The element of free-will, cunning, spontaneity, individuality—so
omnipresent, so essential, yet so unreasonable, and so inconsistent with
the other element not less omnipresent and not less essential, I mean
necessity, luck, fate—this element of free-will, which comes from the
unseen kingdom within which the writs of our thoughts run not, must be
carried down to the most tenuous atoms whose action is supposed most
purely chemical and mechanical; it can never be held as absolutely
eliminated, for if it be so held, there is no getting it back again, and
that it exists, even in the lowest forms of life, cannot be disputed.
Its existence is one of the proofs of the existence of an unseen world,
and a means whereby we know the little that we do know of that world.