PDF version - Geae

The question of free will has a large importance and grave consequences for the social order by its
effect on education, morality, justice, and legislation. It has determined two opposing currents of opinion – the
negators of free will and those who admit it with restrictions. The argument of the fatalist is, ‘Man is under the
control of his natural impulses, which dominate him, and oblige him to wish and decide in one direction more
than another, therefore he is not free.’
The opposite school brings out the theory of indeterminate causes. Charles Renouvier has been its
most brilliant representative, and his ideas have been confirmed by Wundt, Fouillée and Boutroux in
philosophical works, yet, in spite of the theologians, until now the question has remained practically insoluble.
It could not be otherwise, since each one of the systems argues from the inexact idea that human beings have
but one life to live. The subject assumes a holly different aspect if we enlarge the circle and consider the
problem in the light of the doctrine of rebirth. We then see how each being gains his free will in the course of
the evolutions he must accomplish. Supplied with instinct at first, which gradually gives place to reason, our
liberty is very limited in our first stations, and during all the period of our early education. As soon as the mind
gains and idea of law our free will expands. Always at each step in our ascension, and in hours of important
resolution, it will be assisted, guided, and counseled by the great intelligences, the wiser and more enlightened
spirits. Free will, the liberty of the soul, is exercised, above all, at the hour of reincarnation. In choosing the
family and the environment, it knows in advance what trials await it, but it comprehends equally the necessity
for these trials, to develop its qualities, eliminate its defect, and disintegrate its prejudices and vices. These
trials may be the effect of a bad past, which it must repair, and it accepts them with resignation and
confidence, for it knows that its great brothers in space will not abandon it in difficult hours. The future
appears to it than, not in detail, but with all its salient points, or in the measure that this future is the result of
anterior actions. These faults represent the part of ‘fatality’ or ‘predestination’ that certain men claim to see in
all lives. They are simply the reflection of distant causes. In reality, nothing is fatal, and whatever the troubbles
and responsibilities we encounter, we can always modify our fate by works of devotion, of goodness and
charity, and sacrifices to duty.
The problem of free will is of great importance from the judicial point of view. It is difficult to be
exactly just in all the individual cases which come before a tribunal for preservation of social order. This can
only be done by establishing the degree of evolution of the culprits. But human justice, little versed in these
matters, rests blind and imperfect in its arrests and decisions. Often the wicked and culpable is in reality but a
young ignorant spirit in whom reason has not had time to ripen. Duclos said: ‘Crime is often the result of false
judgment.’ That is why there should be established penalties of a nature to compel the offender to enter into
himself for instruction, light, and reform. Society should correct without passion or hate, else it renders itself
culpable. Each soul is equivalent to its point of departure. They differ by their infinite degrees of advancement:
the one young, the other old – diversely developed according to their age. It would be unjust to demand of an
infantile mind merits equal to those one expects from a mature mind which has learned much. A great
difference exists in their responsibilities.
A human being is not really ripe for liberty until the universal exterior laws become interior and a part
of his consciousness, by the fact of his evolution. The day when he is penetrated with the law, and makes it the
rule of his actions, he attains the moral point where man possesses, dominates, and governs himself. From that
hour he no longer needs social restraints or authority to direct him. It is the same with collective humanity.
People are not truly free and worthy of liberty until they have learned to obey this law, eternal and universal,
which emanates neither from the power of a caste or the will of crowds but from a higher power. Without the
moral discipline which each individual should impose on himself, public liberty is but a mirage. It gives the
appearance, but not the manners of a free people. Society remains exposed by its violence, its passions and its
appetites, to all the complications and all the disorders of earth life.
All which lifts us toward the light lifts us toward liberty, that flowers freely and beautifully in the
higher life. The delayed and unconscious soul is kept down under the weight of material fatalities, while just in
the measure it gains freedom, it lifts itself above these trials and comes closely to the divine.
In general terms it may be said that each man arrives at the state of reason and responsibility according
to the degree of his advancement. I leave aside the case of one who under the empire of a physical and moral
cause, malady or obsession, has lost the use of his faculties. We know that in the strife between the two, the
strongest souls triumph always. Socrates said that he had felt germinate in him, and had overcome, most
107