Note 207 — Chapter IV · THE PROBLEM OF MORAL FREEDOM

The reader should study for himself Locke’s famous chapter (Essay, bk. ii. chap. 21). Locke’s treatment, hampered as it is by his unfortunate retention of the discussion of his first edition side by side with a somewhat modified re-statement, compares favourably for clearness and sound sense with that of most subsequent philosophers, notably with Kant’s unintelligible attempt to reconcile the absolute freedom of man as “noumenon” (a fictitious quality of a fictitious being) with his equally absolute unfreedom as “phenomenon” (another equally palpable fiction).

For Leibnitz’s criticism of Locke, see Nouveaux Essais, II. xxi., particularly §§ 8-25. (The English translation by Langley can only be used with extreme caution.) On the whole question the reader should also consult Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, bk. ii chap. 1; Bradley, Ethical Studies, Essay 1, and article in Mind for July 1902; W. R. B. Gibson, “The Problem of Freedom” (in Personal Idealism).