HARMONY OF DETERMINISM AND FREEDOM 379 



in the course of ages here and hereafter it is sure to 

 be effectual. But the way is hard, the road of disci- 

 pline and penitence is long, is across deep and appall- 

 ing abysses, with many a frightful fall to their bot- 

 tom, and of this tragic side of our being it is strictly 

 true that — 



The moving Finger writes, and having writ 

 Moves on : nor all your piety nor wit 



Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, 

 Nor all your tears wash out a word of it. 



Here speaks the fact of Fate — the changeless 

 bond among experiences, the " irrevocable fixity of 

 the past " embosomed within our very freedom : we 

 " sow in Ate's fields " and reap the fitting crop. Re- 

 morse, remorse ! But Fate is the indispensable means 

 to freedom in a shifting world of experience, is there- 

 fore a consistent product of freedom, and the passing 

 over of the "judgment of regret" into this judgment 

 of remorse, stirred in us by the sense of Fate, is 

 exactly what makes in our time-world the signal 

 of our eternal freedom, and points to the coming 

 better judgment of repentance and reform. We 

 cannot, indeed, recall the past that is behind any 

 specific present ; but it is only a past thus arbitrarily 

 isolated that is fixed. The real past is a flowing 

 whole, and we are forever pouring the future into the 

 flood, through the gate of the present. Our past is 

 really always cJianging^ and it is we who initiate the 



