ndence to the practical capacities of the soul leads him
logically to determinism. Volition depends on insight, is determined by
representations; freedom signifies nothing but the fact that the will
can be determined by motives. If the individual decisions of man were
undetermined he would have no character; if the character were free in the
choice between two actions, then, along with the noblest resolve, there
would remain the possibility of an opposite decision; freedom of choice
would make pure chance the doer of our deeds. Pedagogics, above all,
must reject the idea of an undetermined freedom; education, along with
imputation, correction, and punishment, would be a meaningless word, if no
determining influence on the will of the pupil were possible.--This last
objection overlooks the fact that the pedagogical influence is always
mediate, and can do no more than, by disciplining the impulses of the pupil
and by supplying him with aids against immoral inclinations, to lighten his
moral task. We can work on the motives only, never directly on the will
itself. Otherwise it would be inexplicable that even the best pedagogical
skill proves powerless in the case of many individuals.

Herbart's psychology was preceded by a philosophy of nature, which
construes matter from attraction and repulsion, and declares an _actio in
distans_ impossible. The intermediate link between physics and psychology
is formed by the science of organic life (physiology or biology); and
with this natural theology is connected by the following principles: The
purposiveness which we notice with admiration in men and the higher animals
compels us, since it can neither come from chance nor be explained on
natural grounds alone, to assume as its author a supreme artificer,
an intelligence which works by ends. It is true, indeed, that the existence
of the Deity is not demonstrated by the teleological argument; this is only
an hypothesis, but one as highly probable as the assumption that the human
bodies by which we are surrounded are inhabited by human souls--a fact
which we can only assume, not perceive nor prove. The assurance of faith
is different from that of logic and experience, but not inferior to it.
Religion is based on humility and grateful reverence, which is favored, not
injured, by the immeasurable sublimity of its object, the incompleteness of
our idea of the Supreme Being, and the knowledge of our ignorance. If faith
rests, on the one han