W. H. Mallack, in his work on "The Reconstruction of Religious Belief" (1905), has a most fascinating chapter on human freedom [47] in which he illustrates on broad lines the universal though unconscious assumption of the fact of human freedom in both literature and history. Of the characters created by the great poets, he remarks: "They interest us as born to freedom, and not naturally slaves, and they pass before us like kings in a Roman triumph. Once let us suppose these characters to be mere puppets of heredity and circumstance, and they and the works that deal with them lose all intelligible content, and we find ourselves confused and wearied with the fury of an idiot's tale." On the criticism of historical characters he says: "All this praising and blaming is based on the assumption that the person praised or blamed is the originator of his own actions, and not a mere transmitter of forces." And further, all debating on the value of historical characters would be meaningless, "if it were not for the inveterate belief that a man's significance for men resides primarily in what he makes of himself, not in what he has been made by an organism derived from his parents, and the various external stimuli to which it has automatically responded." Our author also points out the truth that forgiveness itself among men (and he might well have extended his argument to the forgiveness God imparts to men also) assumes the fact of human freedom--else what is there to be forgiven! The believer in freedom says to the offending party, "I forgive you for the offense of not having done your best." The assumption is that the offender could have refrained from giving one offense--he had freedom and power to have done otherwise. One not believing in human freedom would say to the offending party: "I neither forgive nor blame you; for, although you have done your worst, your worst was your best also" & having no freedom, he was under no obligation; his action was indifferent, neither good nor bad; there was no blame or praise possible; he is neither a subject for mercy nor justice to act upon.