Now to Dante's mind, as to most others, the conceptions of _justice_ and _desert_ implied the conception of _free will_. And accordingly we find the reality of the choice exercised by man, and attended by such eternal issues, maintained with intense conviction throughout the poem. The free will is the supreme gift of God, and that by which the creature most closely partakes of the nature of the Creator. The free gift of God's love must be seized by an act of man's free will, in opposition to the temptations and difficulties that interpose themselves. There is justice as well as love in Heaven; justice as well as mercy in Purgatory. The award of God rests upon the free choice of man, and registers his merit or demerit. It is true, and Dante fully recognises it, that one man has a harder task than another. The original constitution and the special circumstances of one man make the struggle far harder for him than for another; but God never suffers the hostile influence of the stars to be so strong that the human will may not resist it. Diversity of character and constitution is the necessary condition of social life, and we can see why God did not make us all alike; but when we seek to pierce yet deeper into the mystery of His government, and ask why this man is selected for this task, why another is burdened with this toil, why one finds the path of virtue plain for his feet to tread, while one finds it beset with obstacles before which his heart stands still--when we ask these questions we trench close upon one of those doubts which Dante brought back unsolved from Heaven. Not the seraph whose sight pierces deepest into the light of God could have told him this, so utterly is it veiled from all created sight.[97] But amidst all these perplexities one supreme fact stands out to Dante's mind: that, placed as we are on earth amidst the mysterious possibilities of good and evil, we are endowed with a genuine power of self-directed choice between them. The fullness of God's grace is freely offered to us all, the life eternal of obedience, of self-surrender, of love, tending ever to the fuller and yet fuller harmony of united will and purpose, of mutually blessed and blessing offices of affection, of growing joy in all the supporting and surrounding creation, of growing repose in the might and love of God. But if we shut our eyes against the light of God's countenance and turn our backs upon His love, if we rebel against the limitations of mutual self-sacrifice to one another and common obedience to God, then an alternative is also offered us in the fierce and weltering chaos of wild passions and disordered desires, recognising no law and evoking no harmony, striking at the root of all common purpose and cut off from all helpful love.