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, creating in man’s bosom an ideal, redeeming him out of his littleness, bringing him into fellowship with Eternal Truth, and making him universal.  Now between these two natures there is, for there must be, a mediating term, a power by which man enacts reason, and causes doing to accord with seeing.  This is will, and it must, from its very nature, be free; for to say that it is a mere representative of the major force in desire is simply to say that it does not exist.  A mediation without freedom in the mediator is something worse than the mediation of Holland between England and the United States in the dispute concerning the North-East Boundary.

So far, now, as the sovereign law and benefaction of the higher nature, through a perfect mediation of the will, descends upon the lower, so far man enters into free alliance with that which is sovereign in the universe, and is himself established in perfected freedom.  The right action of free-will is, then, freedom in the making.  But by this entrance into the great harmonies of the world, by this loyalty to the universal reason which alone makes one free, it must be evident that the order of the world is graced and supported rather than assailed.

But how if free-will fail of its highest function?  Must not the order of the world then suffer?  Not a whit.  Universal Reason prevails, but in two diverse ways:  she may either be felt as a mere Force or Fate, or she may be recognized and loved and obeyed as an Authority.  Wherever the rational soul, her oracle, is given, there she proffers the privilege of knowing her only as a divine authority,—­of free loyalty, of honorable citizenship in her domains.  But to those who refuse this privilege she appears as fate; and though their honor is lost, hers is not; for the order of the world continues to be vindicated.  The just and faithful citizen, who of his own election obeys the laws, illustrates in one way the order of society and the supremacy of moral law.  The villain in the penitentiary illustrates the order of society and the supremacy of moral law in quite another way.  But order and law are illustrated by both, though in ways so very different.  So one may refuse to make reason a free necessity in his own bosom; but then the constable of the universe speedily taps him upon the shoulder, and law is honored, though he is disgraced.