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This first glance over the organized world will enable us to ascertain more precisely what unites the two kingdoms, and also what separates them. Suppose, as we suggested in the preceding chapter, that at the root of life there is an effort to engraft on to the necessity of physical forces the largest possible amount of indetermination.
On these subjects you cannot possibly think at all, so long as you halt at the first step, and beat the sand at setting out, instead of setting one foot before another and going forward. Take heed to yourselves, lest your minds, standing thus without in a state of indetermination, should inwardly harden and become statues of salt, and yourselves friends of Lot's wife."
Men's thoughts, like the weather, are not so arbitrary as they seem and the true master in observation, the man guided by a steadfast and superior purpose, will see them revolving about their centres in obedience to quite calculable instincts, and the principle of all their flutterings will not be hidden from his eyes. Belief in indeterminism is a sign of indetermination.
The whole question of free will concentrates itself, then, at this same small point: "Is or is not the appearance of indetermination at this point an illusion?" It is plain that such a question can be decided only by general analogies, and not by accurate observations. The free-willist believes the appearance to be a reality: the determinist believes that it is an illusion.
Now, of course, Matter and Spirit have come to be two opposing forces, for one is determined and the other free. Yet Bergson has to make out that there must have been some indetermination in Matter, however small, to give Spirit an opening to "insinuate itself" into Matter and thus use it for its own ends. It always seems, however, as if Spirit were trying to free itself from material limitations.
Condemnation of psychological determinism Room for freedom The self in action Astronomical forecasts Foreseeableness of any human action impossible Human wills centres of indetermination Not all our acts free True freedom, self-determination. Before passing on to an examination of Bergson's treatment of Evolution, we must consider his discussion of the problem of Freedom of the Will.
He has then to return in some degree to that state of pure negative indetermination in which he was before his senses were affected by anything.
As the stable forms have been obtained by extracting from change everything that is definite, there is nothing left, to characterize the instability on which the forms are laid, but a negative attribute, which must be indetermination itself.
If you say 'two' or 'many, your speech betrayeth you, for the very name collects them into one. If you express doubt, your expression contradicts its content, for the doubt itself is not doubted but affirmed. If you say 'disorder, what is that but a certain bad kind of order? if you say 'indetermination, you are determining just that.
By a mutual and tacit consent the subject was here dropped, and soon after Mrs. Birtwell retired. On gaining the street she stood with an air of indetermination for a little while, and then walked slowly away. Once or twice before reaching the end of the block she paused and went back a few steps, turned and moved on again, but still in an undecided manner.
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