Word: determinist
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Dates: during 1885-1885
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...first consider what are the implications of the determinist view. If our acts depend entirely on our present circumstances and character, and our characters on past circumstances and the circumstances of our parents, it is evident that all things are perfectly determined. For the past cannot be changed, and as the future flows out of the past by a necessary law, the future is itself equally fixed and immutable. Why then, it may be said, should we waste effort in trying to accomplish that which, if not settled already, can never come about? If all things spring necessarily from...