ot spared its
deformities.

Section V.

The relation between the human agency and the divine.

Having got rid of the scheme of necessity, which opposed so many obstacles
to the prosecution of our design, we were then prepared to investigate the
great problem of evil: but, before entering on this subject, we paused to
consider the difficulty which, in all ages, the human mind has found in
attempting to reconcile the influence of the Divine Spirit with the
freedom of the will. In regard to this difficulty, it has been made to
appear, we trust, that we need not understand _how_ the Spirit of God
acts, in order to reconcile his influence with the free-agency of man. We
need to know, not how the one Spirit acts on the other, but only what is
done by each, in order to see a perfect agreement and harmony in their
cooeperation. The inquiry relates, then, to the precise thing done by each,
and not to the _modus operandi_. Having, in opposition to the commonly
received notion, ascertained this to be the difficulty, we have found it
comparatively easy of solution.

For the improved psychology of the present day, which gives so clear and
steady a view of the simple facts of consciousness, has enabled us to see
what may, and what may not, be produced by an extraneous agency. This
again has enabled us to make out and define the sphere of the divine
power, as well as that of the human; and to determine the point at which
they come into contact, without interfering with or intersecting each
other.

The same means have also shown us, that the opposite errors of Pelagianism
and Augustinism have a common root in a false psychology. The psychology
of the past, which identifies the passive states of the sensibility with
the active states of the will, is common to both of these schemes. From
this common root the two doctrines branch out in opposite directions; the
one on the side of the mind's activity, and the other on that of its
passivity. Each perceives only one phase of the complex whole, and denies
the reality of the other. With one, the active phase is the whole; with
the other, the passive impression is the whole. Hence the one recognises
the human power alone; while the other causes this power entirely to
disappear beneath the overshadowing influence of the divine.

Now the foregoing system, by availing itself of the psychology of the
present day, not only does not cause the one of these