'RANSITORY IMPERFECTIONS. 467 



unmeaning if it is not a final cause (ch. xi. § 21), and which 

 thus inverts the order of succession in time which we set 

 out to explain. 



Should we not from these facts infer rather that the 

 becoming of inanimate nature lies beneath the category of 

 freedom and necessity, that it is as yet in itself merely an 

 undifferentiated happening, without necessity, either logical, 

 moral, or physical, and not yet either necessary or free ? 

 Should we not infer that it is only when it has risen to 

 consciousness, and only as a psychical phenomenon, that 

 the sequence A — B appears at one time necessary and at 

 another contingent ? ^ 



§ 10. We say appears : for just as there is a stage in 

 the evolution of the world previous to the appearance of 

 freedom and necessity, which are not yet applicable to the 

 Becoming of things, so there is a subsequent stage when 

 they have disappeared, to which they cease to be applicable. 

 And certainly our confidence that this evolution of the 

 infra-conscious, infra-free, and infra-moral into the con- 

 scious, moral and free is the correct account of the matter, 

 and contains the true solution of the difficulty, is confirmed 

 by the higher developments of consciousness. 



For just as it is possible to sink below the consciousness 

 of freedom and necessity, so it is possible to rise above it. 

 Compared with the lower stages of mental and moral 

 development, the good and wise man (the crco(l)p(ov) sees 

 his course clearly. He does not doubt which is the right 

 alternative to adopt, he is not tempted, and still less over- 

 powered by circumstances to do evil. And so it is only in 

 rare and distressful crises that disturb the harmonious 

 equipoise of his existence, that he feels he might have acted 

 otherwise than he did, or that he was compelled to act 

 otherwise than he wished. 



Thus here again, it appears that the intense consciousness 

 of moral freedom and necessity is the characteristic only 

 of the mixed characters, of the intermediate phases of 

 imperfect adaptation, to which the thoroughly good, like 

 the thoroughly bad, are not susceptible. Only, of course, 

 they are less conscious of it for a wholly different reason, 



^ The contingent = that which may either be or not be. 



