A custom is broken down, an
exceedingly strong temptation has been overpowered, and its strength so
destroyed that its return is without effect. Or sometimes the act of the
will takes the form of deliberately so arranging the circumstances of
life that a dreaded temptation cannot return, or if it return cannot
prevail; the right eye has been plucked out, the right hand cut off, and
the sin cannot be committed even if desired. While therefore the will is
always free, the actual interference of the will with the life is not so
frequent as to interfere with the broad general rule that the course of
human conduct is practically uniform. In fact the will, though always
free, only asserts its freedom by obeying duty in spite of inclination,
by disregarding the uniformity of nature in order to maintain the higher
uniformity of the Moral Law. The freedom of the human will is but the
assertion in particular of that universal supremacy of the moral over
the physical in the last resort, which is an essential part of the very
essence of the Moral Law. The freedom of the will is the Moral Law
breaking into the world of phenomena, and thus behind the free-will of
man stands the power of God.
When the real claim of the will for freedom has been clearly seized by
the mind, it becomes apparent that there is no real collision between
what Science asserts and what Religion requires us to believe.
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