A study of characterisation in the novels of George Eliot

36.
recognise that their only safeguard against such necessity is "evidence"
and "precise notions, II 115 and the directing of their energies and the
116
strength of their will towards achieving "some possible better."
The tension between a belief in "universal causality" 117 and a belief
in the capacity of the individual to exercise his will underpins all
George Eliot's thought. The Positivistic faith in irreversible laws,
while conferring the possibility of scientific progress, also bordered
on a totally mechanistic description of the world and of human possibility.
Yet some measure of freedom of choice had to be maintained if an
individual was to be held responsible for his actions. There is an important
difference between moral progress vlhich is determined. and inevitable)
and moral progress which occurs as a result of an individual's
making genuine moral choices and learning from his successes and failures.
George Eliot's solution to the problem of hOi'l a character can have any
118
free will at all in a world dominated by "invariability of sequence"
is two-fold. Some laws are inexorably binding and unmodifiable and towards
those we can only adopt an attitude of patient stoicism. But others, especially
those which involve social or moral organisation, are less rigi~in
that a knowledge of them l
least enables us to co-operate with them to
achieve beneficent results. We cannot make any impression on the law of
gravity but we can recognise the learning processes outlined by the
association psychologists, avoid certain tendencies and reinforce others
in order to effect desired change. This solution is summed up in the
phrase "freedom is necessity understood." 119 The other solution offered
is Lewes" emergent evolutionary belief, where the immense complexity of
the factors in any given operation makes accurate prediction impossible
and thus confers a certain flexibility. It is not that certain causes will
not produce certain effects; it is that we can never be entirely sure of