ssity. That
freedom from determination by the "not-self" which idealism vindicates,
can belong only to the all-inclusive Spirit, outside whose self nothing
exists; it belongs to me only on the supposition that I am the
all-inclusive; and this, as before, is the point at which common-sense
revolts. "Free-will is based on man's consciousness of his moral nature.
It represents not any speculative theory, but one of the great facts
which every theory of things must explain or perish." If we ascribe
freedom to the Absolute and to other spirits (whose existence is forced
on us in spite of Idealism), it is because we first find it in ourselves
as the very essence of our spiritual nature. But if we accept our
freedom as a fact which it is the business of philosophy to explain and
not to deny; on just the same testimony we must accept the fact of the
manifold limitations of our liberty of which we are continually
conscious. Now here it is that the Idealist defence of liberty against
materialism fails by a deplorable _nimis probat_. It can only save our
liberty by denying our limitations; or at least it leaves us facing a
problem which can be solved only by an assumption for which Idealism
offers no philosophical warrant. Hence we are brought back to the
world-old dilemma "between a freedom of God which annihilates man, and a
freedom of man which annihilates God." Idealism has really contributed
nothing to the solution of the difficulty which is persistent as long as
God is known only as a Sovereign and Infinite Personality among a
multitude of finite personalities, and until revelation hints at the
possibility of a higher "unity which transcends personality, by which He
is to be the reconciling principle and home of the multitude of
self-determining agents." "Final reconciliation of the Divine and human
personality is in fact beyond us."

Similarly, in dealing with problems of moral evil, Idealism leads to an
_impasse_. As long as we keep to the notion of one all-inclusive Spirit,
the Subject of universal experience, it is easy to show that sin is but
relatively evil, that it is, when viewed absolutely, as much a factor of
the universal life as is righteousness; yet surely this is not to
account for so large and obstinate a part of our experience, but to deny
it. Nor can the ethical corollaries of such a view be tolerated for a
moment. That sin is an absolute, eternal, in some sense, irreparable
evil is a conception altogether f