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of man, I shall only say that they inadvertently fall into one of these two great errors—either that of supposing a rational being to act without any motive whatever, or that an unreasoning being can be free.

If the above is true, it is certain that the faculty of choice bestowed upon man, far from constituting a necessary condition of freedom, endangers liberty, since through it arises the possibility of a renunciation of good, and of falling into error, of a denial of God, and of a subjection to tyranny. All the efforts of man, with the assistance of grace, should be directed to the keeping of this faculty under, so that he may even lose it, 1f possible, by inaction. He alone who loses 1t understands good, desires it, and performs it; and he alone who does this is perfectly free; and he alone who is free is perfect; and only he who is perfect is happy. None of the blessed have this faculty of choosing between good and evil, neither God, nor his saints, nor the choirs of angels.

If the faculty of choice does not constitute the perfection, but endangers the exercise of free willin man; if in thls faculty originated man’s prevarication and fall; if in it rests the mystery of sin, of condemnation, and death; how can we reconcile with the infinite goodness of God this fatal gift, which is the source of our misfortunes and calamities? Shall we regard the hand that bestows it as compassionate or rigorous? If it is