This justifies the conclusion that moral character belongs to the exercise of the will as it does not to any other activity of our moral nature. For it is the point, and the only point, of freedom in our whole constitution. Necessity marks the action of each and every part from the lowest functions up to the will; and beyond this there stretches on another realm of necessity in the consequences of volition. For example, necessity rules in the physical nature. The processes go on under fixed uniform laws, with no freedom or choice. So in the intellect and the sensibility. We begin to think in non-optional spontaneity, or we would not think at all. In perception, representation, in the discursive and intuitive powers, and in the emotions, affections and desires that arise from the activity of the intellect, the movement is bound up under laws of cause and effect. Whatever power of regulation, change or control we possess over these functions does not belong to the powers themselves, but to the will or the personal capacity of free choice and self-regulation. It is only through our will-power that we can handle and direct our thinking or control the direction and force of our feelings. So, too, the ideas of right and wrong, the perceptions of duty and the sense of obligation come into the presence of the will of necessity. All before the will is of necessity. Thus men see the right and perceive obligation. At this point all the responsibility of character is thrown upon the will. If contemplated action appear right or wrong, as action that ought or ought not to be done, the will must decide whether it shall be done. If good or bad motives plead for rulership, the will must say which shall prevail. If feelings are out of harmony with duty and right in the relations of life, with respect to God or man, it is to be remembered that the feelings cannot choose, and the will alone can guide them in virtuous action. To it, therefore, virtue or guilt belongs as nowhere else. For it not only accepts and makes its own all the right or wrong that appears elsewhere, but it also remains true or becomes false to its own supreme duty and obligation to moral law, when, under the behests of conscience, it directs life and character either up the heights of moral excellence and happiness, or into the wrong and guilt and miseries of immorality. Where the will is moral the man is moral; for the will is the zenith of personality. Where it is immoral the man is immoral. CHAPTER XI. THE ETHICAL VIEW UNDER CHRISTIAN TEACHING.