468 FREE WILL AND NECESSITY. 



not because they sink below it, but because they transcend 

 it. 



In a perfectly good and perfectly wise being, therefore, 

 both freedom and necessity would be impossible, and would 

 be seen to be ultimately unmeaning, illusions incidental to 

 imperfect development. For how could there be any 

 alternative of action for an intellect which infallibly per- 

 ceived the wisest, and for a will which unswervingly 

 pursued the best course ? For the best course is one and 

 single,' and admits no competition from a pis alter. Or 

 would it not be ludicrous to represent a being whose whole 

 nature was attracted towards the best, as obeying a law of 

 necessity ? 



There can be no change then or wavering in the action 

 or the purpose of the Deity, in the conduct which is as 

 completely determined by Reason from within^ as that of 

 the unconscious is determined by external law from 

 without. But change and doubt, hesitation and incon- 

 sistency, struggle, victory and defeat befit the intermediate 

 phases of existence : the consciousness of freedom and 

 necessity marks the lives of beings capable of rational 

 action, and yet not wholly rational. We can perceive, 

 more or less clearly, what conduct is required by the pro- 

 gress of the world, and yet we have continually to struggle 

 against the survivals of lower habits {i.e., adaptations to 

 earlier stages in the process, cp. ch. iv. § lo) within us and 

 around us. And it is this consciousness of ill-adjusted 

 elements which generates the consciousness alike of freedom 

 and of necessity. But as the consciousness of freedom 

 accompanies the victory over the obstacles to progress, 

 over the foully-decaying corpses of the dead selves of the 

 individual and of the race, freedom is a higher ethical 

 principle than necessity, and is rightly brought into in- 

 timate connection with morality. The phrase " I can 

 because I ought ^' may not express the connection of both 

 freedom and morality with the essential character of the 

 world-process in the clearest way, but it at least bears 

 witness to their kinship. 



Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London, 



