112 
Mind — the frowning cliffs rising high on each side^ neediug 
the vision of an archangel to survey them, confronting each 
other in solemn isolation, and this one frail link alone binding 
them ! the idea well-nigh becomes incredible. If separated, 
as Mr. Spencer assures us, they are completely separated, they 
must be logical contradictories with no bond of union. 
This philosophical doctrine of the Freedom of the Will 
does not seem to me to be defended by the upholders of 
Eevelation and of the Moral Law with anything approaching 
the zeal and fidelity that the magnitude of the matter demands. 
Kant may be said to have put forth the undivided energy of 
his keen and powerful intellect in order to establish the thesis 
of the Freedom or Autocraty of man^s will, and to show that 
the whole Moral Law must stand or fall with it. He in effect 
binds up the two doctrines into one, and not unfrequently 
makes them synonymous. Thus he says, “ We have now 
reduced the Idea of Morality to that of Freedom of Will.'^* * * § 
Again, he says, Autonomy of Will is the alone foundation 
of Morality.^^t and many other distinct statements, as well 
as the whole structure of the Metaphysics of Ethics go to 
show that, in his judgment, to deny Freedom to the Will was 
to make the idea of Morality impossible. He seems to me — 
and it is a growing opinion in our day — to have been one of 
those rare prophetic minds, ranking amongst the great men 
of all time who stand forth as the champions of eternal truth, 
whose glance sweeps down the centuries, and whose judgments 
express the thought of the All-wise God. Doubtless in his 
critical Philosophy Kant was mainly destructive, but in those 
of his works which are thrown up as bulwarks of the Moral 
Law, he seems to me to display a penetration and a power far 
beyond any mind of later times. Ho modest man can, I 
think, pit his judgment against Kant. Hamilton followed in 
his footsteps largely as his disciple, and he makes the same 
impressive declaration that Moral Liberty and Moral Obliga- 
tion must stand or fall together. He says, Virtue involves 
Liberty I he says, ^‘^The possibility of Morality depends on 
the possibility of Liberty ; for if man be not a free agent he 
is not the author of his actions, and has, therefore, no respon- 
sibility, — no moral personality at all.^^§ In addition to these 
solemn and weighty statements it is clear that he determined 
to found his whole metaphysical system on the moral canons. 
* Metaphysics of Ethics, Calderwood’s ed., p. 59. 
t Ibid. p. 99. 
X Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. i. p. 27, 4th ed. 
§ Ibid. p. 33. 
