78 The Triunity of Man [CH. 



relation both to the time-process of his becoming and to 

 his absolute being. 



We have shown already at length that evolution is the 

 process whereby personal freedom is achieved. At first 

 this striving is unconscious. The vital impulse is ever 

 struggling to achieve freedom. That its objective is 

 thus constant is due to the fact that the impulse exists 

 in a cosmos which is the expression of God's purpose. 

 Besides internal impulsion the organism is subject to 

 external tractation ; or, in biological terms we may say 

 that the direction of evolution is pre-destined by the 

 nature of the environment. The response of the indi- 

 vidual is free, the direction of the evolution as a whole 

 is determined 1 . When, however, we consider freedom in 

 relation to the individual, we see that it exists as the factor 

 which makes for self-determination. In the unconscious 

 organism freedom is manifested merely as the power of 

 utilising the environment in a very limited degree, mak- 

 ing it subserve the organism's ends. When self-con- 

 sciousness dawns, through the inturning of the con- 

 sciousness upon itself, making the individual able to 

 think himself as a 'thou,' the freedom becomes the 

 means of completing the personality, through the addi- 

 tion of the knowledge 'I can' to the knowledge that 

 'I am' and that 'I wish.' Before the dawn of self -con- 

 sciousness there was need or craving, and its fulfilment. 

 Now there is I need, I wish, I can fulfil, I can find satis- 

 faction in fulfilment. Thus freedom becomes involved in 

 the completion of the ego. One can hardly conceive the 

 nature of an experience which included simply / am and 

 / wish, without / can. A truncated personality that 

 knew itself, but simply as a bundle of volitions to which 

 it could not give the least effect, would at any rate not 

 be a unity 2 . I should think myself, and I should think 



1 Evolution and the Need of Atonement, ch. i. 



* Possibly this statement would not hold good for a pure 



