PREFACE THE following monograph grew out of class exercises in my course in philosophy given for a number of years in Dartmouth College. In order to quicken interest by varying the method and to make philosophy touch life, we would sometimes have classroom debates on philosophical subjects by the students under the guidance of the instructor. The main issues in philosophy, because of their two-sided nature, of the uncertainty of their settlement, and of their stimulating effect on both the imagination and the intellect, Iend themselves easily to the method of debate, as Plato, the Scholastics, and Bishop Berkeley illustrate. Sow the question as to whether the fate of man rests at all with himself or not, which is the problem this little volume discusses, is one of perennial freshness and interest, to which the newest movements of thought always contribute additional data without thereby finally salving the issue. If any suppose the question is worn out, let him recall the notable newly translated work of the leading French pragmatist, Bergson, on Time and Free will. Each new generation of thinkers comes upon this problem afresh, and to it a class in philsophy will always respond. In my own work I have felt the need of a clear brief treatise covering both sides of the issue in outline, to which students might be referred, and which might perhaps be used as a text for discussion at a certain point in the course. These pages redesigned to supply such a need. It is the business of a college teacher of philosophy, as I conceive it, not to think or his pupils, as the Iecture method commonly allows, but to guide his pupils into thinking for themselvcs. The teacher of philosophy is there not to tell his pupils what to think but to show them how to think. Philosophy cannot be learned, it must be thought the problcms in philosophy appeal not to the memory but to the reason. Even the history of philosophy, if it would be vitally taught, must be followed, not objectively as so many finished data, but subjectively as a voyage of discovery of the thinking intelligence of this present class. Informality and independence are requisite in cIass discussions. My old pupils wiIl remember that we dedicated our philosophical classroom Dartmouth to freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and the search for the ultimatc truth. These ends on the whole are best met if the instructor keep his own concIusions in the background until he has brought out the individual views of the members of his class. In this way the power of dominating suggestion in thought is somwhat canceled. But after the class has done its best, it is entitled to know where the instructor stands and why he stands there. It is very important that the instructor make it plain that the students who disagree with his conclusions have not lost his favor. In a philosoplical classroom unity of opinion on the esscntiaI issues is not a necessity but a calamity. Now the following pages represent in extenso the summing up of the argument in one of our debates on the part of the instructor, including his personal equation, The content of the argument may be seen by a glance at thc chapter headings...