near to it; in short, to produce a third character related to both the
others--the physical and the moral--paving the way to a transition from
the sway of mere force to that of law, without preventing the proper
development of the moral character, but serving rather as a pledge in the
sensuous sphere of a morality in the unseen.




LETTER IV.


Thus much is certain. It is only when a third character, as previously
suggested, has preponderance that a revolution in a state according to
moral principles can be free from injurious consequences; nor can
anything else secure its endurance. In proposing or setting up a moral
state, the moral law is relied upon as a real power, and free-will is
drawn into the realm of causes, where all hangs together mutually with
stringent necessity and rigidity. But we know that the condition of the
human will always remains contingent, and that only in the Absolute Being
physical coexists with moral necessity. Accordingly, if it is wished to
depend on the moral conduct of man as on natural results, this conduct
must become nature, and he must be led by natural impulse to such a
course of action as can only and invariably have moral results. But the
will of man is perfectly free between inclination and duty, and no
physical necessity ought to enter as a sharer in this magisterial
personality. If, therefore, he is to retain this power of solution, and
yet become a reliable link in the causal concatenation of forces, this
can only be effected when the operations of both these impulses are
presented quite equally in the world of appearances. It is only possible