269 
or so unalterably arranged as to exclude all real answer to 
prayer, is a false notion. Finding the fact of man's freedom, 
we reason inevitably to that of God's suspending part of His 
acting upon the acting of the creature. This part of the Divine 
conduct is not fixed, and that because the perfect principles of 
the Divine character are fixed. God will do exactly that which 
is wise and good ; but what that shall actually be may depend 
on how the free creature will act in a given case.. It is 
stated by Mr. Mansel as one of his proofs of contradictories 
in the Infinite that we cannot reconcile foreknowledge and 
free-will. I see no more difficulty in reconciling /ore- 
knowledge and free-will than in reconciling u/£er-knowledge 
and that free-will. 
It is necessary to our freedom from such difficulty only that 
we have a somewhat clear idea of what foreknowledge really 
is, and especially of how it is affected by the futurity of that 
which is foreknown. Mistakes on these points no doubt cause 
great perplexity, but they are only mistakes, and may be 
easily corrected. Foreknowledge, like all other knowledge, 
is thought . It is such thought as is legitimately derived from 
the objects to which it is related. If, for example, I may say 
that I know the sun will appear above the horizon to-morrow 
morning at a certain hour, in doing so I merely express a 
thought legitimately derived from the evidence on which I 
anticipate the event referred to. It is a legitimate inference 
from certain facts of consciousness, that the sun will so appear, 
and hence I know that it will, just as I know or legitimately 
infer from certain other facts of consciousness, that it appeared 
to-day. If, to take a different case, I say of a man, who owes 
me a sum of money, and has engaged to pay me on a certain 
day, that I hioiv he will do so at the time appointed, I merely 
express thoughts which are inferences from other facts of my 
consciousness, and are real knowledge so far as they are legiti- 
mate inferences. These thoughts are foreknowledge, as truly 
as thoughts of things past or present are ordinary knowledge 
of past or present. 
But all such thought is affected essentially by the futurity 
of its objects. The thought of that which is, must be essen- 
tially different from the thought of that which as yet is 
not. The sunrise of to-morrow has no existence in fact 
to-day. My thought of that sunrise now, is that of a 
non-existent event. There is no corresponding reality in 
nature as yet, for the thought of that which is truly 
future. So the thought of the payment which has not 
yet been made, must be the thought of that which has 
as yet no reality. But this is not all. Events are con- 
