yield or die if he wants to differ widely, so as to
lack natural instincts, such as hunger or thirst, or not to gratify them.
It is more righteous in a man that he should "eat strange food," and that
his cheek should "so much as lank not," than that he should starve if the
strange food be at his command. His past selves are living in unruly
hordes within him at this moment and overmastering him. "Do this, this,
this, which we too have done, and found our profit in it," cry the souls
of his forefathers within him. Faint are the far ones, coming and going
as the sound of bells wafted on to a high mountain; loud and clear are
the near ones, urgent as an alarm of fire. "Withhold," cry some. "Go on
boldly," cry others. "Me, me, me, revert hitherward, my descendant,"
shouts one as it were from some high vantage-ground over the heads of the
clamorous multitude. "Nay, but me, me, me," echoes another; and our
former selves fight within us and wrangle for our possession. Have we
not here what is commonly called an _internal tumult_, when dead
pleasures and pains tug within us hither and thither? Then may the
battle be decided by what people are pl