tter
automaton--it would then be appropriate to speak of it as free; only it
would no longer be appropriate to call it an automaton. And similarly it
is only if man is able to determine his course of action--if he can
"choose" in any real sense, _i.e._, in the sense that he might choose
differently, if he wished to do so--that it can be anything but an abuse
of language to speak of him as free; for only in that case can he be an
object of approbation or condemnation. If he is merely the sum-total of
his motives, he is as little free to act other than he does as a number
of chemical elements combined in certain proportions are free to form
anything but a definite chemical substance. As {160} Mr. Balfour has
well expressed it,[14] "It may seem at first sight plausible to describe
a man as free whose behaviour is due to 'himself' alone. But without
quarrelling over words, it is, I think, plain that whether it be proper
to call him free or not, he at least lacks freedom in the sense in which
freedom is necessary in order to constitute responsibility. It is
impossible to say of him that he 'ought,' and therefore he 'can,' for at
any given moment of his life his next action is by hypothesis strictly
determined." But the freedom of which we are conscious--_e.g._, in every
experience of conflict between inclination and duty--is something
altogether different; we know that we can yield or resist, choose
between, reinforce, and if necessary _make_, our motives.[15]

{161}

But is not sin, it is sometimes asked, inevitable _per se_, and in that
sense natural to man, and if so, how can we be blamed for what we could
not avoid? And again, is there not some truth in the statement that much
that we call evil has been incidental to the progress of the race, just
as the discords produced by the learner on a musical instrument are
necessary incidents in the process which will teach him by and by to
charm the ear with the perfect harmony? Such questions are frequently
put forward; let us see if we are able to clear away the
misunderstandings to which they bear witness.

(1) Admitting that a free moral being must be able in theory to choose
the wrong as well as the right, it should in the first place be observed
that the possibility of that or any course does not render it
_inevitable_ for him to take it, and it is only the possibility that is
given. But it may be justly argued that since as a matter of fact all
men sin, we can