XXVI.] I ow all my doctrines
on this subject to Renouvier; and Renouvier, as I understand him, is (or
at any rate then was) an out and out phenomenalist, a denier of 'forces'
in the most strenuous sense. [Cf. Ch. Renouvier:
_Esquisse_d'une_Classification_Systematique_des_Doctrines_Philosophiques_
(1885), vol. II, pp. 390-392; _Essais_de_Critique_Generale_ (1859), vol.
II, sections ix, xiii. For an acknowledgement of the author's general
indebtedness to Renouvier, cf. _Some_Problems_of_Philosophy_, p. 165,
note. ED.] Single clauses in my writing, or sentences read out of
their connection, may possibly have been compatible with a
transphenomenal principle of energy; but I defy anyone to show a single
sentence which, taken with its context, should be naturally held to
advocate that view. The misinterpretation probably arose at first from
my defending (after Renouvier) the indeterminism of our efforts. 'Free
will' was supposed by my critics to involve a supernatural agent. As a
matter of plain history the only 'free will' I have ever thought of
defending is the character of novelty in fresh activity-situations. If
an activity-process is the form of a whole 'field of consciousness,' and
if each field of consciousness is not only in its totality unique (as is
now commonly admitted) but has its elements unique (since in that
situation they are all dyed in the total) then novelty is perpetually
entering the world and what happens there is not pure _repetition_, as
the dogma of the literal uniformity of nature requires.
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