HARMONY OF DETERMINISM AND FREEDOM 35 1 



a process never to be interrupted, however devious, 

 dark, or often retrograde, its course may be. I am 

 to show you all this by the light of Final Cause, 

 which is to take the place of the less rational cate- 

 gory of Efificient Causation, since — let it be repeated 

 — this last cannot operate to sustain moral relation- 

 ship, and since moral values, measured in real free- 

 dom, are for the conscience and the new theology the 

 measure of all reality. 



VI 



Now, after our long making ready, the sufficient 

 exhibition of these conclusive truths may, fortunately, 

 be comparatively brief. Let us begin by showing 

 that our uncompromising Pluralism, our system of 

 self-active or eternal persons, is not atheistic, but 

 demands God ; yes, reposes on God, and alone pre- 

 sents him as adorably divine. 



Bear in mind, then, that by the terms of our prob- 

 lem we set out upon our present quest from a granted 

 world of beings really free, and that this freedom 

 means their subsistence by their self-active thinking. 

 They are thus all eternal, in the highest and there- 

 fore sole entirely true meaning of the word; namely, 

 they are all subsistent self-actively, by their own 

 self-defining consciousness. But this does not merely 

 mean that they are everlasting, — existing, as the 



