In will we have the uniformity of a free intelligent cause. We can conceive of perfect freedom and yet of perfect order, because the free will can submit itself to the light of the reason. Indeed, all the order and harmony of creation, although springing from the _idea_ of the reason, has been constituted by the power of the infinite free will. It is an order and harmony not necessitated but chosen by a power determining itself. It is altogether an assumption incapable of being supported that freedom is identified with disorder. _Of the words, Foreknowledge and Prescience._ These words are metaphorical: _fore_ and _pre_ do not qualify _knowledge_ and _science_ in relation to the mind which has the knowledge or science; but the time in which the knowledge takes place in relation to the time in which the object of knowledge is found. The metaphor consists in giving the attribute of the time of knowledge, considered relatively to the time of the object of knowledge, to the act of knowledge itself. Banishing metaphor for the sake of attaining greater perspicuity, let us say, First: All acts of knowing are present acts of knowing,--there is no _fore_ knowledge and no _after_ knowledge. Secondly: The objects of knowledge may be in no relation to time and space whatever, e. g. pure abstract and necessary truth, as 2 x 2 = 4; and the being of God. Or the objects of knowledge may be in relations of time and space, e. g. all physical phenomena. Now these relations of time and space are various;--the object of knowledge may be in time past, or time present, or time future; and it may be in a place near, or in a place distant. And the faculty of knowledge may be of a capacity to know the object in all these relations under certain limitations, or under no limitations. The faculty of knowledge as knowing objects in all relations of time and space, under certain limitations, is the faculty as given in man. We know objects in time present, and past, and future; and we know objects both near and distant; but then our knowledge does not extend to all events in any of these relations, or in any of these relations to their utmost limit. The faculty of knowledge as knowing objects in all relations of time and space, under no limitations, is the faculty under its divine and infinite form. Under this form it comprehends the present perfectly, and the past and the future no less than the present--and it reaches through all space. God's knowledge is an eternal now--an omnipresent here; that is, all that is possible and actual in eternity and space, is now perfectly known to him. Indeed God's knowledge ought not to be spoken of in relation to time and space; it is infinite and absolute knowledge, from eternity to eternity the same; it is unchangeable, because it is perfect; it can neither be increased nor diminished.