16. The Freedom of the Will.
This relation explains why, on the one hand, we assume a far-reaching determinateness for many things, that is, for all those accessible to scientific treatment and regulation, and why, on the other hand, we have the consciousness of acting freely, that is, of being able to control future events according to the relations they bear to our wishes. Essentially there is no objection to be found to a fundamental determinism which explains that this feeling of freedom is only a different way of saying that a part of the causal chain lies within our consciousness, and that we feel these processes (in themselves determined) as if we ourselves determined their course. Nor can we prove this idea to be false, that, since the number of factors which influence each experience is indefinitely great and their nature indefinitely complex, each event would appear to be determined in the eyes of an all-comprehensive intellect. But to our finite minds an undetermined residue necessarily remains in each experience, and to that extent the world must always remain in part practically undetermined to human beings. Thus, both views, that the world is not completely determined, and that it really is, though we can never recognize that it is, lead practically to the same result: that we can and must assume in our practical attitude to the world that it is only partially determined.
But if two different lines of thought in the whole world of experience everywhere lead to the same result, they cannot be materially, but merely formally or superficially, different. For those things are alike which cannot be distinguished. There is no other definition of alikeness. Thus, if we see that the age-long dispute between these two views always breaks out afresh without seeming to be able to reach an end, this is readily understood, from what has been said, since the very same essential arguments which can be adduced of one view can be used as a prop for the other view, because in their essential results the two are the same. I have discussed this matter because it presents a very telling example of a method to be applied in all the sciences when dealing with the solution of old and ever recurrent moot questions. Each time we encounter such problems, we must ask ourselves: what would be the difference empirically if the one or the other view were correct? In other words, we first assume the one to be correct, and develop the consequences accordingly. Then we assume the second to be correct and develop the consequences accordingly. If in the two cases the consequences differ in a certain definite point, we at least have the possibility of ascertaining the false view by investigating in favor of which case experience decides on this point. However, we may not conclude that by this the other view has been proved to be entirely correct. It likewise may be false, only with the peculiar quality that in the case in question it leads to the correct conclusions. That such a thing is possible, every one knows who has attentively observed his own experiences. How often we act correctly in actual practice, though we have started out on false premises! The explanation of this possibility resides in the highly composite nature of each experience and each assumption. It is quite possible—and, in fact, it is the general rule—that a certain view contains true elements, but along with them false elements also. In applications of the view where the true elements are the decisive factors, true results are obtained, despite the errors present. Likewise, false results will be achieved where the false elements are decisive, despite the true results that can be had, or have been had, elsewhere, by means of the true elements. Hence, in case of the "confirmation," we can only conclude that that portion of the view essential for the instance in question is correct.
One readily perceives that these observations find application in all provinces of science and life. There are no absolutely correct assertions, and even the falsest may in some respect be true. There are only greater and lesser probabilities, and every advance made by the human intellect tends to increase the degree of probability of experiential relations, or natural laws.