12. The difference between a necessary and a free agent is, that the
former is determined by its nature to act in a certain way, and cannot
act otherwise: the latter may act in more ways than one. Still, as we
have seen, the nature even of a free agent is not indifferent to all
manner of action. It requires, though it does not constrain, the agent
to act in certain definite ways, the ways of moral goodness. Acting
otherwise, as he may do, the free agent gainsays his own nature, taken
as a whole, a thing that a necessary agent can nowise do. God
therefore who, as we have shown, wills and commands all creatures
whatsoever to act on the lines of their nature, has especial reason to
give this command to His rational creatures, with whom alone rests the
momentous freedom to disobey.

13. We are now abreast of the question, of such burning interest in
these days, as to the connection of Ethics with Theology, or of
Morality with Religion. I will not enquire whether the dogmatic
atheist is logically consistent in maintaining any distinction between
right and wrong: happily, dogmatic atheists do not abound. But there
are many who hold that, whether there be a God or no, the fact ought
not to be imported into Moral Science: that a Professor of Ethics, as
such, has no business with the name of the Almighty on his lips, any
more than a lecturer on Chemistry or Fortification. This statement
must be at once qualified by an important proviso. If we have any
duties of worship and praise towards our Maker: if there is such a
virtue as religion, and such a sin as blasphemy: surely a Professor of
Morals must point that out. He cannot in that case suppress all
reference to God, for the same reason that he cannot help going into
the duties of a man to his wife, or of an individual to the State, if
marriage and civil government are natural institutions. If there is a