Thus in the unconscious and free development of the human soul, moral and religious facts are evolved, called forth and united naturally. Man recognises of himself the distinction between moral good and evil, recognises moral law, moral liberty, moral responsibility, moral excellence or unworthiness; and at the same time he recognises that the moral law is not a human invention imposed by human consent, neither is it one of those immutable laws by which the material world is governed. That is, he recognises a higher power from whom the moral law emanates, whom it reveals, and in whose presence he either keeps or violates this law. God a moral ruler, and man a free subject, are revealed to us side by side in the facts which constitute the moral nature of man. {195} And just as a moral law without a sovereign legislator who ordains it is an incomplete and inexplicable fact,--a river without a source, so also man's moral responsibility without a supreme judge who applies the law, is incomplete and inexplicable, a river without an outlet, which flows on until it loses itself we know not where. God is implied in the moral law as its first author, and God is included in the moral responsibility of man as his ultimate judge. But if a man discovers and acknowledges the existence of God in himself and in the world around him, he cannot study and investigate, or explain, nor does he know God as he knows himself and the external world which we call nature. Man and the external world are mirrors in which God is reflected; but this reflection or revelation is limited by the measure and limitations of our own mind, and does not manifest the plenitude and immensity of the divine nature. Those special and direct revelations which are treasured up for us in the sacred volume only disclose an infinite perspective of divine action, they do not give a full and clear knowledge of that action. Even when we acknowledge and worship God, we find that there is that in him which is not only unknown, but unknowable by man; and that although he has manifested himself, he is still impenetrable and inexplicable. Why has God created man? Why has he created him free, that is, capable of deciding his actions by his own will alone, in spite of the many external motives which seek to influence him, and in a world governed by fixed and inflexible laws? What is the nature and what the extent of the moral responsibility which, according to his own account, man as a free being incurs? {196} What part was assigned to him, and what influence did God give him over his own life and his own destiny when he created him free? Is it possible that he assigned him no part at all, no influence at all, that beforehand and irrevocably he decided the life and fate of man whom he created free, as he did that of the material world which is governed by inflexible laws? Do we not borrow the terms of merely human language when we use the word