FREE WILL AND DETERMINIMS

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIV, Issue 16327, 25 August 1913, Page 5

FREE WILL AND DETERMINIMS

LECTURE BY MR W. W. COLLINS. Lecturing in the Caledonian Hall last night, Mr W. W. Collins dealt exhaustively with the subject of “ Freo Will and Determination,” with a view to showing that so far as man was concerned modern science had shown him to be, physically, intellectually and morally, subject to the universal law of causation. The free will controversy, he said, was an extremely old one, but to-day the principle of .determinism, or the necessary connection between motive and action, could hardly be successfully attacked. The strange thing was'that some ministers, and apparently some college professors, failed to see that a consistent theism was impossible unless determinism were granted, and philosophical theists had seen that “either th® idea of ‘ cause ’ must be wholly abandoned or else we must rest on some one ultimate cause, which is the only true cause, and this ultimate cause of all things is God.” That was the position of the philosophical tlieist, and if theism were true it was the only position consistently possible. Quite recently, said the lecturer the subject of sin and its relation to free will had been discussed at one of the local churches, a.nd the Rev J. J. North, who, in his address on “Creation ’ had declared that religion asserted “a God who created and guided the issue of all things,” took for his subject “The World in a Mess,” and went on to declare that either God made the world so badly that chaos loomed up, or man had been developing along the wrong lines. The churches, Mr orth declared, took the latter view Religion taught that man had the choice and the power to choose. He had presented to him the higher and the lower course. Ho could follow the former if he chose, and refuse to follow the latter to some extent. Such a statement, said Mr Collins, completely ignored the fact that man was in no sense responsible for the lines along wmch he had developed, that man was the product of evolution, and that the brutal characteristics of his animal ancestors were largely potted in him. Mans conscience was a purely social product, developed as the natural result of man s contact with his fellows through countless ages. Thus a knowledge of right and wrong and a power to distinguish the one from the other wouid have been impossible but for the tact that for centuries man had been learning in the school of social experience. It would bo impossible to overestimate the importance of that experience oil human conduct, but to admit it was to admit that motives and acts were determined by it, an admission absolutely fatal to the theory of a free will. Ibo speaker said that Mr North appealed to think that the power of choice was itself a confirmation of such freedom, and instanced the somewhat remarkable illustration submitted by a Wellington professor who took two pieces of paper or identical size, held (’giu-distant from his face, the problem being to place a niece of pencil on one or the other of the pieces of paper. Having placed it on one piece of paper, he was quite, sure lie could equally well have placed it on the other, and no argument could displace fiom his mind the conviction that he had real option. The illustration, Mr Collins declared, was so childish that lie could scarcely understand a professor presenting it or a preacher using it. No detornunist questions a man’s power to place a pencil on one or the other ot two pieces of ppper. But in such a case as that there was neither motive nor choice. The world was not made up of things as like one another as tito identical pieces of neper. It was a world of infinite variety and dissimilarity, and the preference for one. thing rather than another was clearly determined bv one’s knowledge of the things themselves and the probability of their administering to ono’s physical, mental or moral well-being. Professor Salmond._ who had been appealed to by Mr North, had defined man as “a, creature of purpose ruled by motion,” a statement which might he made bv any determinist. But when he went on to say “ when he decides between two courses of notion he himself inches the motive,” he was assuredly guilty rf sa i'' ln S more than he could prove. If this were true, what would be the use. of churches, of schools, or even of men’s meetings for the discussion of . grave problems? Surely all these were but agencies for determining wliat motives should prevail. The determinist was no, fatalist, nor did he deny responsibility. The people had learned that both the evil and tho good men do live after them, but they were making for the present and also for the future either a better or a worse world for men to live in. And that knowledge supplied the motives which rmverned the conduct of every right thinking man and woman.