called God or Reason. As a whole, this Being is free. God decided, from the first, that He would
act according to fixed general laws, but He chose such laws as would have the best results.
Sometimes, in particular cases, the results are not wholly desirable, but this inconvenience is
worth enduring, as in human codes of law, for the sake of the advantage of legislative fixity. A
human being is partly fire, partly of lower clay; in so far as he is fire (at any rate when it is of the
best quality), he is part of God. When the divine part of a man exercises will virtuously, this will
is part of God's, which is free; therefore in these circumstances the human will also is free.
This is a good answer, up to a point, but it breaks down when we consider the causes of our
volitions. We all know, as a matter of empirical fact, that dyspepsia, for example, has a bad effect
on a man's virtue, and that, by suitable drugs forcibly administered, willpower can be destroyed.
Take Epictetus's favorite case, the man unjustly imprisoned by a tyrant, of which there have been
more examples in recent years than at any other period in human history. Some of these men have
acted with Stoic heroism; some, rather mysteriously, have not. It has become clear, not only that
sufficient torture will break down almost any man's fortitude, but also that morphia or cocaine can
reduce a man to docility. The will, in fact, is only independent of the tyrant so long as the tyrant is
unscientific. This is an extreme example; but the same arguments that exist in favour of
determinism in the inanimate world exist also in the sphere of human volitions in general. I do not
say--I do not think--that these arguments are conclusive; I say only that they are of equal strength
in both cases, and that there can be no good reason for accepting them in one region and rejecting
them in another. The Stoic, when he is engaged in urging a tolerant attitude to sinners, will
himself urge that the sinful will is a result of previous causes; it is only the virtuous will that
seems to him free. This, however, is inconsistent. Marcus Aurelius explains his own virtue as due
to the good influence of parents, grandparents, and teachers; the good will is just as much a result
of previous causes as the bad will. The Stoic may say truly that his philosophy is a cause of virtue
in those who adopt it, but it seem that it will not have this desirable effect unless there is a certain
admixture of intellectual error. The realization that virtue and sin alike are the