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foreordainment can neither be deceived nor hindered, then nothing can take place that He does not Himself will. Reason must admit this, while it bears witness that there is no free will in men or angels or in any creature."

Reason must bear witness against its freedom! Luther's reason bore this testimony very freely, very joyfully. If he was chained by the preassumptions of his argument, he found his chains of gold, and loved them. When he thought of the ineffable benefits God had prepared for him in Christ, predestination became full of comfort, as he says in his Table Talk. So Calvin also was to argue for predestination-the full double predestination of some souls to heaven and the bulk of mankind to hell-and find comfort in it. The arguments of both these great men were suggested, and, as they thought, forced upon them by anterior authority and the premises of their faith. Yet Calvin's mind worked as incisively and as effectively as Luther's, though, one may say, less like a torrent.

It was in Geneva, and from Geneva, that this child of France, with his essentially French mind, built up a Reformed Church and political institutions in harmony. Calvin was in these respects a creator. The Calvinistic church, which in its completed existence was a church-state, proved an organization making for civil liberty in England, Scotland, France, the Netherlands, and the English colonies of North America. In Geneva itself, where

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Calvin, through many struggles, emerged an autocrat, he perfected his church-state, under which the people became as effective citizens as they were church members. He directed the codification of the city's laws, and devised an excellent adjustment of taxation; he proved that interest was not usury, an advantageous economic recognition; he improved the city's health by the construction of sewers and the erection of hospitals; he revived the industry of weaving; and he established an academy, whose scholars spread the fame of Geneva and its influence, which was the influence of Calvin, through France and England. In these congregational, civic, and educational constructions his mind worked with power and with such freedom as may inhere in the creation of institutions.

Through the impetus of his religious convictions and the power of his constructive logic and gifts of expression, Calvin formulated an irrefragable and militant body of doctrine for the reformed church, and an accordant liturgy. Herein he built upon the work of Luther and other reformers. Though his Christian Institute contained little that was original with its author, it was none the less a rock of refuge and a sword of offence. In it the ardour of faith, the power and reason of conviction, lived and moved in masterful argument and words of gall and flame. A consummate book, wielding prodigious influence, moulding the minds of generations. One will find in it the plastic and expres

sional genius of a man refashioning the faith of Paul and Augustine and Luther.

Luther and Calvin were the protagonists of the Reformation-of the Protestant revolt from Roman Catholicism. Notwithstanding their occupation with traditional material, their intolerance of convictions other than their own, and their denial of the freedom of the will, their reinterpretation of Christianity and human life was the child of the free action of their minds. It marks a stage in the progress of intellectual freedom and civic liberty. Certain trammels of ecclesiastical and political authority were breached, although both Luther and Calvin sought to enclose within narrow and fixed barriers the Pauline freedom which they had recovered for their churches.

Moreover, their minds were not only acting with efficient freedom, but were engaged in the presentation of the best that Luther and Calvin could conceive

for man. Both of these men were striving for an ideal, and straining to grasp it. They exemplify the human progress which comes through the mind's endeavour to think out what is the very best for man, and then to reach it.

In regard to Calvin and Luther, and the lead of the religious struggle of the time which follo one is always close to the profound problem effect of basic religious assurances upon h progress, and of their relation to the free actio the mind. But instead of pursuing further

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interesting phenomena of this intolerant and rigid religious freedom, we may turn to philosophy for clearer illustrations of the ingenuity of the mind seeking a larger knowledge and a more universal intellectual freedom.

CHAPTER V

THE FREEDOM OF THE PHILOSOPHIC MIND

PHILOSOPHY, the quest of truth, of large, fundamental, intellectually satisfying, truth; the many ways in which this quest has turned and twisted, been baffled and apparently thrown back! Though the quest seems never to attain the goal, the knights of the spirit have not failed in their reward.

This search has been a reflection of human progress. It has also been a moving energy. What finer moving energy can there be than the conception and production of novel thoughts of general significance and possible validity? Such yield new insight and shed light on human life. If the specific opinions prove misleading, they become warning signs or fences, keeping men from falling into like pitfalls or groping along the same blind alleys. So they serve in the economy of progress. Moreover, though philosophic thoughts be austere in their expression and caviare to the vulgar, they may undergo popular transformations, and even in their corruption or misuse affect mankind. Assuredly one will set philosophy among the moving energies of human progress.

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