. . . there is a scale or range of pitch which is also infinite and terminates upwards in the directness or uprightness of the 'stem' of the godhead and the procession of the divine persons. God then can shift the self that lies in one to a higher, that is/better, pitch of itself; that is/to a pitch or determination of itself on the side of the good. But here arises a darker difficulty still; for how can we tell that each self has, in particular, any such better self, any such range from bad to good? In the abstract there is such a range of pitch and conceivably a self to be found, actually or possibly, at each pitch in it, but how can *each* self have all these pitches? for this seems contrary to its freedom; the more so as if we look at the exhibition of moral freedom in life, at men's lives and history, we find not only that in the same circumstances and seemingly with the same graces they behave differently, not only they do not range as fast from bad to good or good to bad one as another, but, even what is most intrinsic to a man, the influence of his own past and of the preexisting disposition of will with which he comes to action seems irregular and now he does well, now he sins, bids fair to be a sinner and becomes a saint or bids fair to be a saint and falls away, and indeed goes through vicissitudes of all sorts and changes times without number.
This matter is profound; but so far as I see this is the truth. First, though self, as personality, is prior to nature it is not prior to pitch. If there were something prior even to pitch, of which that pitch would be itself the pitch, then we could suppose that that, like everything else, was subject to God's will and could be pitched, could be determined, this way or that. But this is really saying that a thing is and is not itself, is and is not A, is and is not. For self before nature is no thing as yet but only possible; with the accession of a nature it becomes properly a self, for instance a person: only so far as it is prior to nature, that is to say/so far as it is a definite self, the possibility of a definite self (and not merely the possibility of a number or fetch of nature) it is identified with pitch, moral pitch, determination of right and wrong. And so far, it has its possibility, as it will have its existence, from God, but not so that God makes pitch no pitch, determination no determination, and indifference indifference. The indifference, the absence of pitch, is in the nature to be superadded. And when nature is superadded, then it cannot be believed, as the Thomists think, that in every circumstance of free choice the person is of himself indifferent towards the alternatives and that God determines which he shall, though freely, choose. The difficulty does not lie so much in his being determined by God and yet choosing freely, for on one side that may and must happen, but in his being supposed equally disposed or pitched towards both at once. This is impossible and destroys the notion of freedom and of pitch. Nevertheless in every circumstance it is within God's power to determine the creature to choose, and freely choose, according to his will; but not without a change or access of circumstance, over and above the bare act of determination on his part. This access is either of grace, which is 'supernature', to nature or of more grace to grace already given, and it takes the form of instressing the affective will, of affecting the will towards the good which he proposes. So far this is a necessary and constrained affection on the creature's part, to which the *arbitrium* of the creature may give its avowal and consent. Ordinarily when grace is given we feel first the necessary or constrained act and after that the free act on own part, of consent or refusal as the case may be. This consent or refusal is given to an act either hereafter or now to be done, but in the nature of things such an act must always be future, even if immediately future or of those futures which arise in acts and phrases like 'I must ask you' to do so-and-so, 'I wish to apologize', 'I beg to say', and so on, And ordinarily the motives for refusal are still present though the motive for consent has been strengthened by the motion, just over or even in some way still working, of grace. And therefore in ordinary cases refusal is possible not only physically but also morally and often takes place. But refusal remaining physically possible becomes morally (and strictly) impossible in the following way. . . . Therefore in that 'cleave' of being which each of his creatures shews to God's eyes alone (or in the 'burl' of being/uncloven) God can choose countless points in the strain (or countless cleaves of the 'burl') where the creature has consented, does consent, to God's will in the way above shewn. But these may be away, may be very far away, from the actual pitch at any given moment existing. It is into that possible world that God for the moment moves his creature out of this one or it is from that possible world that he beings his creature into this, shewing it to itself gracious and consenting; nay more, clothing its old self for the moment with a gracious and consenting self. This shift is grace. For grace is any action, activity, on God's part by which, in creating or after creating, he carries the creature to or towards the end of its being, which is its selfsacrifice to God and its salvation. It is, I say, any such activity on God's part; so that so far as this action or activity is God's it is divine stress, holy spirit, and, as all is done through Christ, Christ's spirit; so far as it is action, correspondence, on the creature's it is *actio salutaris*; so far as it is looked at *in esse quieto* it is Christ in his member on the one side, his member in Christ on the other. It is as if a man said: 'That is Christ playing at me and me playing at Christ, only that it is no play but truth; That is Christ *being me* and me being Christ.
