ised, is eternal or independent of time, by the same right as the_
ecstatic _emotion_.' He sees this clearly enough; but the strange thing
is that he does not see the converse. He sees that the Christian
conception of morality necessitates the affirmation of hell. He does not
see that the denial of hell is the denial of Christian morality, and
that in calling the former a dream, as he does, he does not call the
latter a dream likewise.

We can close our eyes to none of these perplexities. The only way to
resist their power is not to ignore them, but to realise to the full
their magnitude, and to see how, if we let them take away from us
anything, they will in another moment take everything; to see that we
must either set our foot upon their necks, or that they will set their
feet on ours; to see that we can look them down, but that we can never
look them through; to see that we can make them impotent if we will, but
that if they are not impotent they will be omnipotent.

But the strongest example of this is yet to come: and this is not any
special belief either as to religion or morals, but a belief underlying
both of these, and without which neither of them were possible. It is a
belief which from one point of view we have already touched upon--the
belief in the freedom of the will. But we have as yet only considered it
in relation to physical science. What we have now to do is to consider
it in relation to itself.

What, then, let us ask, is the nature of the belief? To a certain extent
the answer is very easy. When we speak and think of free-will
ordinarily, we know quite well what we mean by it; and we one and all of
us mean exactly the same thing. It is true that when professors speak
upon this question, they make countless efforts to distinguish between
the meaning which they attach to the belief, and the meaning which the
world attaches to it. And it is possible that in their studies or their
lecture-rooms they may contrive for the time being to distort or to
confuse for themselves the common view of the matter. But let the
professor once forget his theories, and be forced to buffet against his
life's importunate and stern realities: let him quarrel with his
housekeeper because she has mislaid his spectacles, or his night-cap,
or, preoccupied with her bible, has not mixed his gruel properly; and
his conception of free-will will revert in an instant to the universal
type, and the good woman will discern only too