miracle to be performed within ourselves and by ourselves, we are only obstinate as well as illogical in affirming its impossibility in other cases where it seems more urgently called for.

But Science cannot without self-destruction allow either the miracle in general or the special one of creation ex nihilo; and least of all can she allow that both take place within the theatre of man's breast in the production of something from nothing, as in the supposed exercise of a free uncaused will. Science explains the facts and phenomena of Nature from second causes, which are invariably, as Mill tells us, phenomenal causes. To do so is the business of Science. She is not concerned either with ontologic or with first causes; but the existence of a free will, or ego, is either an ontologic cause with which Science is not concerned, or it is a phenomenal one for whose existence she finds no evidence, while it would contradict her two highest generalizations, the law of universal causation and the law of the conservation of energy. The doctrine of a free will would enthrone the man himself as Deity, would make the ego a true creator-a result consistent possibly with most forms of German transcendental philosophy, but not with the conclusions of psychology and of modern science generally.

§ 8. But is it not an admitted fact that men can alter their character for the better? and does not this imply a power of free will? Not so; a power of improving the character to a certain limited extent is granted; but this power, limited at best, is one that steadily decreases with years, and a time comes when it ceases altogether. The old cannot change their character for the better. In fact, a time comes in our mature years, different though it be for different persons, when the character has acquired such

rigidity, such uniformity in its actions, and it has become so near to an impossibility for its possessor to change it for the better, that some theologians bring in a special miracle to get over the otherwise insuperable difficulty-the miracle of sudden conversion, represented as a change of heart, of soul, and of life. But this very necessity for a supernatural intervention is in effect, as it is in the express words of those who believe in it, an admission of the impotence of the free autonomous will of Kant and the metaphysicians to do the work of change. According to these last, the self, or ego, is free, free to fulfil the law of duty, but it is not free to alter itself greatly. It is free to do what it is its nature to do; in other words, it is free to produce its natural effects, as it is to a plant to grow and to flower, though by the same reasoning it is evidently not free to do other than it does, or other than it is its nature to do. It is not free for the bramble to bring forth grapes, or for any tree or man to produce other than its natural fruit-a consideration which may show how little the alleged freedom really amounts to.

According to the necessitarian, like Mill, a power of improving the character to an extent is allowed; if we really strongly wish to do so, we can; the wish itself being an important motive force in the case, and one depending probably on the original inherited basis of character. But while this power really remains, we can apply it only by perceiving and pressing into our service sufficiently powerful motives to conquer the rival and inferior motives. We must endeavour to make the better motives effect a lodgment in our breast; we must make them become a part of our character; and this we can only do on the two conditions that their germs are already within us, and also that they

promise a certain balance and reward of pleasurable result. Before a drunkard can be got to make an effort for his reformation, he must have strong motives put before him. If he sees his health, fortune, and family in danger of being ruined, here are strongly deterring motives to the further indulgence of his vice. The only question isCan these and the opposite class of pleasurable motives counteract the imperious craving of his bad habit. By trying to press good motives into our service, by incorporating them into our character and trying to work under them, we may succeed in permanently improving the character; but in order to a continued perseverance and a final victory, these good motives and inducements must continue with us as constant forces in the hour of temptation, and they must be so powerful as to conquer and subdue the old competing inducements and army of lower motives which still, though in diminishing strength, besiege the will. Thus, even in the change of character for the better, and still more clearly in the far commoner change for the worse, we do not get beyond the sway and sphere of motives. We are still within the circle of known, natural, phenomenal causes. We do not reach or perceive the operation of a free will, which, did it indeed exist, we should imagine could have no difficulty in improving the character. In the change of character here described, we find neither the miraculous agency of free-will nor the still more miraculous sudden conversion of the character by supernatural agency. Every way regarded, the alleged fact of free-will turns out to be an unmeaning figment, an inconceivable and impossible thing. It was a fiction invented by the older metaphysicians anxious for the dignity of man and for the interests of morality, both of which, in the opinion of the necessitarian,

can very well dispense with it; and a fiction sometimes countenanced by theology, in the same interests of morality, sometimes discountenanced, because opposed to the general theological doctrines of original sin and of grace, as well as to the particular doctrine of predestination.

§ 9. Does not this theory of the determination of the will by motives take away all merit and demerit from our characters and actions? and does it not destroy all moral responsibility or accountability for the consequences of our actions? If the strongest motive prevails and really determines action, where lies the merit if the action be what is called a good one? where the demerit if it be the reverse? Is there any more merit or demerit in human actions on this theory than in the actions of lions or tigers which in like manner obey the strongest motive? Is not the murderer's act assimilated to that of the tiger who kills a man? Is not the most heroic action due to the accidental presence and strength of a good motive in the breast, to a happy grace from Nature? In answer to this it must be confessed that the merit and demerit of actions is, on the necessitarian theory, considerably diminished, though not the praise or blame, the admiration or detestation which they may arouse. The merit or demerit of

our actions is diminished when we remember that it follows necessarily from motives, that the motives come from character, and that character is in great measure determined for us by heredity, education, and circumstance. Still, it is not wholly so determined, and we are meritorious so far as we endeavour to make it better, so far as we endeavour to make a good conscience our strongest motive force, even though here again we cannot greatly succeed unless, by the grace of Nature, the germs of good have

already been deposited within us. But to raise the question of merit or demerit is to raise a vain and misleading issue. Our merits at the best are slight, as others besides the Calvinist theologians have discovered, and, undoubtedly, the demerit goes with the merit. If all got their deserts it might not be just to say with Hamlet that "few should escape a whipping;" but certainly few should get any extra reward; and the best, like St. Paul, are those who would lay the least claim to any. It is true we cannot help attributing merit to the men who have stood firm even unto death for truth and right. We attribute merit to them because they have served and saved the world, although the best of them knew and felt how little in truth was their own merit or desert, that they but did what it was in their nature and given impulse to do, and what on the whole they were obliged by the forces within them to do. They felt that they acted from forces lent to them, and that they deserved little credit for so doing. But the further reason why we on our part are inclined to attribute real and extraordinary.merit to the great servers of their species is, that we know there was a war of motives, a conflict between good and evil, going on within the breast, and we persist in representing the good man, the Socrates or Buddha, as having arbitrarily made election for the good by his own free-will and choice, as having closed once for all with the right side, and determined to follow it, though it brought his own extinction from the world. We represent it thus, and in a general way not erroneously. The great man did all this, and so far as to justly excite the admiration and reverence, the love and gratitude, of his fellows and of posterity; but when we speak scientifically, and from the result of psychological analysis, we see that