202 Free Will and Providential action. CHAP. 



of Will, is able to direct the action of force without 

 creating or destroying energy. 



If, then, the dicta of instinct and common sense 

 are scientifically true if Consciousness can act on 

 matter, and desire and fear can determine bodily 

 action all arguments from physical science against 

 the possibility of Moral Freedom are irrelevant and 

 worthless ; and the question whether human action 

 is indeed "bound fast in fate "like that of mere 

 matter, is left to be decided, or to remain undecided, 

 on the old metaphysical, moral, and theological 

 ground. 



Further conclusions of the highest importance 

 follow from this. If Will is a reality and not an 

 illusion, room is left for intercourse in prayer between 

 God and the soul of man, and spiritual religion is 

 possible and reasonable. And if Life and Mind are 

 not bound in absolute mechanical rigidity, there is 

 room, even in a dispensation from which miracle is 

 excluded, for actions of special Divine Providence in 

 human life and history. It is not true that human 

 free-will, Providential action, and answers to prayer 

 are of the nature of miracle, and are therefore 

 excluded under the present dispensation; there 

 is room for them under the dispensation of natural 

 law. 



For what is here written on the difference and 

 contradiction between the old metaphysical Neces- 

 sarianism and the new Automatism, I have to 



