If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it was travelling its way of its own accord on the strength of a resolution taken once and for all. So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man's illusion that he was acting according to his own free will. This is my belief, although I know well that it is not fully demonstrable. If one thinks out to the very last consequence what one exactly knows and understands, there will be hardly any human being who will be impervious to this view, provided his self-love does not ruffle up against it. Man defends himself from being regarded as an impotent object in the course of the Universe. But should the lawfulness of events, such as unveils itself more or less clearly in inorganic nature, cease to function in front of the activities of the brain? Leaving aside the inconsistency of such a view, the influence of alcohol and other sharply controllable factors on our thoughts, feeling and activities should show very distinctly that determinism does not stop before the majesty of our human will. Maybe, we and human society require the illusion of freedom in our human activities! The conviction that a law of necessity governs human activities introduces into our conception of man and life a mildness, a reverence and an excellence, such as would be unattainable without this conviction.