But suppose the reformer tries to reform the
Conservative and turn him into another reformer? Either he can, in which
case Determinism has made no difference at all, or he can't, in which case
it can only have made reformers more hopeless and Conservatives more
obstinate. And the shortest practical and political summary is that
working men, most probably, will soon be much too busy using their Free
Will to stop to prove that they have got it. Nevertheless, I like to
watch the Determinist in the "Clarion" Cockpit every week, as busy as a
squirrel--in a cage. But being myself a squirrel (leaping lightly from
bough to bough) and preferring the form of activity which occasionally
ends in nuts, I should not intervene in the matter even indirectly, except
upon a practical point. And the point I have in mind is practical to the
extent of deadly peril. It is another of the numerous new ways in which
the restless rich, now walking the world with an awful insomnia, may
manage to catch us napping.
Must Be a Mystery
There are two letters in the "Clarion" this week which in various ways
interest me very much. One is concerned to defend Darwin against the
scientific revolt against him that was led by Samuel Butler, and among
other things it calls Bernard Shaw a back number. Well, most certainly
"The Origin of Species" is a back number, in so far as any honest and
interesting book ever can be; but in pure philosophy nothing can be out of
date, since the universe must be a mystery even to the believer.
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