Such is free-will when examined by the natural reason—­a thing that melts away inevitably first to haze, and then to utter nothingness.  And for a time we feel convinced that it really is nothing.  Let us, however, again retire from it to the common distance, and the phantom we thought exorcised is again back in an instant.  There is the sphinx once more, distinct and clear as ever, holding in its hand the scales of good and evil, and demanding a curse or a blessing for every human action.  We are once more certain—­more certain of this than anything—­that we are, as we always thought we were, free agents, free to choose, and free to refuse; and that in virtue of this freedom, and in virtue of this alone, we are responsible for what we do and are.

Let us consider this point well.  Let us consider first how free-will is a moral necessity; next how it is an intellectual impossibility; and lastly how, though it be impossible, we yet, in defiance of intellect, continue, as moral beings, to believe in it.  Let us but once realise that we do this, that all mankind universally do this and have done—­and the difficulties offered us by theism will no longer stagger us.  We shall be prepared for them, prepared not to drive them away, but to endure their presence.  If in spite of my reason I can believe that my will is free, in spite of my reason I can believe that God is good.  The latter belief is not nearly so hard as the former.  The greatest stumbling-block in the moral world lies in the threshold by which to enter it.

Such then are the moral difficulties, properly so called, that beset theism; but there are certain others of a vaguer nature, that we must glance at likewise.  It is somewhat hard to know how to classify these; but it will be correct enough to say that whereas those we have just dealt with appeal to the moral intellect, the ones we are to deal with now appeal to the moral imagination.  The facts that these depend on, and which are practically new discoveries for the modern world, are the insignificance of the earth, when compared with the universe, of which it is visibly and demonstrably an integral but insignificant fragment; the enormous period of his existence for which man has had no religious history, and has been, so far as we can tell, not a religious being at all; and the vast majority of the race that are still stagnant and semi-barbarous.  Is it possible, we ask, that a God, with so many stars to attend to, should busy himself with this paltry earth, and make it the scene of events more stupendous than the courses of countless systems?  Is it possible that of the swarms, vicious and aimless, that breed upon it, each individual—­Bushman, Chinaman, or Negro—­is a precious immortal being, with a birthright in infinity and eternity?  The effect of these considerations is sometimes overwhelming.  Astronomy oppresses us with the gulfs of space; geology with the gulfs of time; history and travel with a babel of vain existence.  And here as in the former case, our perplexities cannot be explained away.  We can only meet them by seeing that if they have any power at all, they are all-powerful, and that they will not destroy religion only, but the entire moral conception of man also.  Religious belief, and moral belief likewise, involve both of them some vast mystery; and reason can do nothing but focalise, not solve it.