Free Activities 399 



upon the labors in question, but it can be accepted that in 

 any effort for morality, an increase of efficiency is an in- 

 crease of moral power. 



The secondary benefit is also distinctly moral. The 

 opportunity for variation, which lies in freedom of conduct, 

 and- especially in liberty of conscience, is a way to moral 

 progress. There is moral goodness in active conduct 

 directed by faith, provided the faith attaches itself to worthy 

 influences; and there may be moral goodness even in 

 obedience without faith. But these moral efforts, although 

 they may produce good results as the fruits of their existing 

 order of things, must rely, for any advance into higher 

 order, upon progress on the part of the few leaders; while 

 the experiences, and aptitudes, and knowledge, in practical 

 inheritance, arise and develop in the performer or worker. 

 Thus this first unit of activity, which is composed of a 

 number of separate beings combined under control, is not 

 responsive to its own experiences, and is not likely to be 

 improved or advanced, unless a less efficient unit is in 

 immediate comparison; while freedom secures more varia- 

 tion in response to experience, and therefore more new pro- 

 gress, at a loss of some unity for purposes which are passing. 

 Thence it appears reasonable that in certain matters of 

 established type, as in military operations, great unity is 

 still preserved by strict control; and upon occasion the vol- 

 untary submission to control is seen to be still practiced. 

 Thus the newer free process amplifies the old, and in liberty, 

 as in other things, conduct remains a complex of all motives 

 in process of evolution. 



The further study of this subject reaches into a philo- 



