a passive recipient.
The new life must be taken up by his own activity, and be made his by his
own decision and acceptance. This responsive activity on the part of man
is the task which life presents to the will.

Much obviously depends upon the answer we are able to give to this
question. If man has no power of choice, no capacity of
self-determination, and is nothing more than a part of the natural world,
then the ethical life is at once ruled out of court.

The difficulties connected with the problem of moral freedom resolve
themselves mainly into three: a scientific, a psychological, and a
theological.

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I. On the part of natural science it is claimed that man is subject,
like everything else, to physical necessity.

II. From the psychological standpoint it is urged that man's actions are
always determined by the strongest motive.

III. On the theological side it is alleged that human freedom is
incompatible with divine Sovereignty. A complete doctrine of freedom
would require to be examined in the light of these three objections. For
our purpose it will be sufficient to indicate briefly the value of these
difficulties, and the manner in which they may be met.

I

The wonderful progress of the natural sciences in the second half of the
nineteenth century has tended to banish the old idea of freedom from the
realm of experience. Science, it is maintained, clearly shows that man
belongs to a great world-movement, in relation to which his whole life
and work are completely determined. Though even in earlier ages, and
especially in Stoic philosophy, this conception of life was not ignored,
it is more particularly in recent times, under the influence of the
evolutionary theory, that the idea of determination has been applied with
relentless insistence to the structure of the soul. There is, it is
alleged, no room for change or spontaneity. Everything, down to the
minutest impulse, depends upon something else, and proceeds from a
definite cause. The idea of choice is simply the remnant of an
unscientific mode of thinking. It might be sufficient to reply that in
thus reducing life and experience to a necessary part of a world-whole,
more is surrendered than even science is willing to yield. The freedom
which some writers reject in the interests of science they attempt to
introduce in an altered form. Why are these philosophers so anxious to
conserve the ethical consequences of life? Is it n