400 ESSAYS IX PHILOSOrUY 



senses : that of spontaneous decision and action, eternally 

 and unchangeably adhering to the cause of Right alone ; and 

 that of choice in alternatives, as these continually present 

 themselves in time, — the ever recurring alternative between 

 the one eternal choice of Right and the manifold and ever 

 varying forms of temporal defect and wrong. 



Not a single one of these causally real individuals is deter- 

 mined to his acts by any extraneous efficient causation, not 

 even God's, but each is led wholly by ideal influences, by 

 final causation purely, as these ideal influences are by each 

 apprehended and interpreted. The responsibility of each 

 goes back, in the last resort, to his responsibility for right 

 knowledge and right judgment, the sources of which he pos- 

 sesses in his essence, as knowing a priori. 



The complete reality of freedom is found, however, in the 

 possibility of realising a moral order in the world of experi- 

 ence. By this I do not mean the mere maybe-so of such 

 an order, but the real power of bringing it about ; and the 

 new system provides for this, and alone provides for it, first, 

 by the objective aspect of its theory of Freedom, and 

 secondly, by its supplying a thorough proof for the 

 doctrine of Immortality. But these two matters carry us 

 into further conditions of the moral life, and require sep- 

 arate treatment. 



(2) The objective nature of the self-active consciousness, 

 — objective by virtue of its intrifisically social and federal 

 character. Without this, the moral ideal would be nothing 

 but an empty egoism, incapable of transcending solipsism, 

 and leading only to a self-centred culture. Justice and 

 benevolence would have no place in such a life, but only 

 aesthetic self-refinement and self-poise — what the Greeks 

 called (Tu)(^ pocrvvYj, which we try quite in vain to trans- 

 late by temperance, moderation, self-control, sobriety, mod- 

 esty, and what not. But the new theory puts altruism into 

 the very being of each spontaneous self, and lodges his 



