If this is the case, then all spiritual work contributes to the development of a new, real self; then no blame can be attached to morality for advocating the absolute necessity of this change, and for recognising, in all ramifications of work, the one great task of developing a new human individuality. Morality will not thereby weaken and suppress the impulse of life, but will direct it into the right channel and ennoble it. By treating man's task as a harmonious whole—which at the same time forms part of the one great entity—it will act as a stimulus on all the separate provinces of life. The gravity of this ethical task is heightened by the fact, that we must pass through a negative stage in order to reach one of positive affirmation, and that all action which denies or obscures such negation, remains one-sided and imperfect.
Closely allied to this first objection to morality is the second: the assertion of the Determinists that human action is but part of an immutable concatenation, and that the decision of the moment arises, with inevitable necessity, from what is and what has been. This is an old assertion, reaching back to the latter days of antiquity. It has frequently aroused men to passion in the domain of religion. It permeates modern philosophy, and has found classical expression in the doctrine of Spinoza. In our day, it is often confirmed by a more careful study of the universe. Favourable to Determinism is also our modern insight into such forces as heredity and social environment, and our greater knowledge of psychology. Everywhere the single atom appears as the result of some cohesion, of which it at the same time forms part. Closer observation only accentuates such dependence; we can no longer consider a separate atom or moment as something absolutely self-centred, nor can we interpret any action as really taking place suddenly. There exists, without doubt, more cohesion and more subordination than was formerly believed, or is often accepted even now.
However legitimate these considerations may be, it does not follow that they exhaust all the possibilities offered by reality. If we declare that man is completely absorbed in such concatenation, we must assume what is by no means unassailable: that man is simply part of a given order of things, of a natural mechanism, of a network of causality. Were he in reality no more than this, there would be no possibility of his own decision, no freedom of action, and consequently no morality. This would destroy, not morality alone, but much that its opponents could not well give up. If our life were merely part of a natural mechanism, it would necessarily cease to be our own life; it would be only a process realised in us without our co-operation, and our attitude to it would resemble our attitude to our bodily functions. It is difficult to see how we could then be made responsible by society, or how we could ourselves feel any responsibility,—how such conceptions as those of good and evil could come into existence and engross our attention. Neither would there be any real present, for if there is no demand for decision, and no room for original action, all action would, with inevitable necessity, grow out of the past, like a flower out of its bud, without our co-operation.
We might be able to endure such determination of our life for all time, if the various movements could easily meet and mingle in our soul, without any complications. But if our life contains great problems, grave conflicts, various and often opposed planes, then we human beings, did we submit passively and unresistingly, would be chained like Prometheus to a pitiless rock. Determinism, if followed to its logical conclusion, is nothing less than inner annihilation of life.
Such recognition necessarily brings us to the question whether the hypothesis held by the Determinists is unassailable. Do we really appertain absolutely to a given and distinctly limited existence? From the point of view of a new plane of reality manifested by the spiritual life, our reply must be a decided negative. As we have seen, this new phase does not embrace us from the beginning, but must be grasped, appropriated, and developed by us; our own decision and action are here indispensable. Our life must indeed reckon with certain given factors; we must recognise the powerful influence of heredity and environment. Our individuality is determined for us by nature; we cannot in all things remould ourselves as we would wish to do; we are on all sides encompassed by fate. But man is not entirely at the mercy of this fate. The spiritual life which can grow up in him gives him a new, spontaneous source of life; he can originate something new, something entirely his own, and can oppose his own action to fate.
Our life thus becomes a struggle between freedom and fate; and to this struggle it chiefly owes its expansion and greatness. The idea of development is therefore not applicable to the progression of human life. There is no inevitable sequence on a well established basis and in one definite direction; later results are not simply determined by what has gone before; one thing does not follow another naturally and easily, but various elements meet and clash. Time after time, we are in danger of losing what we seemed to have won; over and over again, we must climb to the summit of life. But this struggle constantly calls forth new powers. We see that there is much more in us than appeared at first sight, or than we ourselves were wont to believe. Great shocks and strong emotions often produce new convictions or set free new forces within us. It is, above all, suffering which rouses and regenerates, which teaches us to see and cultivate the deepest that is in us. What hitherto seemed to constitute our whole being, now proves to be but a single stratum, which it is quite possible to transcend.
The real man is only a part, a section of the possible man. The possibilities dormant in us are an integral part of our being; and these possibilities enable us to attain something higher and greater. On this power of inner growth rests the confidence of those who, while recognising the evils of this life, fight bravely and hopefully on the side of progress. The statesman wishing to raise his people from within, builds on such a capacity for inner growth, and believes in the realisation of new possibilities; so does the educator in his efforts to cultivate and ennoble men's souls. Art and religion are ever at work, in order to discover new possibilities and bring them home to man. Were it not for such new possibilities and the regenerative power of man, his life could retain nothing of its youthful vigour, and would lapse into stagnation and senility. The same would apply to human civilisation: it would drift away from simplicity and truth, and would become more and more artificial.
It is in our own power to maintain our vitality, and to oppose increasing inner strength to all alien and hostile forces. It is by no means certain that we shall always be victorious; it is one of the tragedies of life that a man's soul is filled with longing for something better, yet is held captive by circumstance, and is finally driven back to that from which he would fain escape. And yet it is this struggle which gives to life its vitality and its greatness; and wherever there is religious conviction, there also dwells the hope that what could not gain full victory in our life, will not be lost before God. To quote Browning: