106 
But then, its relation to volition still may need examination : 
for it has been represented by some, that by the acquisition 
of habit, the agent gradually withdrawing some 
the* theoretical voluntariness recedes from virtue. This objection, 
objections to however, arises from forgetting, that though deli- 
beration is an ideal condition of finite goodness 
aiming at higher goodness, yet (as has been seen) the higher 
goodness is the “ good-and-true-always,” concerning which de- 
liberation has no place, though there is the choice of satisfaction. 
Deliberation at all times is in the sphere of the phenomenal. 
But the most effectual answer to this objection to habitual 
virtue will be found in the facts of Responsibility. Ask any 
one to try to conceive the opposite thought, viz., a moral 
system in which repeated action had no effect on character ; 
in other words, formed no habits. In this case, our 
frora h the ' 'JhE characters would always remain the same as they 
spo 0 n P 8^bmty Ee " were beginning of our existence. A good 
man would mean, a man formed at first with a good 
conscious nature, which would act mechanically (if that be not 
a contradiction) . A bad man might mean, one who in some 
unknown way lost his original nature. 
90. Nor would it seem, in the latter case, that lost goodness 
would ever be recoverable. No series of acts in a prolonged 
career would form character. The joy of finite goodness 
would be sterile, the loss of it hopeless ; the finite conscious 
agent a mutilated and objectless being*, in no approving rela- 
tion with the true-always, and powerless or mechanical among 
phenomena. 
There is no escape from the conclusion that habit — what- 
ever limitations of freedom, or voluntariness it may seem to 
introduce — is an absolutely essential part of Re- 
seSfai^to re", sponsibility, among finite conscious agents. To 
a?ents ble take the ver y simplest illustration, it is from this 
that, in fact, we rely on one who has long con- 
tinued in goodness, more than we ordinarily can on the 
neophyte in virtue ; and though we do not exclude, even in 
the best, the abstract possibility of a fall from goodness, 
we recognize with profound satisfaction the ever-increasing 
improbability of a perseveringly good man^s failure. 
If, by continuing in goodness we may acquire, as experience 
assures us, stability, perpetuity, and even a kind of perfect- 
ibility of character, then some moral history of mankind seems 
to be not hopeless. Habit is its very life. Not unfrequently 
the attempt has been cheerlessly made to treat all morals as 
This seen in matters of opinion, in consequence of the varieties 
ail the moral 0 f individual thought, and diverging civilizations; 
