m yourself and not from any
force put upon you from without.

But this too does not solve the problem. It is true that in regard to a
very large proportion of our actions the sense of freedom seems to be no
more than negative. We do what it is our custom, our inclination, our
character to do. We are not conscious of any force being put upon us;
but neither are we conscious of using any force ourselves. We float as
it were down the stream, or hurry along with a determined aim, but
having no desire nor purpose to the contrary, the question of freedom or
necessity never seems to arise. It is even possible and common for us
not to know ourselves as well as others know us, and to do many things
which an observer would predict as sure to be our actions, but which we
ourselves fancy to be by no means certain. Even in these cases we
sometimes awake to the fact that what we are thus allowing in our lives
is not consistent with the law of duty, and, do what we may, we cannot
then escape the conviction that we are to blame, and that we had power
to act otherwise if only we had chosen to exert the power. But it is
when a conflict arises between duty and inclination that our inner
certainty of our own freedom of will becomes clear and unconquerable. In
the great conflicts of the soul between the call of duty and the power
of temptation there are two forces at work upon us. We are never for a
moment in doubt which is ourselves and which is not ourselves; which is
the free agent and which is the blind force; which is responsible for
the issue, and which is incapable of responsibility. There is in this
case a real sense of compulsion from without, and a real sense of
resistance to that compulsion from within. It is impossible in this case
to account for the sense of being a free agent, by saying that this
merely means that we are conscious of no external force. We are
conscious of an external force and we are conscious that this will of
ours which struggles against it is not an external force, but our very
selves, and this distinction between the will and the forces against
which the will is striving is ineffaceable from our minds. That the will
is often weak and on that account overpowered, and that after a hard
struggle our actions are often determined, not by our wills but by our
passions or our appetites, is unquestionable. Often has the believer to
pray to God for strength to hold fast to right purpose, and often will
he feel that