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the former, not only in intensity or force, but in their entire 
conception and modus ojperandi. To confound them together 
under the common terms antecedent and consequent must lead 
to a false philosophy. 
Mr. Buckle's original fallacy of ignoring the effects of 
human freedom is the foundation of all the great blemishes by 
which his work is disfigured, and it is impossible to say that 
they are either few or small. I have already shown the connec- 
tion of the will with our self-conscious personality, and that with 
our higher reason. I shall designate their union in ail their 
complicated action by the term the rational will. The force of 
this principle in our struggle with the inferior portions of our 
nature has been recognized by every good and holy man in 
every age ; nay, by all men in all ages. Its existence has 
deeply impressed itself on the structure of language. The 
desperate struggles of the one with the other have been most 
graphically described by St. Paul in Romans vii. That 
description has found a response in every human soul which 
has deeply meditated on it. 
The action of the rational will in neutralizing a lower motive 
through the influence of a higher one, is exerted in every in- 
stance where we triumph over a powerful temptation. Without 
it our triumph over temptation would be impossible. Its influ- 
ence is the source of all rational self-denial. Inferior animals 
exercise a species of self-denial, but this originates in the 
superior power of one instinct compared with another. The 
maternal love of a hen, for instance, overcomes her desire for 
food. But quite different is the self-denial of man, exercised 
under the influence of conscience, culminating as it has in the 
surrender of his life under a sense of the duty which he owes 
to his Maker. But if I understand Mr* Buckle's theory aright, 
self-denial must with him be an unmeaning term ; for if all 
motives possess a common quantitative measure, and domi- 
nate in proportion to their intensity, and the action of the 
rational will counts for nothing, self-denial* after all, must be 
only one act of self-gratification triumphing over another. 
The whole of this question has been discussed by Aristotle 
in the seventh book of his Ethics, which I am inclined to think 
is the greatest book in that great work. Its analysis is 
masterly. It has its imperfections, doubtless, which philo- 
sophers with the New Testament in their hands ought to have 
supplied long ere this ; but I am acquainted with no work 
where this has been accomplished. As an analysis of some 
of the profoundest depths of human nature, written by a 
heathen, it strikes the mind with amazement. It is impossible 
for me to transfer even an abridgment of its contents to this 
