Now Mr. Buckle supposed that order in the world and in history could be obtained only by sacrificing the freedom of the individual; and that he so supposed determines his own rank as a thinker.  There is no second question to be asked concerning a candidate for the degree of master in philosophy who begins by making this mistake.

But does some one, unwilling so soon to quit the point, require of me to explain how will can originate in man?  My only answer is, I do not know.  Does the questioner know how motion originates in the universe?  It does or did originate; science is clear in assigning a progress, and therefore a beginning, to the solar system:  can you find its origin in aught but the self-activity of Spirit, whose modus operandi no man can explain? All origination is inscrutable; the plummet of understanding cannot sound it; but wherefore may not one sleep as sweetly, knowing that the wondrous fact is near at hand, in the bosoms of his contemporaries and in his own being, as if it were pushed well out of sight into the depths of primeval time?  To my mind, there is something thoroughly weak and ridiculous in the way that Comte and his company run away from the Absolute and Inexplicable, fearing only its nearness; like a child who is quite willing there should he bears at the North Pole, but would lie awake of nights, if he thought there were one in the nearest wood.  And it is the more ridiculous because Mystery is no bear; nor can I, for one, conceive why it should not be to every man a joy to know that all the marvel which ever was in Nature is in her now, and that the divine inscrutable processes are going on under our eyes and in them and in our hearts.

Doubtless, however, many will adhere to the logic that has satisfied them so long and so well,—­that it is impossible the will should move otherwise than in obedience to motives, and that, obeying a motive, it is not free.  Why should we not, then, amuse ourselves a little with these complacent motive-mongers?  They profess a perfect explanation of mental action, and make it the stigma of a deeper philosophy, that it must leave somewhat in all action of the mind, and therefore in a doctrine of the will, unexplained.  Let, now, these good gentlemen explain to us how a motive ever gets to be a motive.  For there is precisely the same difficulty in initiating motion here as elsewhere.  You look on a peach; you desire it; and you are moved by the desire to pluck or purchase it.  Now it is plain that you could not desire this peach until you had perceived that it was a desirable fruit.  But you could not perceive that the fruit was desirable until you had experienced desire of it.  And here we are at the old, inexplicable seesaw.  It must appear desirable in order to be desired; it must be desired in order to appear desirable:  the perception must precede the desire, and the desire must precede the perception.  These are foolish subtilties, but all the fitter for their purpose.  Our motive-mongering friends should understand that they can explain no farther than their neighbors,—­that by enslaving the will they only shift the difficulty, not solve it.