for where there is no alternative there is no freedom, and where there is an alternative there is a choice between two things. The fact that conscious action is always action with a motive has nothing in it repugnant to the uniformity of nature, unless uniformity of nature is arbitrarily assumed to be identical with necessity. Nor has the uniformity of nature, _i.e._ the fact that the same action issues from the same combination of conditions, anything in it inconsistent with the freedom of the will, unless the occurrence of an event proves that it was bound to occur. The laws of science--whether physical science or mental and moral science--are hypothetical statements: if the love of gain predominates in men, then all the consequences predicted by the science of Political Economy will ensue. But this proves neither that the love of gain must nor even that it does prevail. The uniformity which marks the actions of men as often as this motive prevails is sufficient for the purposes of science, and is consistent with the freedom of the will; it does not imply that men act without a motive, nor that the same conditions produce now one effect and now another. Until the conditions which are necessary for the production of a physical event are effectively combined, physical science knows no necessity to make them combine in that particular way; if they combine in some other way, and with some other result, that combination will equally illustrate the truth of science (which says, if A then B, if A₁ then B₁), and the result will equally accord with the uniformity of nature. The same considerations apply to human nature, and if applied will be found consistent with the freedom of the will. Until the mind is made up, _i.e._ so long as there are alternative courses open to it, the man is free, just in the same way as in physical science, until the combination of conditions is effected, the result may or may not follow. If one alternative is adopted one set of consequences will ensue, if another, another; but whichever is adopted the results will be in accordance with the uniformity of nature, the law of cause and effect will not have been violated, the mind will not have acted without a motive, or under the influence of necessity. In fine, the universality of the law of causation lies in the fact that, however the conditions combine, each combination can only produce its peculiar effect; and whatever effect occurs can be the result only of its appropriate conditions. To say with the necessitarian that, unless at the beginning of things the course of events was unalterably fixed once and for ever, there can be no science, is to deny the universality of the laws of science, to maintain that they are true only of one particular succession of events, and would not be true of any other. In point of fact, however, the laws of science, by their hypothetical form, are adapted to cope with what is at least as striking as the uniformity of