MURDER STATISTICS AND FREE WILL
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,--j. M. asks "Is there any possible way of reconciling the theory of Free Will with the remarkable uniformity of the annual number of murders" in the same community ? For the numbers are different in different communities, and when they are altered.
Yes. Free Will involves no uncertainty. The better you know anyone, and the more the motives are known, the more certain you are of the action coming, if there is Free Will to act on those motives. Knowledge that there is Free Will adds to the certainty of foreknowledge ; even when the agent does not know his motive. E.g., the case of homicidal epilepsy was influenced by the New Moon, as was the "punch drunk" by alcohol.
Uniformity of numbers is the natural result of the same acting motives on the same community. Alteration of numbers shows alteration in motives. E.g., When Dr. Enid Charles showed that in 191 1 there was a sudden drop in the birth-rate, which is now destroying the English, she proved that there was then a sudden alteration in the motives for baby-making in the English people. Just then the Midwives Act came into force over just those people. Anyone knowing the Midwives Act foretold a fall in the birth-rate, because we have Free Will.— Yours, &c., T. A. DUKES. 16 Wellesley Road, Croydon.
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