What is this “freedom”?  It is not freedom from external constraint.  It is not freedom from overpowering passion.  It is freedom from all the motives, good as well as bad, that we can conceive of as influencing man, and freedom also from oneself.

It is well to get this quite clear.  The “free-willist” maintains that, in so far as a man is “free," his actions cannot be accounted for by a reference to the order of causes at all—­not by a reference to his character, hereditary or acquired; not by a reference to his surroundings.  “Free” actions, in so far as they are “free,” have, so to speak, sprung into being out of the void.  What follows from such a doctrine?  Listen:—­

(1) It follows that, in so far as I am “free,” I am not the author of what appear to be my acts; who can be the cause of causeless actions?

(2) It follows that no amount of effort on my part can prevent the appearance of “free” acts of the most deplorable kind.  If one can condition their appearance or non-appearance, they are not “free” acts.

(3) It follows that there is no reason to believe that there will be any congruity between my character and my “free” acts.  I may be a saint by nature, and “freely” act like a scoundrel.

(4) It follows that I can deserve no credit for “free” acts.  I am not their author.

(5) It follows that, in so far as I am “free,” it is useless to praise me, to blame me, to punish me, to endeavor to persuade me.  I must be given over to unaccountable sainthood or to a reprobate mind, as it happens to happen.  I am quite beyond the pale of society, for my neighbor cannot influence my “free” acts any more than I can.

(6) It follows that, in so far as I am “free,” I am in something very like a state of slavery; and yet, curiously enough, it is a slavery without a master.  In the old stories of Fate, men were represented as puppets in the hand of a power outside themselves.  Here I am a puppet in no hand; but I am a puppet just the same, for I am the passive spectator of what appear to be my acts.  I do not do the things I seem to do.  They are done for me or in me—­or, rather, they are not done, but just happen.

Such “freedom” is a wretched thing to offer to a man who longs for freedom; for the freedom to act out his own impulses, to guide his life according to his own ideals.  It is a mere travesty on freedom, a fiction of the philosophers, which inspires respect only so long as one has not pierced the disguise of its respectable name.  True freedom is not a thing to be sought in a disorderly and chaotic world, in a world in which actions are inexplicable and character does not count.  Let us rinse our minds free of misleading verbal associations, and let us realize that a “free-will” neighbor would certainly not be to us an object of respect.  He would be as offensive an object to have in our vicinity as a “free-will” gun or a “free-will” pocketknife.  He would not be a rational creature.