needfully,' said I, 'and I agree that it is as thou
sayest. But in this series of linked causes is there any freedom left to
our will, or does the chain of fate bind also the very motions of our
souls?'

'There is freedom,' said she; 'nor, indeed, can any creature be
rational, unless he be endowed with free will. For that which hath the
natural use of reason has the faculty of discriminative judgment, and of
itself distinguishes what is to be shunned or desired. Now, everyone
seeks what he judges desirable, and avoids what he thinks should be
shunned. Wherefore, beings endowed with reason possess also the faculty
of free choice and refusal. But I suppose this faculty not equal alike
in all. The higher Divine essences possess a clear-sighted judgment, an
uncorrupt will, and an effective power of accomplishing their wishes.
Human souls must needs be comparatively free while they abide in the
contemplation of the Divine mind, less free when they pass into bodily
form, and still less, again, when they are enwrapped in earthly members.
But when they are given over to vices, and fall from the possession of
their proper reason, then indeed their condition is utter slavery. For
when they let their gaze fall from the light of highest truth to the
lower world where darkness reigns, soon ignorance blinds their vision;
they are disturbed by baneful affections, by yielding and assenting to
which they help to promote the slavery in which they are involved, and
are in a manner led captive by reason of their very liberty. Yet He who
seeth all things from eternity beholdeth these things with the eyes of
His providence, and assigneth to each what is predestined for it by its
merits:

'"All things surveying, all things overhearing.'"

SONG II.

THE TRUE SUN.

Homer with mellifluous tongue
Phoebus' glorious light hath sung,
Hymning high his praise;
Yet _his_ feeble rays
Ocean's hollows may not brighten,
Nor earth's central gloom enlighten.

But the might of Him, who skilled
This great universe to build,
Is not thus confined;
Not earth's solid rind,
Nor night's blackest canopy,
Baffle His all-seeing eye.

All that is, hath been, shall be,
In one glance's compass, He
Limitless descries;
And, save His, no eyes
All the world survey--no, none!
_Him_, then, truly name the Sun.

III.

Then said I: 'But now I am once more perple