We begin to obey
when we lose ourselves in that Spirit and forget all but God. We ought
never to settle any detail in life without taking Him into account: we
are fools if we do. How can we be logical? For He is in that detail,
and not to think of Him is not to understand that detail. For every
detail is more than a detail--it is the expression of a Person.

I have wandered into a train of thought suggested by 'Yeast,' and in
part copied directly from it. Forgive me. I was half thinking aloud.
That is my one excuse for saying what I am trying to think.

I never played golf. I do that sort of thing by deputy. K---- is the
sort of man to do it for me. At any rate, I trust him with my football
and rowing. It doesn't tire you so much if you do it that way. Only
let me give you one piece of advice, which I only wish I acted upon:
'Don't do your thinking by deputy:' do your rowing, golf, football,
cricket, skittles, talking if you like, but not your thinking.

{63}

_To D. D. R; written apropos of a discussion on St. Paul's idea of the
relation between Sin and the Law._

2 New Square, Cambridge; Monday before Easter, 1892.

I cannot but help feeling that part of your difficulties are self-made.
Is there such a difference between Jewish law and law in general? What
is law--law in the abstract? What do you mean when you talk about laws
of science or morality? Surely there is no such thing as law in the
abstract. You really mean God's thought. All law existed long before
this world existed, as the thought of God. This thought expresses
itself, when the world is actually made, in animals, nature, man. But
this thought is somewhat long before it expresses itself, because it is
God's thought. With Him 'to think' is 'to do.' Before you and I were
born, before men were made, man exists in God as a thought. Each of us
is an expression of part of that thought. The whole thought is the
image of God, not any one part. Now, when I speak of man as something
in contra-distinction to men, I mean the thought of God in
contradistinction to its individual realisation. So when I speak of
law as distinct from special laws, I mean a thought of God as distinct
from its special expressions. Otherwise 'man' and 'law' are
abstractions and nonentities.

The nominalist is right in so far as he denies that law as an abstract
thing (considered apart from a person--as his thought) is anything: the
realist is right in so