subject to Renouvier; and Renouvier, as I understand him, is (or
at any rate then was) an out and out phenomenist, a denier of 'forces'
in the most strenuous sense. [Cf. Ch. Renouvier: _Esquisse d'une
Classification Systematique des Doctrines Philosophiques_ (1885), vol.
II, pp. 390-392; _Essais de Critique Generale_ (1859), vol. II, Secs. ix,
xiii. For an acknowledgment of the author's general indebtedness to
Renouvier, cf. _Some Problems of Philosophy_, p. 165, note. ED.] Single
clauses in my writing, or sentences read out of their connection, may
possibly have been compatible with a transphenomenal principle of
energy; but I defy anyone to show a single sentence which, taken with
its context, should be naturally held to advocate that view. The
misinterpretation probably arose at first from my defending (after
Renouvier) the indeterminism of our efforts. 'Free will' was supposed by
my critics to involve a supernatural agent. As a matter of plain history
the only 'free will' I have ever thought of defending is the character
of novelty in fresh activity-situations. If an activity-process is the
form of a whole 'field of consciousness,' and if each field of
consciousness is not only in its totality unique (as is now commonly
admitted) but has its elements unique (since in that situation they are
all dyed in the total) then novelty is perpetually entering the world
and what happens there is not pure _repetition_, as the dogma of the
literal uniformity of nature requires. Activity-situations come, in
short, each with an original touch. A 'principle' of free will if there
were one, would doubtless manifest itself in such phenomena, but I never
saw, nor do I now see, what the principle could do except rehearse the
phenomenon beforehand, or why it ever should be invoked.

[103] _Mind_, N. S., vol. VI, 1897; cf. pp. 392-393.

[104] [Cf. _A Pluralistic Universe_, Lect. VI (on Bergson); H. Bergson:
_Creative Evolution_, trans. by A. Mitchell; C. A. Strong: _Why the Mind
has a Body_, ch. XII. ED.]

VII

THE ESSENCE OF HUMANISM[105]

Humanism is a ferment that has 'come to stay.'[106] It is not a single
hypothesis or theorem, and it dwells on no new facts. It is rather a
slow shifting in the philosophic perspective, making things appear as
from a new centre of interest or point of sight. Some writers are
strongly conscious of the shifting, others half unconscious, even though
their own vision may have undergone much