holds true of human volitions," "* revolution or repro duction is possible, but not rational progress. The improvement of the race means the improvement of individuals by individual effort, but such effort can only be where there is the power to create new conditions in the heart of the old. The ability of man to control, to command, and to change circumstances, is the measure of his ability to advance, to create higher civilizations above the lower. But, while man is free, his freedom is conditional. While motives do not necessitate our choices they are necessary to choice. A reasonable being can never act * Mr. Mill, "Logic," vol. ii. p. 532. Mr. Mill imagined, incorrectly, I think, that unless "the doctrine of the causation of human actions was true," no science of history was possible. But he also saw that, were necessity absolute, progress were inexplicable, and fatalism inevitable. So he tried to lighten his doctrine of necessity in two ways, by reducing the idea of causation to "invariable, certain, and Į unconditional sequence " (ib. p. 423), and by allowing that man had to a certain extent power to alter his character (ib. 426). The first qualification served him but little. The causation was as absolute as Mr. Mill could allow anything to be. If a volition be "the invariable, certain, and unconditional" sequent of the strongest motive, it can only be because no other sequent is possible. But if no other sequent is possible, the actual must be a necessary sequent. The necessity which leaves us without As to the choice is as absolute as the necessity which should overpower it. second qualification, it had been much more important had it been consistently developed and applied, for then it would have modified Mr. Mill's position throughout. He says, "If they (the persons who formed our characters) could place us under the influence of certain circumstances, we, in like manner, can place ourselves under the influence of other circumstances. We are exactly as capable of making our own character, if without a reason, but the reason can only be the condition and ground of his action, he himself remains its cause. He selects the motive; the motive does not select him. His freedom is thus rational, not arbitrary, the freedom of a being both intelligent and moral. Then the motives, which are the occasions of his choices, are ever inviting and urging him to action; and as the occasions multiply the choices increase. Circumstances and the motives they supply have thus a great part to play in Hardly as we will, as others are of making it for us (ib. p. 426). capable, for, according to Mr. Mill, the two great factors of our volitions and actions are motives and the character and disposition. But before the character becomes a factor, it is factus, and the forces active in the process determine the product. If, then, we conceive the factor as first factus, it is clear that it cannot have, as made, as much power to make or re-make itself as the forces had which made it. The making is too nearly done before our wills can count for anything in the matter. But, again, the phrase, italicized by Mr. Mill, if we will, suggests the questions, What does will here mean? Is it the synonyme of wish, desire, &c., or of choose? Mr. Mill explained it as a wish or feeling formed for us by our experience, "experience of the painful consequences of the character we previously had; or by some strong feeling of admiration or aspiration accidentally aroused." But the wish or desire is itself a sequent, the creature of experience, and so falls under the law of causation. To make the power to change dependent on the wish so formed is to deny that the will is any real power at all. The source of Mr. Mill's confused and imperfect argument was his false psychology. Will and wish, choice and desire, radically differ. Where they are identified, necessity is logically inevitable. Our desires are necessitated, but not our volitions. We may wish to modify our characters, and yet not choose to do it; but we can modify them if we choose. If the ability is made dependent on a wish which is necessitated, the ability is also necessitated, and the power conceded in word is in fact denied. human progress. Without them will could as little act as they without will could cause man to improve. Now, motives are of two kinds, real and ideal,-the real are the material, the sensuous, those created by the necessity of living and maintaining life; the ideal are the spiritual, the intellectual, those formed by the higher creations and aspirations of mind. In the earlier stages of civilization, the real, but in the later the ideal, are the more numerous and powerful. The struggle with the real necessities develop the ideal faculties, with their appropriate conditions; and as these are developed mind and society grow more complex, humane, universal. Ideal motives are either those of the heart, of the imagination, of the intellect, or of the conscience. Those of the heart come first. Home is loved. The parent becomes dear to the child, because the child has been dear to the parent. Brothers and sisters have been as playmates sources of joy, and so become objects of affection. Then the place where the home stands grows dear, the less depending for its being on the greater. And so the ideals of the heart are developed, home and country, father and fatherland, and whatever is necessary to their being and wellbeing, is loyally loved and revered. Then the ideals of the imagination are born. The loved is the glorified. Poetry, architecture, sculpture, painting, come to exalt and embalm sacred and gladsome memories. But the intellect grows curious, inquiring, asks after our Whence, our Whither, creates its ideal, the true, to stand beside the good, and the beautiful, the ideals of the heart and the imagination. But the life grows perplexing as it grows complex. The mind cannot always see clearly the path it ought to follow; and so has to inquire, What is the dutiful, the right? And the answer is the ideal of the conscience, virtue, righteousness. But though thus distinguished in thought they blend in reality. Patriotism, art, philosophy, religion, are objects the mind can study apart, but that subtly mingle in the minds that give them being and feel their influence. Religion penetrates patriotism, art, and philosophy; and art exalts the god while it glorifies the hero. Once his ideals have been created, man has become conscious mind, and discovered his affinities with the imperishable and universal, the spiritual and the divine. But these two elements, freedom and the influence of ideals, explain one of the mightiest dynamic forces in society, the great man. The one explains his personality, the other his influence. Human freedom makes the great man possible; the ideals enable him to become an active and ubiquitous power. By his voluntary energy he can assert his individuality, control and change circumstances; by the forms his activity assumes he can shape or guide minds that are or are to be. Hero-worship is but a bad species of idolatry, heroes not being made for worship, but for the works that make and mark the ages. Persons are powers; great personalities are great creators. The lawgiver, like Moses or Solon, turns a struggling tribe or straggling city into a state, educes and educates the public conscience, lives throughout the centuries an active ethical and political power. The poet, like Homer or Chaucer, is not only the maker of a poem, but the father of a literature, influencing its whole course. The sculptor like Pheidias, or the painter like Raphael, wins by his genius dominion over the ages, creates not only objects of beauty, but ideals that form artists, preserve, develop, and perfect art. Individuals like Alexander or Cæsar have at critical moments determined the course of history. Our religions mostly run back into persons; those with the most distinctly personal source are the most powerful. Christianity had been impossible without Christ, and without Him could not live a single day. Buddhism is built on Buddha, owes to him its missionary successes and its ethical excellences. Islam had never been but for Mahomet, and to this day the Prophet is as necessary to the faith as his God. Without Confucius, China had been without a native religion; and the Parsee maintains a worship as ancient as Zoroaster. The world's great forces have thus been its great men. And they were great because they possessed, in the highest degree, free and creative activities. They may have incarnated what is called the spirit of their age or nation, but they did much more, became creators of a |