UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



sense. In a large way human history is under the 

 same law as natural history or biological history; is 

 subject to the same haphazard, hit-and-miss proc- 

 ess, the same waste, delays, failures. The only 

 sure thing in either case is the law of progress — 

 evolution in a general broadcast way. We do not 

 know that the great historical characters appeared 

 w^hen most needed. When they did appear, they did 

 their work, filled their places, but how many epochs 

 have come and gone without their redeemers and 

 leaders! In how many cases the great leader and 

 savior may have been there, though conditions and 

 events have not favored his appearance! Grant 

 would have died unknown had not events brought 

 him out. So would Washington and Lincoln and 

 Lee. Opportunity is half of life. 



We cannot jump off the sphere; no more can we 

 free ourselves of the idea of a final cause. This idea 

 of causation is developed in us by our experience in 

 life; if we forget it, we speedily come to grief. But 

 it does not help us in dealing with the final mystery. 

 We can find no end to the causal sequence. We 

 simply rest in First Cause. 



Two opposites may make a whole. There is often 

 the larger truth with the lesser truth inside it. The 

 larger truth is the law of causation; the lesser truth 

 is the freedom of the will. Fate is true and, within 

 limits, freedom of choice is true. If my tempera- 

 ment, or that complex of forces and tendencies 



154 



