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stantly occurring which need not occur, and which ought not 
to occur. To deny this is merely to beg the question of 
necessity as a universal law — it is to deny that either the 
creature or the Creator is really free. No act of a free agent 
need occur, and no act of sin ought to occur. The crime 
which is foreknown as one to be committed to-morrow need 
not be committed, and ought not to be so. It has as yet no 
existence — it may never be — and it ought never to be. That 
thought of it which we rightly call foreknowledge must 
embrace all this, or it is not knowledge, for it does not 
correspond with the event said to be known. There can 
therefore be no foreknowledge of that which depends for its 
occurrence on a really free agent, which does not imply the 
thought that it may never come to pass. This is not an 
affection of foreknowledge arising from the imperfection of the 
foreknowing mind. It is a necessary affection of all such 
knowledge arising from the nature of freedom and futurity. 
The more perfect the mind is which knows, the more certainly 
must these affect its knowledge. The mind of the Omniscient 
must, from its omniscience, think of the future as it is, and 
not as it cannot be. That mind cannot think of the future as 
if it were a past or a present, for the simple reason that it is 
neither the one nor the other. Nor can it think of that which 
may be, and yet may not be, as if it must be. Whatever the 
true nature of the future is, so of necessity must be the thought 
of it in the All Perfect mind of God. To say that that which He 
foreknows must come to pass, is merely to assert necessity, and 
so to deny freedom. If there is freedom, to the extent to 
which it is, to that extent there is no necessity, and God must 
know that there is none. He must know that the free act, 
which he foresees may be, may yet not be. He must 
know that the free act which he foretells may not occur. 
Some say it must occur, or his foreknowledge must be at 
fault and his predictions must fail ; but this is only asserting 
that it is necessary, and that he foresees and foretells it as 
necessary. If he foresees and foretells it on the understanding 
that it is a matter of freedom, then, like JonalTs prediction of 
the destruction of Nineveh, it may not occur, though lie has 
predicted that it should. There could be mistake in such 
a case only if the event were foreseen and foretold as necessary. 
The true difficulty to which Mr. Mansel refers is simply 
that of reconciling necessity with freedom, so that an event 
must be, and yet need not be. No doubt that difficulty is 
great enough, but it need not hamper philosophy any more 
than the difficulty of regarding something and nothing as the 
same. Freedom is foreknown as freedom, and necessity as 
