[9] The analogy of the tyro and the expert chess-player--the tyro "free," yet the expert foreseeing and holding the issue of the game in his own hands--is only superficially plausible. There seems, however, one other possible explanatory hypothesis, though it is here advanced only in the most tentative manner: may it not be possible for the Most High to impose a limitation upon His infinite knowledge corresponding to that self-limitation of His infinite power which we regard as a necessary assumption? It would be difficult on _a priori_ grounds to declare such a thing to be inconceivable. When Paul spoke of himself as "determined not to know anything save Jesus Christ," he signified his intention of shutting out from his knowledge whole ranges of facts, for reasons dictated by the purpose he had in hand; and as a matter of every-day experience, we all practise something like this habitually, voluntarily narrowing the range of our consciousness and our immediate interests for one cause and another. Might not God, if the reality of our freedom could not be guaranteed in any other way, and if that freedom was necessary for the attainment of His purpose with man, forbear in some measure, however slight, to exercise His omniscience? We are well aware that the subject admits of nothing more than reverent surmise; and having stated our suggestion, we simply leave it with the reader as one of those possibilities which will appeal differently to different minds. [10] _Types of Ethical Theory_, vol. ii., pp. 31 ff. [11] _Spinoza_, p. 195. [12] Cp. _Pantheism_, p. 74. [13] _Spinoza_, p. 196. [14] In _Mind_, October, 1893; quoted in Professor Upton's invaluable Hibbert Lectures on _The Bases of Religious Belief_, p. 293, n. [15] It may be interesting to quote a recent popular statement of the neo-Hegelian position in regard to this question: "The feeling that we are free is true in this sense, that the cause of a moral deed is a motive within us, and not some power outside us. But this motive moves us because of what we are, because of our characters, and the character is the product of inherited instincts, appetites and passions, modified by controlling ideas which have been acquired since our birth. Mr. Blatchford is so far right in his book, _Not Guilty_. The inward and outward conditions of a man's life, of course, _make him what he is inevitably_. We choose, but our choice is governed by all our past, and by present circumstances. . . We have our ancestors rolled up in us. A man is the last result of the universe. All is law. All is inevitable by the laws of life:" (The Rev. G. T. Sadler, B.A., LL.B., in the _Clarion_, June 11th, 1909). That, of course, is not liberty at all; and the logical honours appear to rest with Mr. Blatchford, who, arguing on the same assumptions, declares sin to be a meaningless term, seeing that "man is not responsible for his nature, nor for the acts prompted by that nature."