earthquake. Does this prove the freedom, the absolute independence of these occurrences? No; it only proves the inadequacy of our knowledge. Renouvier therefore would achieve nothing for his theory of Free Will, if only human understanding were to be unable to foretell the actions of the Will. That is why he does not say "human reason," but simply "Reason." The essence of Free Will is that its actions altogether shall be incapable of being foreseen; it is not in its nature to act in accordance with some predetermination which must necessarily reckon with outer circumstances and given forces; and the impossibility of foretelling its actions exists not only for human Reason but for every Reason--for Reason in general. For every Reason and therefore for the divine Reason as well. And now theological ethics must find a way out of this dilemma: either God does not foresee the decisions of free human Will, then this is a denial of his omniscience, that is, of one of His essential attributes; or God foresees the decisions of free human Will, then this is a denial of the Freedom of the Will, the essence of which, according to Renouvier, lies in the fact that it cannot be foreseen. For this impossibility of being foreseen is indeed the quality by which Free Will stands or falls. Let us realize the significance of this concept. Nothing can be foreseen which will not with certainty occur. But whatever at some future time will become a reality, must even now be virtually a reality for an omniscient Reason not bound by the human categories of time and space, since for this Reason neither proximity nor distance exists, but everything is on one plane, and there is no future or past, but everything is present. So if the divine Reason foresees now how the free Will of man will act in the future, that is equivalent to saying that this free Will is forced to act in the particular way which God foresees and not otherwise. Therefore the Will is not free but, on the contrary, strictly bound. It is obliged to make the event foreseen by God a fact, as God can only foresee what must certainly come to pass, and a foreseen event that does not happen would mean a mistake, a false assumption, of which one cannot believe God capable without denying Him. This apparent free Will is coercion at sight. As its action is foreseen by God, the Will is subject to the law of fate, but a period of delay is granted. Every movement of the supposedly free Will becomes a part of the order of the universe which has been unalterably laid down from eternity, and which the human Will cannot upset without burying God in the ruins. Man may imagine that his Will is free. But that is self-deception, and he can only indulge in it because what God sees clearly is hidden from him, namely, the goal towards which, though he does not realize it, he is inevitably led along strictly defined paths by the iron hand of fate.