Chapter III Scheme of Necessity Denies the Reality of Moral Distinctions
Our voluntary service He requires,
Not our necessitated; such with him
Finds no acceptance, nor can find; for how
Can hearts, not free, be tried whether they serve
Willing or no, who will but what they must
By destiny, and can no other choose?
—
Milton.
In the preceding chapters we have taken it for granted that there is such a thing as moral good and evil, and endeavoured to show, that if the scheme of necessity be true, man is absolved from guilt, and God is the author of sin. But, in point of fact, if the scheme of necessity be true, there is no such thing as moral good or evil in this lower world; all distinction between virtue and vice, moral good and evil, is a mere dream, and we really live in a non-moral world. This has been shown by many of the advocates of necessity.