able such discussions may be in the forum of one's own thoughts,
that they are profitable between men. I think such questions, if they
are to be treated at all between man and man, and not between God and
man only, had better be discussed in print, where what is said is in
some measure fixed, and can with a glance be considered afresh. But not
so either do I think they can be discussed to any profit."

"What do you mean? Surely this question is of the first importance to
humanity!"

"I grant it, my lord, if by humanity you mean the human individual. But
my meaning is, that there are many questions, and this one, that can be
tested better than argued."

"You seem fond of paradox!"

"I will speak as directly as I can: such questions are to be answered
only by the moral nature, which first and almost only they concern; and
the moral nature operates in action, not discussion."

"Do I not then," said his lordship, the faintest shadow of indignation
in his tone, "bring my moral nature to bear on a question which I
consider from the ground of duty?"

"No, my lord," answered Donal, with decision; "you bring nothing but
your intellectual nature to bear on it so; the moral nature, I repeat,
operates only in action. To come to the point in hand: the sole way for
a man to know he has freedom is to do something he ought to do, which
he would rather not do. He may strive to acquaint himself with the
facts concerning will, and spend himself imagining its mode of working,
yet all the time not know whether he has any will."

"But how am I to put a force in operation, while I do not know whether
I possess it or not?"

"By putting it in operation--that alone; by being alive; by doing the
next thing you ought to do, or abstaining from the next thing you are
tempted to, knowing you ought not to do it. It sounds childish; and
most people set action aside as what will do any time, and try first to
settle questions which never can be settled but in just this divinely
childish way. For not merely is it the only way in which a man can know
whether he has a free will, but the man has in fact no will at all
unless it comes into being in such action."

"Suppose he found he had no will, for he could not do what he wished?"

"What he ought, I said, my lord."

"Well, what he ought," yielded the earl almost angrily.

"He could not find it proved that he had no faculty for generating a
free will. He might indeed doubt it the more; but the