The testimony of modern

tion for those who, like Denise and Doctor Pascal, and Clotilde, rise out of the infamy which envelops the family Rougon-Macquart. Virtue and vice may be scientifically treated as if they were merely natural products like sugar and vitriol; but when we come to talk of them from a human and humane standpoint, there is something within us which demands that we shall recognize a merit in being virtuous, and a shame in being vicious,- qualities which can never belong to mere secretions, whether of plants or of nerves, — qualities which have no possible meaning unless there is a free-will in man, capable of choosing between the evil and the good.

Now that a free-will is possible, modern psychology assures us, as the result of its latest repsychology. searches. It does not attempt to demonstrate the existence of such a power by physiological investigation. It confesses that this demonstration is impossible with our present knowledge. But it declares with equal candour that the contrary attempt to show that the sense of freedom is a delusion, is inconclusive. “The last word of psychology here," says Professor William James, "is ignorance, for the forces engaged are too delicate and numerous to be followed in detail." He points out the ex

tremely reckless and inconsequent nature of the reasoning by which the determinists seek to make mere analogies drawn from the course of rivers, and reflex actions, and other material phenomena, serve as proofs that the will is a mechanical effect. He exposes the bold assumption by which they ignore the testimony of consciousness in the presence of feeling and effort. He shows that the utmost which any argument for determinism can do is to present a possible hypothesis, which a man who has already determined to hold fast to the idea that the whole universe is one chain of inevitable causation may accept if he likes. But meanwhile the other alternative stands equally open. The moral arguments all point in that direction. The only course, in such a situation, is voluntary choice. "For scepticism itself, if systematic, is also voluntary choice. If, meanwhile, the will be indetermined, it would seem only fitting that the belief in its indetermination should be voluntarily chosen from amongst other possible beliefs. Freedom's first deed should be to affirm itself.

Thus not only our morality but our religion, so far as the latter is deliberate, depends on the effort which we can make. •Will you or won't you have it so?' is the most probing

Free-will is

possible.

question we are ever asked: we are asked it every hour of the day, and about the largest as well as the smallest, the most theoretical as well as the most practical, things. We answer by consents or non-consents, and not by words. What wonder if these dumb responses should seem our deepest organs of communication with the nature of things! What wonder if the effort demanded by them should be the measure of our worth as men! What wonder if the amount which we accord of it be the one strictly underived and original contribution which we make to the world!"1

Christ says liberty is

real.

III

Here, then, modern science, careful, exact, reverent, as distinguished from modern scepticism, leaves us before the two doors. And here Christ comes to us, calling us to enter through the door of liberty into the pathway of eternal life. "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you."2 "If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the teaching."3

1 William James, Psychology, vol. ii., p. 579. pendix, note 52.

See Ap

The life of
Jesus, a

The whole life and ministry of Jesus is a revelation of moral freedom.1 His entrance revelation of into the world was voluntary. His continu- free-will. ance in human life was voluntary. His death was voluntary. At the first crisis of His life He chose to go about His Father's business. In the temptation He chose to resist the allurements of the Evil One. On the way to the cross He chose not to call on God for the deliverance which He knew would come in answer to His call. He was, indeed, fulfilling an appointed task, treading the path which had been marked out for the feet of the Christ; but He was fulfilling the task freely; He was walking in liberty because He loved to do the will of God. The triumph of His virtue lay in the freedom of His choice.

The preaching of Jesus, a gospel of

There was a singular propriety in the text of His first public discourse. It was a declaration of liberty, as well as of grace. It was an eman- liberty. cipation proclamation as well as a gospel of comfort and help. "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor; He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are crushed, to proclaim the acceptable year of

1 See Appendix, note 53.

The Phari

sees taught Fate.

the Lord."1 And what was the oppressive bondage from which He proclaimed release? Was it not the tyranny of a false doctrine of necessity over the minds of men, as well as the enslaving influence of sin over their inert and hopeless wills?

Here were the scribes and Pharisees teaching that the whole world was divided into two classes, the chosen and the not-chosen, the righteous for whom salvation was secure whatever they might do, and the sinners for whom salvation was impossible whatever they might do. Here were the outcast, the lost, the neglected, shut out, by no choice of their own, but by their birth, by the occupations in which they were engaged, by their ignorance, by the very conditions of their life, from all part in the kingdom of heaven as the scribes and Pharisees conceived it; not only the harlots and the publicans, but also Am Haarez, "the people of the land," with whom it was not fitting that a righteous person should have any dealings; 2 miserable souls, bound by inheritance to a desperate and unhallowed fate. Here came Jesus, taking His way directly to these lost ones, these outsiders, and telling them that all this doctrine of inevitable doom was a chain 1 St. Luke iv. 18.

2 Bruce, Kingdom of God, 145.