622 NEW BOOKS.

of the determinist schools was no longer a material necessity but a rational order. Christianity was on the whole more favourable than paganism to the doctrine of free-will. This is explained partly by its relation to the Jewish law, which, being imperative, supposes the power of choice in man ; partly by the character of the Christian doctrine of providence, its substi- tution of " love " for "pure reason" as the dominant conception. There are in all, it is concluded, five possible positions ; and, historically, all these have been held. First there are "the thesis" and "the antithesis," the doctrines of " absolute determinism " (held by the Stoics, Luther and Cal- vin, &c.) and of "absolute indeterminism " (held by the Epicureans, Pela- gius, &c.). Then there is the denial of the possibility of a synthesis. This is the position of some modern men of science, such as Du Bois-Reymond, as well as of some Catholic doctors, such as Bossuet, who insists that we must keep hold of " both ends of the chain " human freedom and divine necessity without any attempt to join them. Fourth, there is the " nega- tive synthesis" of the* English empirical school, represented by Hume and Mill, who try to get rid of the notions both of free- will and necessity, substituting that of invariable sequence within the limits of observation, and applying it to material and mental phenomena alike. Lastly, there is " the true synthesis," which consists in the denial (permitted by logic) of the two contraries of absolute determinism and absolute indeterminism, to- gether with the affirmation of the " subalternate" propositions, "Something is necessary," " Something is free ". The author's method of arriving at this synthesis is first to show, by a criticism of the doctrine of " absolute necessity," that it cannot be proved either on grounds of physical science, of psychology or of metaphysics ; then to trace it to its origin in a certain " logical vice " the tendency of the mind to suppress variety in the search for unity ; and then to show, on the other side, that the doctrine of " abso- lute indeterminism " has its origin in the same logical vice as the doctrine of absolute determinism. The refutation of both these doctrines leaves the affirmation of a limited freedom as the only one logically possible. Free- will, thus shown to be open to no logical objection, is to be affirmed on moral grounds. It is definable as " the power in virtue of which man can choose between two contrary actions without being determined by any necessity" ; and the notion of "imprevisibility" is to be asserted, without qualification, as a part of its meaning. The author admits that it is incon- sistent with the acceptance of the conservation of energy as " an absolute law, without restriction ". In reality, however, this, like all scientific laws, is only " a relative, experimental law," not " absolutely exact," but " nearly and sensibly certain ". " It is with a leaden, not with an iron, rule that the plan of things has been traced ". In some decisions of the will there is a real indetermination of motives, and the predominance is given to one side by an act of free-will, which must be assumed to proceed from the immaterial soul and to introduce a new force into the world (or to destroy an existing force). Spiritualism, therefore, is the only metaphysical doc- trine consistent with the admission of free-will. The decision is made by free-will when there is a conflict between the ideas of " sensible " and " in- telligible " or " universal " good ; the idea of " universal good " being formed by " the activit} 7 of reason," without material organ. The mode of operation of free-will is, by suppressing the inhibition of one motor tendency, to set another tendency free. In his last book, the author contends that the ethical, political and aesthetic consequences of the doctrine of free-will are preferable to those of determinism. It is more favourable, in particu- lar, to the admission of inviolable personal rights. " La seule difference, mais elle est capitale, qui se trouve dans les consequences sociales qu'on pent logiquement deduire du de'terminisme et du libre arbitre, c'est que, seule, la croyance an libre arbitre et a la valeur morale que le monde