at perhaps exists even now in
the forethought of some higher mind--is not inconceivable. It may be
after all only an unconscious and inspired inference from the present,
on an enlarged and exceptional scale; and it is a matter for
straightforward investigation whether such prevision ever occurs.

The following article, on the general subject of "Free Will and
Determinism," reprinted from the _Contemporary Review_ for March 1904,
may conveniently be here reproduced:--

The conflict between Free Will and Determinism depends on a
question of boundaries. We occasionally ignore the fact that there
must be a subjective partition in the Universe separating the
region of which we have some inkling of knowledge from the region
of which we have absolutely none; we are apt to regard the portion
on our side as if it were the whole, and to debate whether it must
or must not be regarded as self-determined. As a matter of fact any
partitioned-off region is in general not completely
self-determined, since it is liable to be acted upon by influences
from the other side of the partition. If the far side of the
boundary is ignored, then an observer on the near side will
conclude that things really initiate their own motion and act
without stimulation or motive, in some cases, whereas the fact is
that no act is performed without stimulus or motive; even
irrational acts are caused by something, and so also are rational
acts. Madness and delirium are natural phenomena amenable to law.

But in actual life we are living on one side of a boundary, and are
aware of things on one side only; the things on this side appear to
us to constitute the whole universe, since they are all of which we
have any knowledge, either through our senses or in other ways.
Hence we are subject to certain illusions, and feel certain
difficulties,--the illusion of unstimulated and unmotived freedom
of action, and the difficulty of reconciling this with the felt
necessity for general determinism and causation.

If we speak in terms of the part of the universe that we know and
have to do with, we find free agencies rampant among organic life;
so that "freedom of action" is a definite and real experience, and
for practical convenience is so expressed. But if we could seize
the entirety of things and perceive what was occurring beyond the
range of ou