“If by free we mean externally uncontrolled, it would appear that the ultimate local centers or units of action should be independent of one another, i. e., a radical discontinuity should exist at the base of physical reality. Something of the kind seems to be indicated by quantum phenomena,”--phenomena of an ultra-minute variety. Men have often spoken of the eternal loneliness of the soul. Here we see that in this very loneliness lies its freedom. If it chooses to surrender this, for good or for evil, its surrender is still a choice. And in conclusion, Lillie most rightly adds that one may “hesitate to call [this ultimate physical field]” the “metaphysical field,” or the field beyond matter. Our author makes no attempt to taper his matter off into spirit merely by subdividing it. And he goes on: “If would seem, however, that there must be some final support or substratum of the physical to which only the term metaphysical can be applied.” Which I take to mean that he believes in a substratum which is not physical. And having thus shown that back of matter experimental science feels that there is something else, and that we in our inner selves are quite free from external control, whatever compulsion may be put upon the actual motions of our bodies by things beyond our power, he rounds out his argument by saying: “There is also the general philosophical position that the universe, considered in its totality, must be the expression of free action, since an all-inclusive whole cannot be determined externally, i. e., by conditions outside of itself,”--there being nothing outside of itself. In other words, not only are we free, but God is omnipotent; and the two facts, instead of being contradictory, are found to be but the different ends of the same chain of reasoning. Freud’s dictum proves to be not quite so final as it seemed. Lillie has torn it to bits in a single article. And had we not gone to Lillie we might have gone to Cassier, LeBon, Claude Bernard, Lucien Poincaré, or to any of a multitude of clear-headed scientists, philosophers and mathematicians. They may not give us all we seek, but they at least give us this. Let behaviorists and psychoanalysts say what they will, reason has not yet vanished from the world. Neither has unreason, for that matter--as the next chapter will show. FOOTNOTES: [98] “The Descent of Man,” p. 780. [99] “The _Novum Organum_,” i. 63. [100] _Op. cit._, i. 45. [101] _Vide Le Recueil des travaux des Pays Bas_, No. 44, pp. 281 to 304, for the year 1925. [102] _Le Recueil des travaux des Pays Bas_, No. 44, pp. 281 to 304, 1925. [103] In the Paris _Matin_, September 4, 1927. [104] _Nature_, vol. 119, 1927, p. 566. [105] “Justice moved my High Maker,” Dante’s “_Inferno_,” canto III, line 4. CHAPTER VI THE FAMILY TREE I. ARE MONKEYS PEOPLE?