Mr. Lillie, a worker in the Marine Biological Laboratory, is the author of “Protoplasmic Action and Nervous Action,” and his very occupation shows that he is engaged in the business of wrestling knowledge rather than thrills from the phenomena of the world. What he says, however, is much more thrilling than the most incestuous dreams ever dreamed by a Freudian, or all the discoveries ever made by dropping babies upon pillows in the laboratories of Dr. Watson. For he says that we are free; that there has been observed under the microscope certain actions which look much like the veritable finger of God, glimpsed for an instant through the screen of matter behind which His power forever works--a power that we so often fail to recognize because, from our infinitesimal observation of it, it acts according to laws--laws we have for the most part made ourselves and to which we almost invariably give a personality and an omnipotence we would feign deny to the Deity whose doings they so imperfectly record. But how does Lillie say all this? In the most lamentable manner--in Scientese. You will not wonder why I called him obscure after you read the following sample paragraph: “Science and philosophy, but especially science, have found great difficulty in reconciling the apparent indeterminism of many vital manifestations, particularly voluntary action, with the strict determinism of physical science. The traditional problem of freedom, with all its implications, is the classical expression of the difficulty.” True, this is by no means as cloudy as Freud when Freud plays schoolmaster and propounds incomprehensible metaphysics intended to inspire our awe. It contains no confusion of thought. But it is sufficiently cold and forbidding. Lillie totally lacks the literary ability of Freud, the raconteur of spicy stories. It is evident, however, that he means to point out the difficulty which science has found in reconciling the doctrine of blind reaction with that appearance of choice which is often to be noted in the conduct of the higher forms of matter. Living matter, apparently, does not respond to external stimuli as mechanists think it ought to. It is inclined to behave as if it had some force, some will of its own. In other words, it seems to a certain extent to be interiorly determined. There would, of course, never have been any controversy as to this had those who took the negative been honest enough to accept a rational definition of will and of freedom. Nobody ever claimed that the will is free in all respects. Nobody supposes that a man set upon by a mob can go his way as if nothing had interfered with him. He may be dragged to the stake or the scaffold. Physically, there are circumstances in which his movements are most certainly exteriorly determined. The most that he can do is to refuse his consent to those motions he is forced to perform, so that the resulting conduct is none of his.