ASCENSION DAY 
15
On just belief or unbelief ; 
And an involuntary act 
Make difference infinite in fact 
Between the right and left-hand thief ? 
Belief is not an act of will !” 
 
I think, Sir, that I have you still, 
Even allowing (much indeed !) 
That any will at all is freed, 
And is not merely the result 
Of sex, environment, and cult, 
Habit and climate, health and mind, 
And twenty thousand other things ! 
So many a metaphysic sings. 
(I wish they did indeed : I find 
Their prose the hardest of hard reading.) 
 
“But if,” you cry, “the world’s designed 
As a mere mirage in the mind, 
Up jumps free will.”  But all I’m pleading 
Is against pain and hell.  Freewill 
Then can damn man ?  No fearful mill, 
Grinding catastrophe, is speeding 
Outside—some whence, some whither ?  And67 
I think we easier understand 
Where Schelling (to the Buddha leading) 
Calls real not-self.  In any case  
There is not, there can never be 
A soul, or sword or armour needing, 
Incapable in time or space 
Or to inflict or suffer.  We 
I think are gradually weeding 
The soil of dualism.  Pheugh ! 
Drop to the common Christian’s view ! 
 
This is my point ; the world lies bleeding :— 
(Result of sin ?)—I do not care ; 
I will admit you anywhere ! 
I take your premises themselves 
And, like the droll deceitful elves 
They are, they yet outwit your plan. 
I will prove Christ a wicked man. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Free will. 
Herbert 
Spencer. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
If there is free 
will how can 
there be pain or 
damnation ? 
not-Self being 
an illusion.   
Self or not-Self 
real?  Chute 
d’Icare. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I have pity : 
had Christ  
any ?  The 
Sheep and the 
Goats. 
 
 
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