be a misconception,
as it surely is a total and fatal misconception, of the nature of
freedom, then does the statement of our author, with all that rests upon
it, fall instantly and utterly to the ground.

It is a misconception. Freedom and lawlessness are not the same. To make
this finally clear, let us at once give the argument the widest possible
scope; since the largest way of looking at the matter, as indeed it
often happens, will prove also the nearest and simplest. In the universe
as a whole Will does certainly originate, since there is, undoubtedly,
origination somewhere. Freely, too, it must arise, for there is nothing
behind it to bring it under constraint: indeed, all origination is by
its nature free. But our philosopher tells us that wherever there is
a pure and free origination of will, there is lawlessness, caprice,
chance. The universe, therefore, should be a scene, not of absolute
order, but of absolute disorder; and since it is not such, we have
nothing for it but to say that either the logic of the universe, or that
of Mr. Buckle, is very much awry.

In the universe, Will freely originates, but forever in unison with
divine Reason; and the result is at once pure necessity and pure
freedom: for these, if both be, as we say, absolutely _pure_, are one
and the same. A coercing necessity is impure, for it is at war with that
to which it applies; only a necessity in sweetest affinity with that
which it governs is of the purest degree; and this is, of course,
identical with the highest and divinest freedom.

And here we approach the solution of our problem, so far as it can be
solved. Freedom and free-will exist only in virtue of reason, only
in connection with the rational soul. In a rough account of man, and
leaving out of sight all that is not strictly relevant to the present
point, we discriminate in him two natures. One of these comprises the
whole body of organic desires and energies, with all that _kind_ of
intellect by which one perceives the relation of things to his selfish
wishes. By this nature, man is a selfish and intellectual animal; a
polyp with arms that go round the world; a sponge with eyes and energies
and delights; a cunning _ego_, to whom all outside of himself is but for
a prey. But aloft over this, and constituting the second nature, into
whose kingdom one should be born as by a second birth, is the sovereign
eye and soul of Reason, discerning Justice and Beauty and the Best,
crea