340 THE REIGN OF LAW 



know that an honourable man will not do a 

 base action. And if in such cases we are de- 

 ceived in the result, we know that it is because 

 we were ignorant of some weakness or of some 

 corruption. That is to say, we were ignorant of 

 some elements of character. But we never doubt 

 that, if those had been known, we could have 

 foreseen the resulting lapse. Perfect knowledge 

 must therefore be perfect foreknowledge. To know 

 the present perfectly, is to know the future cer- 

 tainly. To know all that is, is to know all that 

 will be. To know the heart of Man completely, 

 is to know his conduct completely also — for "out 

 of the heart are the issues of life." So far from 

 this conclusion being dangerous or hostile to any 

 part of the Christian system, it is a conclusion 

 which enables us in a dim way, not merely to hold 

 as a Belief, but to see, as a necessary truth, that 

 there can be no chance in this world — and how it 

 is, and must be, that to the All-seeing and All- 

 knowing the Future is as open as the Present 

 and the Past. But none of these ideas involve 

 the idea of compulsion; and the absence of com- 

 pulsion is all that can be meant by Freedom. 



