Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/728

708 Vice, Reward and Punishment, Praise and Blame." Romans, ix. 16, "It is not of him that willeth." Edwards, who has been well compared for his philosophic acumen to our own Berkeley, maintains that—

He argues that God's moral government over mankind is not inconsistent with a determining disposal of all events of every kind throughout the universe.

The theology of the most numerous, and, perhaps, the most earnest, sect of Protestant Christians is shown to be utterly adverse to the doctrine of free-will, and it would be equally untrue and uncharitable to deny that the lives of millions of persons guided by these opinions have proved from the Reformation to this hour that the opinion that neither will, thought, nor conduct is free, is consistent with a strict morality.

We have, perhaps, written more than enough for these pages on "the special purpose" of Dr. Carpenter's work, namely, the development of the theory that, although the mental functions generally are automatic, the will is free. The theory, so far as we can ascertain, is not sustained by any facts fit to sustain an argument of such weight. The assumed fact that we are conscious of freedom and power to act in accordance with our moral judgment is revealed in face of the contradiction which it constantly receives, for the sense of restraint said to be felt by one is at least equivalent to the sense of liberty said to be felt by another. It is even more appreciable. A bird may think itself free to fly where it lists, yet, when dropped from a balloon, it falls like a stone. Any captive may think himself free until he get to the bounds, and the freest of us all is still a captive—

2em

"The tendency of the human free-will is to fly upward," writes our author. "It is by the assimilation rather than by the subjugation of the human will to the Divine that man is really lifted toward God; and in proportion as this assimilation has been effected does it manifest itself in the life and conduct, so that even the lowliest actions