psychic process takes place outside of our consciousness. And since we
do not know its causes, we cannot tell what will be its effects. Only
after we have come to a certain decision can we imagine that it was due
to our voluntary action. But shortly before we could not tell, and that
proves that it did not depend on us alone. Suppose, for instance, that
you have decided to play a joke on a fellow-student, and that you carry
it out. He takes it unkindly. You are surprised, because that is
contrary to his habits and your expectations. But after a while you
learn that your friend had received bad news from home on the preceding
morning and was therefore not in a condition to feel like joking, and
then you say: "If we had known that we should not have decided to spring
the joke on him." That is equivalent to saying that, if the balance of
your will had been inclined toward the deciding motive of no, you would
have decided no; but not knowing that your friend was distressed and not
in his habitual frame of mind, you decided in favor of yes. This
sentence: "If I had known this I should not have done that" is an outcry
of our internal consciousness, which denies the existence of a free
will.

On the other hand, nothing is created and nothing destroyed either in
matter or in force, because both matter and force are eternal and
indestructible. They transform themselves in the most diversified
manner, but not an atom is added or taken away, not one vibration more
or less takes place. And so if is the force of external and internal
circumstances which determines the decision of our will at any given
moment. The idea of a free will, however, is a denial of the law of
cause and effect, both in the field of philosophy and theology. Saint
Augustine and Martin Luther furnish irrefutable theological arguments
for the denial of a free will. The omnipotence of God is irreconcilable
with the idea of free will. If everything that happens does so because a