[[4]] Observe that in all this not a word has been said of free-will. It all applies as well to a predetermined as to an indeterminate universe. If M + x is fixed in advance, the belief which leads to x and the desire which prompts the belief are also fixed. But fixed or not, these subjective states form a phenomenal condition necessarily preceding the facts; necessarily constitutive, therefore, of the truth M + x which we seek. If, however, free acts be possible, a faith in their possibility, by augmenting the moral energy which gives them birth, will increase their frequency in a given individual.
[[5]] In either case, as a later essay explains (see p. 193), the should which the moralist regards as binding upon him must be rooted in the feeling of some other thinker, or collection of thinkers, to whose demands he individually bows.
REFLEX ACTION AND THEISM.[[1]]
MEMBERS OF THE MINISTERS' INSTITUTE:
Let me confess to the diffidence with which I find myself standing here to-day. When the invitation of your committee reached me last fall, the simple truth is that I accepted it as most men accept a challenge,—not because they wish to fight, but because they are ashamed to say no. Pretending in my small sphere to be a teacher, I felt it would be cowardly to shrink from the keenest ordeal to which a teacher can be exposed,—the ordeal of teaching other teachers. Fortunately, the trial will last but one short hour; and I have the consolation of remembering Goethe's verses,—
"Vor den Wissenden sich stellen,
Sicher ist 's in allen Fällen,"—