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184
THE FORERUNNERS
I read Auguste Forel, is the conviction that no more in man than in the ants is such a victory radically impossible. To recognize that a particular advance is not impracticable even though we should fail to realise that advance, seems to me more encouraging than the belief that, whatever we attempt, we shall run our heads against a stone wall. The window is closed. It is thick with grime. Perhaps we shall never be able to open it. But between us and the sunlit air there is nothing but a pane of glass, which we can break if we will.[1]
June 1, 1918.
“Revue Mensuelle,” Geneva, August, 1918.
- ↑ I am well aware that the concluding statement in the text is in total contradiction with the thought of Auguste Forel, who denies free will. I do not propose here to reopen the agelong dispute between free will and determinism, which seems to me largely verbal. I shall consider the question elsewhere.
