arbitrary decrees, but uniform laws. That no "Self-will," or "arbitrariness," or capriciousness, is seen, this is so far from arguing against an Infinite Agent, that it argues for it. He whose eternal decrees are determined by the eternal laws of his nature,—justice, holiness, and truth, his Will must act regularly, and without variableness, caprice, or shadow of turning.

But in reference to all theories that suppose a machinery of Doom or of Physical Law, the grand reply is, that this supposes mere power, but that our own constant feeling is not of mere power, but of gentleness, kindness, mercy, benevolence, wisdom, forethought,-in short, not of Power only, but of all and every one of the moral powers; to beings possessed of which alone we attribute personality. In each "circumstance" that is brought to bear upon the life of man, we see moral influence in manifold ways, not power only, and therefore we naturally conclude the presence of an Infinite Moral Being-that is, God.

This, then, is our estimate of "Circumstance:"-In reference to its agent, it is the external force of the Will of an Infinite Moral Being, Personal and Ever-Present, applied unto Man. And this not according to arbitrary decrees, or the caprice of self-will, having no other motive but its own consciousness of power, but according to the eternal laws of a Being infinitely good, just, gracious, holy, merciful-a Father, a moral Governor, a God to be worshipped,—and not merely a being conceived as possessing only the one attribute of Infinite Power and Will omnipotent and unchecked.

This, then, is the interpretation :-That not the machinery of an Infinite Doom, or of an all-embracing physical law, but an ever-present God, Father, and Moral Governor, with a Will so determined, creates all Circumstances surrounding me, and by them exerts, in all things, upon each action of mine, an influence whose extent I cannot comprehend nor measure; which yet I know is not an influence contradictory to his nature, and, although I see not its end or extent, still must consider it to be good and to tend to good.

7

And while with regard to the material world I may form systems, and say that events are bound together by Physical Laws, but with regard to my own voluntary action I must suppose it above Physical Law, and to be expressed by no formula; so with regard to the Circumstances that bear upon me, no formula will express

them, no physical law embrace them: they show the personal action of a moral agent who is ever present, acting voluntarily upon me. Such is the moral interpretation of "Circumstance," an interpretation which men put naturally and easily, which agrees with the express words of Scripture, and only by a false philosophy can be put aside from the persuasion of any human being.

If this explanation be true, then it may be said, "Man is not free, for of the two forces that determine any act, and from which it results, one is the finite Will of man, the other, the infinite Will of God;-the Finite must ever be overpowered by the Infinite."

In answer to this, we say that the force put forth by a being of Infinite Power is not necessarily infinite. God has infinite power, but in his dealings with man, of his own will he modifies his power. When my finite will comes in contact with an obstacle and overcomes it, such an amount of hindrance has been put in my way as I can overcome; and I can easily conceive, that for wise purposes the infinite God might have put only such an amount,—and yet it certainly is not the less an exertion of His power.

Again, he may put such an amount as will be insuperable; according then to His measure, which is His wisdom, He may direct his influences upon us, so that in various ways our actions shall be modified. But in each circumstance the influence of the finite Will is seen, and the influence of the Infinite.

This then is the result:-Central amid a sphere of Circumstances, man feels that external things and actions he can modify by an internal power. He feels, too, that they can and do modify his action. These two forces he is conscious of in each action of life, and the sum total of life is made up of the results of these two. He, therefore, by his constitution feels these both to exist: he feels that one does not annihilate the other, but that both coexist, the Free-will of Man, the Power of God.

This he knows by his own knowledge, and his own feeling of his actions both singly and in the mass, and it is in vain to argue the non-existence of the one or the other. Such arguments to all men are mere verbal knots that touch not the reality of things. The question is a simple one: "Do I, by action springing from an internal, self-guiding power, modify external circumstance?" If

a man knows this to be so, according to his own experience, then argument against it is mere babbling, mere talk. For the thing must be decided by man's consciousness of the fact, and not by metaphysics. If a man be conscious that it is so, and the race generally have the same consciousness, millions of treatises are unavailing against the fact of such self-knowledge.

The question of the existence of Free-will is sometimes confused with another, as to the extent of its results. "Have I the power, according to internal choice, to modify external circumstances more or less?"-this is the question of Free-will. "What is the extent of that modification ?" is a different question. "Can I do what I will, uncontrolled by any outward power?" This does not ask "Am I free?" but "Am I omnipotent?"

