  Du Bois’s references to Weber, Schmoller, Royce, James, and Jamesian pragmatism tie his earlier critique of Comte to an engagement with what James dubbed “the dilemma of determinism” (James, 1884). Weber was methodologically agnostic with regard to the dispute between metaphysical determinists and indeterminists, arguing that neither position entailed consequences bearing on the research practices of the historical and cultural sciences, and taking Schmoller to task for his profession of faith in metaphysical determinism (see Weber, 1905a, 197–196, 278; Ringer, 1997, 57–58, 91). Thus, Du Bois breaks with both his German teachers in insisting that chance—again, incalculable actions (and choices) undetermined by and independent of actions gone before—exists in the world and in explicitly endorsing “the assumption of chance” as a principle of sociological  method.[31]  Du Bois’s contention that the individual is free to the extent that her choices escape explanation in terms of physical and social laws and regularities echoes Royce’s argument that, because “the individual as such is never the mere result of law,” no causal explanation can “predetermine” what she “uniquely wills” (Royce, 1899, 467–468). Du Bois misleads, however, when he retrospectively suggests that the argument of “Sociology Hesitant” aligned him with James. 