"the supreme question." The very existence of morality depends upon it. For a plain man, Dr. Johnson's rough-and-ready way of settling it may well suffice: "Sir, we know that our will is free, and there's an end of it." But that the speculative difficulties which may be raised concerning this question are enormous, every tyro in metaphysics is aware. To enter into a detailed investigation of "that labyrinth of philosophy," as Leibnitz called it, would require a bulky volume. Its outlines, however, may be, and ought to be, here briefly indicated. For a statement of the creed of Determinism we cannot do better than go to the late Mr. John Stuart Mill. In his criticism of Sir William Hamilton he pronounces it "a truth of experience that volitions do, in point of fact, follow determinate moral antecedents with the same uniformity and with the same certainty, as physical effects follow their physical causes." And in the second volume of his Logic he writes as follows: "The doctrine called Philosophical Necessity is simply this: that, given the motives which are present to an individual's mind, and given likewise the character and disposition of the individual, the manner in which he will act may be unerringly inferred; that if we knew the person thoroughly, and knew all the inducements which are acting on him, we could foretell his conduct with as much certainty as we can predict any physical event." Now if this doctrine be true, it is obvious that there is no place in human life for

culpability and moral turpitude, in the old and only intelligible sense of the words. If a man's actions are absolutely determined by character and disposition-which Mr. Mill regarded as the outcome of heredity and environment-and by the pressure of passions and desires, then most assuredly he is not morally responsible for those actions. And the miserable people, of whom Dante tells us in the Inferno, are fully warranted when they blame, as the cause of their sufferings, everything except their abuse of their free personality, their own bad will: "when they blaspheme God and their progenitors and the whole race of men, the place, the time, the origin of their seed and of their birth.” But no. It is not so, Psychological heredity is not uniform, is not absolute. The soul has an originating causality, and is the fount of duties and deserts, of guilt and punishment. Man is not the mere creature of circumstances, the predestined product of nature. Side by side with mechanical determination by empirical motives, there exists in him self-determination. He belongs-consciously belongs to the sphere of reason as well as to the sphere of sense. And therefore he is the subject of moral obligation. We may, in some sort, admit that the character of a man at any moment determines his choice of motives: but he is largely determined as he determines himself. A man's character, I say, is not something imposed upon him from without, but something shaped, to a great extent, by himself

from within: and "a self-distinguishing and selfseeking consciousness" is its "basis." He is, according to a wise Spanish proverb, "the son of his own deeds." "La liberté humaine," says Bossuet, "semble de sa nature indéterminée: elle se précise par l'action: en se précisant elle s'enveloppe et s'enchâine de ses actes, comme le ver-à-soie dans sa coque. Elle ne reste pas moins maîtresse de dénouer le lien qu'elle a noué: elle agit et réagit: elle soutient le choc et livre l'assaut." It is grandly said. And with the grandeur, not merely of rhetoric, but of truth. Aristotle teaches-and the teaching is by no means antiquated, although two thousand years old - that the rational nature supplies the rule of life, and that the law of habit provides for the attainment of facility in doing what reason requires. But habit is the outcome of volition; and for the freedom of man's volition it is enough to appeal-this is the justification of Dr. Johnson's dictum-to the categorical imperative of conscience. "I ought" implies "I can." Th realisation of duty is impossible fr my b which is not conceived as cape mination. The speculative

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and chosen by, a self-conscious moral being. A deed may be morally necessitated, and morally free. A good will-"the only thing which an unsophisticated man finds of absolute value in the world "—is a will self-determined by the moral law. Here is the supreme vindication of liberty. But a good will is not innate. It is acquired. It is the fruit of victory over the essentially base and ferocious promptings of self-love: over "the flesh with the affections and lusts." To keep in subjection the lower self, the self of the animal nature, and to emancipate the higher, the rational self: to rise from the subjective to the objective — this, I say, is the ethical freedom, which is our true end; and which we can work out, if we will. From this power of the will, springs that moral responsibility which supplies the rationale of criminal justice, and warrants its solemn ceremonial. This it is which compels us to account of guilt as something more than disease; of punishment as something more than discipline. This alone gives validity to the idea of Duty, as the paramount law of existence. Duty it is the first word and the last; and the most precious.

"Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!

O Duty if that name thou love,
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring and reprove:

Thou, who art victory and law

When empty terrors overawe;

From vain temptations dost set free;

And calmest the weary strife of frail humanity!

"Stern Lawgiver! yet dost thou wear

The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we any thing so fair
As is the smile upon thy face.

Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
And fragrance in thy footing treads;

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;

And the most ancient heavens, through thee, are fresh

and strong."