The question as to the extent of the power of a Free agent is quite a different one from the question of his Freedom. God may grant me such a power of Will, that all external circumstances that come in contact with me shall be ruled, swayed, and governed by it. He may grant me no such power of Will, and yet make the outward Circumstances to yield to my weakness. And so in manifold ways may modify, guide, govern, direct, teach, rule; but all this action is according to the laws of his infinite being. And if evil is brought about, it is not of God's action upon man, but by his permission that it exists.

The rules of his action are the laws of his eternal being. Thus "God cannot lie," the Scripture tells us: this we shall take for a law of his being,-no power of God, then, can make man lie. "God cannot sin ;"-God's Almighty power, then, cannot pre-doom man to sin, and so forth.

And again, God is of himself infinitely free; he has made man free; it is a part of his constitution established by God; God, then, cannot make man un-free, save by annihilating the constitution. he has made. In like manner, he cannot make two bodies at once to occupy the same space, because it is a fact of the constitution of body, that it cannot be so. So it is a part of the constitution of man that he shall be free, that of each action, one force should be the power of man's Will, and the other a portion of external power, brought to operate upon him by the Will of God, for his most holy and most secret purposes.

This, then, I conceive to be the interpretation of "Circumstance;" that it shows neither Chance, nor yet Fate, but a

Personal and Ever-present Being, Almighty, All-just, and All-holy, directing, according to his wisdom, a portion of his power upon us. And from that external power and our internal power, both existing in each act, all our acts do come.

And the relative proportions of these two forces we know not, only that they both exist, and that the power of God works upon us, not according to caprice, but according to the Laws of His Being, and according to the Constitution wherewith he has framed us.

These are practical decisions, which the experience and knowledge of our race has a thousand times affirmed, and which only false philosophy as to the nature of God, the being of this world, and the constitution of man could deny.

We have placed them here because, so placed, they will enable us, in their light, more fully to examine the internal power which thus acts along with the external power of God. We shall go on, then, in the next chapter, to examine the nature of the internal power which we call the Will, as to the modes of its action, which we before have enumerated.

CHAPTER IV.

The Will has a Power of Resistance to Motive.-Motives upon the Will do not act necessarily. The evil Results of Fatalism.-Analogy to the Will and its Motives of the Concurrence of Forces, Mechanical, Chemical, and Vital.-Brute Animals are really and truly what the Fatalist thinks Man to be.-Man has a Will: Brutes have properly no Will.-The question of Free-will is a practical one.-As a matter of fact, there are Men whose Will is not free.-The Two Wills: The "Will of the Flesh," and the Spiritual Will. Society trains the Will.-The Spiritual Law sets the Will de facto free.-Examples from Conscience, the Reason, the Heart.

HAVING thus examined the nature of Circumstance, and shown that herein the power of man meets with and is united with the power of God, we go forward to examine the nature of the Will in itself.

The Will is "inward and spiritual:" this is the first part of our definition. By this we mean that the faculty, as far as it is

a faculty of our nature, is one that belongs to man as a Spiritual

being.

The answer is not hard to this question :"Admit that your Will is capable of being influenced by external motives-has it yet such a power that all these, by its own internal force, it can reject, and go contrary to the course they indicate?" If this be so, it is internal, and, at the same time, Spiritual.

Is there an inward power by which, giving riches their full value, and on certain occasions pursuing them,-upon certain other occasions I shall permit the desire of them to have no power over my actions? Is there an inward force by which, desiring food, I shall, at certain times and upon certain occasions,-abstain from it? desiring pleasure,-I shall resist it? being tempted to evil,-I shall oppose the temptation? being excited unto anger, I shall yet quell it? Certainly: every child feels within himself this power of resistance. He may not feel it to a perfect degree; but a power he does feel whose faculty this is, and which may be brought to greater perfection by exercise. It is a testimony of all men, that there exists in all this internal power of resistance to external inducements to action.

We shall put the question again, in this way :-" Cause and Effect," we shall say, "in Physical Science, is a law absolute and certain. In consequence of this, it is in Physics a true axiom, Like causes produce like effects,' and therefore, without exception, when you find the identity of cause, from it invariably follows the identity of effect in physical science." This we believe to be invariably true. Now, "Motive" we shall define to be an "external cause of action." Is the law of "cause and effect" true in reference to human actions? If it be, the same amount of external cause shall always produce the same effect-the Will shall always be determined by motives, and shall not be free in any way.

But each man's reason can tell him that it is not so-that although Motives to action are upon the will as "causes" in Physical Philosophy, still there is an internal power of resistance, by which the "effect" of motives is limited in a very exceeding degree, so that no amount of "motive" shall compel or force or determine, physically, the Will of any, if it freely from within resist.

And so the law of " cause and effect," however well it may do in Physics, has no power in Ethics. No external motives compel