materialistic philosophy which prevails among wide circles of our nation
to-day.

According to it, all that happens in the world is a necessary
consequence of given conditions; free will is only necessity become
conscious. It denies the difference between the empiric and the
intelligible Ego, which is the basis of the notion of moral freedom.

This philosophy cannot stand before scientific criticism. It seems
everywhere arbitrarily restricted by the narrow limits of the
insufficient human intelligence. The existence of the universe is
opposed to the law of a sufficient cause; infinity and eternity are
incomprehensible to our conceptions, which are confined to space and
time.

The essential nature of force and volition remains inexplicable. We
recognize only a subjectively qualified phenomenon in the world; the
impelling forces and the real nature of things are withdrawn from our
understanding. A systematic explanation of the universe is quite
impossible from the human standpoint. So much seems clear--although no
demonstrable certainty attaches to this theory--that spiritual laws
beyond the comprehension of us men govern the world according to a
conscious plan of development in the revolving cycles of a perpetual
change. Even the gradual evolution of mankind seems ruled by a hidden
moral law. At any rate we recognize in the growing spread of
civilization and common moral ideas a gradual progress towards purer and
higher forms of life.

It is indeed impossible for us to prove design and purpose in every
individual case, because our attitude to the universal whole is too