It was _Sabatier_ who maintained that “an external authority, no matter how great one may think it to be, does not suffice to arouse in us any sense of obligation.” And _Th. Lipps_ says on this further: “If obedience is taken in its narrower sense, that is, of determination by the will of another, then no obedience is moral.” “In brief, obedience is immoral—not as a fact but as a feeling, betokening an unfree, slavish mind” (Die ethiseben Grundfragen, 2d ed., 1905, p. 119). And _W. Herrmann_ assures us. “We would deem it a sin if we dared treat a proposition as true of which the ideas are not our own. If we should find such a proposition in the Bible, then we may perhaps resolve to wait and see whether its truth cannot be brought home to us after we have obtained a clearer and stronger insight of ourselves. But from the resolution to take that proposition as true without more ado, we could not promise ourselves anything beneficial.” It is for the sovereign subject himself to decide whether the ideas offered are compatible with the rest of his notions. A truth offered from without is acceptable to the subject only when, and because, he can produce of himself at the same time what is offered; but he cannot accept the obligation of _submitting_ to that truth in obedience to faith. “There is no infallible teaching authority on earth, nor can there be any. Philosophy and science would have to contradict themselves to acknowledge it,” says another champion of _Kant’s_ freedom (_Paulsen_, Philosophia militans, 2d ed., p. 52). Hence the reason why there cannot be any infallible authority is, not because it does not offer the truth, but because the human intellect must not be chained down. Now, this is no longer true freedom, but rebellion against the sacred right that truth has over the intellect. It is rebellion against the supreme authority of God, who can oblige man to embrace His revelation with that reason which He Himself has bestowed upon man. It is a misconception of the human mind, for it is by no means the source of truth and absolute knowledge, but weak and in need of supplement. Many truths it cannot by itself find at all, while in the quest for others it needs safe guidance lest it lose its way. If it refuses to be supplemented and guided from above, it demands the freedom of the weak vine allowed to break loose from the needed support of the tree, the freedom of the planet allowed to deviate from its orbit to be hopelessly wrecked in the universe. The barrenness and disintegration in the ideal life of our own unchristian age, are clear testimony that freedom is not only lawlessness but a sin against one’s own nature.