Moreover, in this view of the human con sciousness the primacy of the will is in a large measure denied by the insistence that man is wholly dependent upon divine grace in order to exercise his will anght. He alone is free, says Augustine, whose will has been touched by the divine will, and whose desires and activities are •found wholly in accord with the will of God. The natural man is not free unless emanci pated by divine grace; for Adam, the represen tative of humanity, the federal head of the race, abused his natural freedom of will and in his fall has left as an inheritance to the race the tendency to sin. And the most sig nificant consequence of sin is the bondage of the will, which divine grace alone can over come. Augustine, therefore, seems to solve the problem of free will and predestination by denying to man a real freedom. He indulges in many subtle distinctions as to the various kinds of grace. There is, for instance, the pre venient grace, also the supporting grace, ac tive grace, and grace bestowing the gift of perseverance which seals all previous effects.
No distinction, however, is drawn which re lieves the system from the criticism already mentioned of minimizing the autonomy of the human will.
This position of Augustine naturally raises the question as to how the evil in the world can be reconciled with the idea of divine power and divine goodness. For if God alone is free, He alone is responsible; and man should not be held accountable for that which he unaided is unable to prevent. Such a criticism Augus tine meets by the statement that the evil in the world is after all not a real evil; it is not a causa efficiens, but merely a causa deficiens, in fact only an incausale. Such an explana tion, however, is not satisfactory and does not squarely meet the difficulty of the problem which the common experience of humanity all too unhappily emphasizes.
Augustine's type of mind is essentially that of a great systemdtizer of doctrine. He could
rest content with no form of knowledge unless it could be reduced to a schema in which part fitted to part in an exact and inflexible manner. Augustine's system has been criticized for this very reason that its lines are hard and fast, yielding at no point the full rigor of its inex orable doctrines. But while in a certain sense such criticism is justified, there was, in addi tion to this pronounced synoptical tendency of thought, an equally profound strain of senti ment and feeling. Augustine was essentially human, and wont to be moved by the passions and aspirations common to man. Within the very body of this system of doctrine, and its closely concatenated dogmas, it is possible to discover a deep underlying current of mysti cism, which may be traced no doubt to its source in Neo-Platonism,— a mysticism mani festing itself in that compulsion of the soul, to long for communion with God, and to behold Him face to face. It is this intensely human strain, this mystical element, which relieves the Augustinian system as a system from its more severe and sombre features. The great system builder after all subordinates the system to that which is the ground of the system. Not in the processes of reason, but in a direct and immediate consciousness of God, does he find the ultimate certitude. Nothing can more beautifully or more adequately express this mystical strain in Augustine's nature than those words which embody both a philosophy and a creed: "Thou hast made me for thyself and my heart is restless until it finds rest in thee." Bibliography.— Heurt, 'Problems of the Age With Studies in Saint Augustine on Kindred Topics' McCabe, 'Saint Augustine and His Age' (1903) ; Schaff, 'Saint Augustine, Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers) (Vol. I pp. 1-25, ew York 1888) ; Donier, 1872) ; Lingard, 'Antiquities of the Anglo Saxon Church' (2d ed., 1902).