The matter is not at all mysterious when you consider it in practice. Is a man, for example, free to paint a good picture? We know that if he has good natural gifts and lively ambition, has been trained in a good school and inspired by great examples, he stands a good chance to do so; but that if nature or circumstance has denied him any of these essentials he stands little or no chance. History shows that good pictures are never painted except when certain conditions concur. There is nothing mystical about freedom in this case; it is just every-day life. The same principle applies to moral achievement. If we have a man of natural energy and breadth of human sympathy whose experience has afforded him noble suggestions and examples, we need not be astonished at some exalted action; and if we know him intimately enough we shall be able to trace some history of this action in his previous conduct. But if he was born feeble-minded he cannot have large conceptions, and if his associates have been wholly depraved—supposing that possible—his conduct will share this depravity. Free will, if you call it that, is then simply a power of creative growth, which we all have in some degree, and starts from our actual situation. No one is free to do anything he has not worked up to. I hold, for many reasons, that it is a bad thing to teach absolute freedom of the will, as bad as to teach fatalism. It leads to discouraging judgments of conduct, both our own and that of others, and to a neglect of the training process by which everything good must be prepared. The logical outcome of the doctrine of unlimited freedom would seem to be that one should make a great effort to achieve at once what he wants, without regard to his preparation. The logical outcome of the view I suggest is that one sets about moulding his whole life into a process from which success will naturally flow. No thoughtful observer will doubt which is the better method. It is an open secret, which few seem willing to utter, that ardent spirits often make too much effort, exhausting and disheartening themselves by attempting the impossible. I know a man of eager temperament and rather slender physique who, on asking himself what was the most serious and pervading mistake of his early life, finds the answer to be “I tried too hard.” The prevalence of the idea of unconditional freedom works to the advantage of phlegmatic people, who cannot be harmed by it, and to the prejudice of the more impressible.