This we must now expand. There is nothing morally wrong in the self-seeking of the animal. Moral evil--sin--only arises when two conditions are fulfilled. The self-seeking desire must be felt to be in contradiction to the unselfish dictates of the higher nature. The will, having this knowledge more or less clearly before it, chooses to give effect to the lower rather than to subordinate it to the higher. We may express the same truth somewhat more accurately. The material of human sin is the co-existence of the animal nature and the Divine Nature within us. The occasion of sin is the conflict between the two. The conditions of sin are two--knowledge and freedom; knowledge of the antagonism between the desires of the two natures, and freedom to give effect either to the one or to the other. The actual fact of sin is the movement of the will, making its choice in favour of the lower in opposition to the higher. These two corollaries follow:--(i) Sin belongs only to the will, not to the nature. "There is nothing good in the world save a good will." And the converse is true: there is nothing sinful in the world save a sinful will. (ii) Sin does not lie in the act, but in the movement of the will, of which the act is but the outward symbol. We must carefully distinguish between sin and temptation. No temptation is sinful, however strong and however vividly presented to the mind. Sin only comes in when the will makes the choice of the worse alternative. A sin in thought is an act of inward choice, the deliberate indulgence of, the dwelling with pleasure upon, the temptation presented to us. But if I am only prevented by circumstances or by fear from embodying the wrong choice of my will in action, I have, in the sight of God, committed that sin. If I have made the wrong choice, and am deterred by the faintest of moral scruples, as well as, perhaps, by other considerations, from carrying it out, I am really, although in a less degree, guilty. Now we can fall back upon our main thought. The animal matter is essentially self-regarding. This is not (_a_) the same thing as to say that all actions of all animals are self-regarding. I see no difficulty in believing that there may be adumbrations of the moral and spiritual in animals below man, if the animal life is the manifestation, on a lower plane, of the same Word Who is the Life of nature and the Light (the higher reason and spiritual life) of man. Nor (_b_) is it the same thing as to say that the desires of the animal nature are selfish. For selfishness is a moral term and, as we have seen, moral attributes are inapplicable except to a wrong choice of the will. These self-regarding impulses of the animal nature are due to the fact, that that nature is the result of the age-long struggle for existence. These impulses have secured the survival and the predominance of man.