THE PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 
437 
mind therefore acts voluntarily in accordance with the laws of 
truth, it acts freely, it enjoys real intellectual liberty, and this 
intellectual liberty is a good which justifies the enthusiasm it has 
aroused. It is no restriction of the liberty of the mind to be led 
from error to truth. Truth is one, error is manifold ; but truth is 
the proper object of the intellect; and the mind which has grasped 
truth does not crave for the liberty of error — it finds its real 
liberty in the exercise of the power of entering further and further 
into the domain of truth, a power which is continually enlarged as 
it is brought more and more into accord with the laws of truth, and 
acts under their control. The liberty of the mind is restricted by 
doubt and error as the liberty of the body is restricted by weak- 
ness and disease, and as it is with the body, so with the mind — 
tanto liberior y quanto sanior. 
This kind of liberty, which is attained by the mind being brought 
into accord with law, is good, I have said, where the law is good. 
It must be best where the law is best ; perfect where the law is 
perfect. Eut the perfect law is what Plato calls " the idea of good 
. . . the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent 
of light and the lord of light in this world, and the source of truth 
and reason in the other." {Rep. lib. vii. p. 517. Jowett's trans.) Eut 
we are not Platonists, we are Christians ; and we say plainly there- 
fore that this law is the will of God, " whose service is perfect 
freedom." True intellectual liberty then consists in the brinpino: 
of the human will into accordance with the divine will. " "Where 
the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 
And how is this to be accomplished? and what hinders its 
accomplishment ? The chief hindrances are the perversion of the 
will by passion, its misdirection by self-interest, and its distraction 
by unworthy motives. There can be no question that the passions 
do affect not only the moral but the intellectual faculties ; they do 
fatally hinder and pervert the action of the mind. 
" The will of man cannot be called free," says S. Augustine, 
"as long as it is subject to the passions which conquer and enslave 
it." (Tome ii. p. 593. Migne's ed.) Plato calls the passions " leaden 
weights which drag men down and turn the vision of their souls 
upon things that are below" {Rep. lib. vii. p. 519); while, on the 
other hand, our English Platonist, Henry More, declares that 
" clearness of knowledge proceeds out of purity of life." Eut the 
will is not only perverted by passion, it is misdirected by self- 
