Note 62 — Chapter V · FREE WILL

I think that in most cases when a man yields to temptation, judging that it is “no use trying to resist,” he judges in semi-conscious self-sophistication, due to the influence of appetite or passion disturbing the process of reasoning. I do not doubt that this self-sophistication is likely to take a Determinist form in the mind of one who has adopted Determinism as a speculative opinion: but I see no reason for thinking that a Libertarian is not in equal danger of self-sophistication, though in his case it will take a different form. E.g. where a Determinist would reason “I certainly shall take my usual glass of brandy to-night, so there is no use resolving not to take it,” the Libertarian’s reasoning would be “I mean to leave off that brandy, but it will be just as easy to leave it off to-morrow as to-day; I will therefore have one more glass, and leave it off to-morrow.”