342 £SSAVS IN PHILOSOPHY 



ereign Lord, than the atheism of deified Injustice, 

 with its election and reprobation by sheer sovereign 

 prerogative. And while it is certain, too, that the 

 free-agency exacted by moral government can only 

 be fulfilled by allotting self-activity to the spirit, 

 and consequently seating it in eternity, companion 

 there of God, yet in truth this has neither the poly- 

 theistic nor the atheistic implications that have 

 been suggested. Least of all, when its true impli- 

 cations are understood, does this free eternity of 

 each mind destroy the distinction between God and 

 souls, between every soul and every other, and 

 thus ruin the logical variety and the aesthetic inter- 

 est of the universe. On the contrary, the system 

 of free spirits, as already above depicted in its essen- 

 tial traits, far from being a deadly world of dull iden- 

 tity, is kindled throughout by an intense variety 

 which is the very principle of its existence. It 

 provides in its idea just the resources we need for 

 solving the contradiction we are now so aware of — 

 provides them as no possible scheme of monarchic 

 and efficient-causative Divine agency can. 



The fact is, the real difficulty in the case comes 

 from retaining this old efficient-causal notion of 

 Divine being and function, after we have silently 

 but really parted company with it in accepting a 

 moral order as the touchstone for the character of 

 souls and the nature of God. The tragic situation 



