esponsible action, with its correlative, the possibility of
wrong action which might have been avoided_. Christian and other
teachers have, no doubt, often failed to see how limited human freedom
is, but they have never been wrong in asserting that the reality of
freedom within limits is essential to Christianity and morality. Sin
is not a mere fact of nature. It is a perversion which ought not to
have been. This subject is not what is directly before us now; but the
heart of the controversy is here; and I will make the following very
brief remarks upon it.

(1) A theory that cannot be put into practice, or a theory that cannot
account for the facts, is a false or at least inadequate theory. Now
the theory of necessary determinism cannot be put into practice. To
believe that our own conduct is not really under our own control--that
the idea of responsibility is at bottom an illusion--is to destroy the
basis of human life and education. Even {224} the holders of the
theory admit that it must be kept out of sight in practice.

Further, it is a theory that cannot account for the facts--viz. for the
existence of the universal sense of responsibility; and the application
to human action of moral blame and praise, which penetrates the whole
of thought and language, and which holds too large a place in human
life to be a delusion. We are not ashamed of a physical accident, but
we are ashamed of telling a lie. And this difference is fundamental
and based on reality.

(2) The Christian assumption may be stated as follows: granted that we
cannot increase the sum of force which passes from external sources
into our system, and passes out again in manifold forms of human
action, yet within certain limits we can direct it for good or
evil--i.e. the 'voluntary' part of a man's action may be determined
from below, so to speak, by purely animal motives, or by rational and
spiritual motives. In the latter case, the action is of the proper
human quality, and stamps a rational and spiritual character upon all
that falls within its range. In the former case, it may be truly
regarded as a survival of the physical instincts of animal progenitors,
and no doubt it emerges as a part of the physical order of the world.
But, considered as human action, it represents a lapse, a culpable
subordination of the higher to the lower in our nature, a violation of
the law proper to manhood[5]. This is the point. St. John says, 'All
sin is