What then are we to do with man? Is he a part of nature and its order? I reply that man is within material nature as far as regards his bodily organization; but that he is outside, or above it, and belongs to a different order, as far as his rational action, his volition, and his moral powers are concerned. All that I am contending for is that a clear distinction must be preserved between the necessary action of the forces of material nature, and the voluntary action of man; and that terms must be used which accurately denote this distinction. Matter, its forces and laws, involve the conception of necessary action. They act in a particular manner because they cannot help so acting. With action purely intellectual I am not concerned, but all moral action is voluntary. Man as an agent can act or forbear acting; matter cannot. This distinction is of the highest importance, and must not be lost sight of behind a confused use of such terms as natural, law, force, or order of nature, applied indeterminately to the necessary action of material agents, and the voluntary action of moral ones. It will doubtless be objected by a certain order of philosophy that all mental and moral force is only some special modification of material force, and consequently that there is no distinction between material and moral action, or between material and moral force, and that the words “nature” and “natural” are correctly applied to both alike, as being simple manifestations of the same original force. To this it will be sufficient to reply, first: that this is an assertion only, and never has been nor can be proved. Secondly: that it contradicts the highest of all our certitudes, the direct testimony of consciousness, which affirms that we live under a law of freedom, wholly different from the necessary laws of material nature. Thirdly: that it contradicts the universal experience of mankind, as embodied in the primary laws of human language and human thought. To assume this at the commencement of the argument is to take for granted the point which requires to be proved. It would be quite out of place in a treatise like the present to attempt to discuss the question of the origin of the free agency and the moral nature of man. It is sufficient for the purpose to observe that, however voluntary agency may have originated, it is a simple fact that it exists in the universe, and that its phenomena belong to an order of its own. It is no mere theory, but a fact, that man not only is capable of modifying the action of the forces of the material universe, but that he has modified them, and has produced results utterly different from those which would have followed from their simple action. To use terms in this controversy which overlook this plain and obvious fact, can lead to no satisfactory result.