MOEAL OBLIGATION. 47 the former error ; Spinoza added the other, and so on again till the present time when the doctrine of Evolution claims to resolve the difficulty the physical, by uniting reason to desire, i.e., under the form of physical necessity ; the dia- lectical, by uniting desire to reason, i.e., under the form of freedom. We confine ourselves to the latter. To say with Green that " in the sense in which thought and desire enters into an act of will, each is the whole act," or that " will is equally and undistinguishably desire and thought," is just to say that a man never acts but for an end he desires, and that he is free when that end is rational. Now, while this is a correct representation of the acts of men, it is not the freedom with which we are more immediately concerned. This metaphysical or general freedom when demanded from a man, as is done by obligation, postulates a particular freedom in him. The one is the freedom of God which we are commanded to realise, the other is the freedom which we demand for the purpose of performing that command. Obligation thus postulates both this ob- jective and this subjective freedom. It could not impose the latter without presuming the former, nor if it imposed the former without presuming the latter would it be any longer obligation at all. The significance of freedom in Ethics as a science is the state of the individual before the harmony of thought and desire, before ideal freedom has been realised. That it can be realised we presume under the postulate of obligation. How it is realised we also know. It is through self-reflection, through thereby recognising the limitations of impulse, that man becomes superior to impulse and is released from physical necessity. Man shows his freedom when by such absolute reflection he harmonises reason and desire in the satisfaction of moral obligations when practical reason is his sole guide and he acts under the idea of this complete self-satisfaction. This distinction between the distinctively metaphysical or objective and the distinctively ethical or subjective free- dom is not to .be confounded either with Hegel's distinction between absolute and formal freedom or with that between determination and indifference. Absolute freedom is that which has been described. It has itself for its object, is wholly self-related and becomes determinate through no external impulse but by its own infinite self-reflection. The formal freedom has a limited or contingent content and is variously denominated by Hegel as caprice, arbitrariness, wilfulness. It is free at all just because it consciously transcends limita- tions ; but its transcendence is finite and relative, for its reflection is not self- directed but proceeds from impulse to
