How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Act.Scene)
Quote #1
Thomasina: You can't stir things apart.
Septimus: No more you can, time must needs run backward, and since it will not, we must stir our way onward mixing as we go, disorder out of disorder into disorder until pink is complete, unchanging and unchangeable, and we are done with it forever. This is known as free will or self-determination. (1.1)
This quote is also discussed under "Time," but here's another take on it: Septimus could be saying that while the ultimate destination is determined – we're all going to end up in a state as pink as a princess-obsessed little girl's bedroom. But the exact way we get there is up to us. Perhaps fate and free will are not entirely mutually exclusive after all.
Quote #2
Septimus: "If everything from the furthest planet to the smallest atom of our brain acts according to Newton's law of motion, what becomes of free will?" (1.1)
The quotes are there because Septimus is referring to a question that was already so common as to be trite in 1809 (the "are we there yet?" of physics). Perhaps a more interesting question would be, why does this subject make people so uncomfortable? What's so disturbing about saying free will is just an illusion?
Quote #3
Thomasina: If you could stop every atom in its position and direction, and if your mind could comprehend all the actions thus suspended, then if you were really, really good at algebra you could write the formula for all the future; and although nobody can be so clever as to do it, the formula must exist just as if one could. (1.1)
If we feel like we have free will, does it matter if we really don't? If we don't have free will, it's not like we could act any differently anyway, right?
Quote #4
Hannah: The hermit was placed in the landscape exactly as one might place a pottery gnome. And there he lived out his life as a garden ornament. (1.2)
And for some people, even the illusion of free will breaks down – especially if you're from the lower classes and have to do what your bosses tell you. Hannah's observation reminds us that this whole fate vs. free will debate takes place not just within individuals, but in the context of larger society – and some people are determined to mess with the free will of others.
Quote #5
Thomasina: She is vexed with papa for his determination to alter the park, but that alone cannot account for her politeness to a guest. (1.3)
Thomasina's line reminds us of the double meaning of "determination" – it can be the opposite of free will, but it can also mean sticking to your guns against all obstacles.
Quote #6
Valentine: the details change, you can't keep tabs on everything, it's not nature in a box. But it isn't necessary to know the details. When they are all put together it turns out the population is obeying a mathematical rule.
Hannah: The goldfish are?
Valentine: Yes. No. The numbers. It's not about the behaviour of fish. It's about the behaviour of numbers. (1.4)
Valentine gives more details about how determination (in the fate sense) doesn't necessarily mean that any particular individual feels forced to do particular things. What might be called "fate" is really a combination of environmental factors – which, potentially, can change, altering everyone's fate.
Quote #7
Valentine: The unpredictable and the predetermined unfold together to make everything the way it is. [...] We're better at predicting events at the edge of the galaxy or inside the nucleus of an atom than whether it'll rain on auntie's garden party three Sundays from now. Because the problem turns out to be different. We can't even predict the next drip from a dripping tap when it gets irregular. Each drip sets up the conditions for the next, the smallest variation blows prediction apart, and the weather is unpredictable in the same way, will always be unpredictable. (1.4)
Valentine is saying that a dripping faucet is just too complicated to track, that you'd have to be able to chart what each individual atom is doing. Or is this just another case of not enough pencils? Perhaps there's a future development in technology that is as difficult for Valentine to imagine as computers would have been for Thomasina, and another scientific revolution will make his grouse seem as quaint as Thomasina's rabbit equation.
Quote #8
Chloë: The future is all programmed like a computer – that's a proper theory, isn't it? [...] But it doesn't work, does it?
Valentine: No. It turns out the maths is different.
Chloë: No, it's all because of sex.
Valentine: Really?
Chloë: That's what I think. The universe is deterministic all right, just like Newton said, I mean it's trying to be, but the only thing going wrong is people fancying people who aren't supposed to be in that part of the plan.
Valentine: Ah. The attraction that Newton left out. (2.7)
Chloë's theory is all kinds of ridiculous. Perhaps especially absurd is the idea that the universe is "trying" to be deterministic – the whole point of determinism is that things happen whether you try to do them or not.
Quote #9
Augustus: You are not my tutor, sir. I am visiting your lesson by my free will.
Septimus: If you are so determined, my lord. (2.7)
Septimus plays on the double meaning of "determined" discussed above – and the beauty of his joke is that there's no way for Augustus to prove that Septimus is making fun of him. Thanks, ambiguity of the English language.
Quote #10
Septimus: Be careful with the flame.
Thomasina: I will wait for you to come.
Septimus: I cannot.
Thomasina: You may.
Septimus: I may not.
Thomasina: You must.
Septimus: I will not. (2.7)
This interaction between Septimus and Thomasina suggest that, regardless of where the chips fall on fate vs. free will, there are some things that humans think they control, and others that just happen. Septimus's refusal to go up to Thomasina's room is an example of the first kind of thing, and Thomasina's death by fire is the second (unless you think she committed suicide). The different meanings of "will," "can," "may," and "must" show just how difficult it is to pin down where to draw the line between the two. If Septimus had chosen to follow Thomasina, would she have lived? We'll never know.