upon a simple ground of experience or the basis of causationhe is to erect a proof of the ideal. "For can ever experience be given," he says, "which should be conformable to an idea? That which is peculiar to this last consists precisely in this, that an experience can never be congruous to it. The transcendental idea of a necessary, all-sufficient, original Being is so immensely great, so raised above all that is empirical, which is always conditional, that we can never collect matter enough or experience in order to fill such a conception." But when we examine Kant's attitude as a reasoner to the ideal, it does not substantially differ from Clarke's; Clarke gives up "demonstration strictly and properly;" and Kant allows a natural strong ground of conviction. He considers that the chasm which presents itself to the passive and composed intellect between the actual and the ideal is arched over by an intuitive impulse, which springs from the whole view of the Creation, and carries the mind by a quick movement of thought, which it cannot resist, to the transcendental conclusion of an Infinite, Perfect Being. "The present world," he says, "opens to us so immense a theatre of diversity, order, fitness, and beauty, whether we seek after these in the infinity of space, or in its unbounded division; that even according to the knowledge which our weak reason has been enabled to acquire of the same, all language lacks its expression as to so many and undiscernibly great wonders so that our judgment of the whole must terminate in a speechless, but so much the more eloquent, astonishment. Everywhere we see a chain of effects and causes, of ends and means, regularity in beginning and ending: and since nothing has come of itself into the state in which it is, it always thus indicates further back another thing, as its cause, which renders exactly the same further inquiry necessary; so that the great Whole must sink into the abyss of nothing, if we did not admit something existing of itself originally and independently, external to this Infinite Contingent, and as the cause of its origin. The highest cause, in respect of all things in the world, how great are we to think it? The world we are not acquainted with according to its whole extent still less do we know how to appreciate its magnitude

by comparison with all that is possible. But what prevents us, that, since we require in respect of causality an external and supreme Being, we should not at the same time, in respect of the degree of perfection, place it above everything else possible? ... It would consequently not only be comfortless, but also quite vain, to wish to take away something from the authority of this proof. Reason, which is unceasingly elevated by means of arguments so powerful, and always increasing under its hands, although only empirical ones, cannot, through any doubts of subtly-deduced speculation, be so pressed down that it must not be roused as it were out of a dream, from any meditative irresolution, by a glance which it casts on the wonders and majesty of the Universe; in order to raise itself from greatness to greatness up to the highest of all-from the conditional to the condition-up to the Supreme and unconditional Creator."

I would only add to this argument that it must be considered that an ideal is contained in the moral nature of man; and that we have to account for its being there. It is evident that the peculiar character or construction, as we may call it, of the conscience and the moral sense, is such, that the very instrument it works by is a kind of restlessness and discontent with all fact in us, and a desire to be something which we are not. The condition of goodness is not that of attaining a defined sufficient end: it is not that of reaching a restingplace. That is counter to the law of our being. St. Paul has given an exposition of conscience, which plainly and vividly describes it as insatiable, swallowing, like some unfathomable abyss, all the duty, sacrifice, and effort that is thrown into it, and still demanding more. And though in the Christian dispensation the sense of a Divine justification is the remedial and appointed relief for the natural insatiableness of conscience, there remains a sense of short-coming which is ineffaceable, and is inherent and rooted in the man. What can this be the effect of but the existence of an ideal in man, the spontaneous erection of his own heart, which dwarfs every act of his, and reduces his whole life to failure and imperfection? Moral 1 Critick of Pure Reason, Book II. c. 1. div. iii. s. 6.

beauty, goodness, rises up before him in his conscience in a form and height which has no embodiment in fact; he sees there a whole, while all experience only shows what is fragmentary. How has he got in his nature a type of which he has no representative in actual existence? The only answer can be, if we acknowledge causation, that whence he has the moral nature which he has, thence he has this peculiarity and manner of that nature: viz., from the original Self-existing Being. This ideal is implanted in him; but if so, how can that Being, who has implanted an ideal, be other than Himself the fulfilment of it?

IN MEMORIAM

OF THE REV. SAMUEL RICKARDS, Rector of Stowlangloft, Suffolk.

[MENTION has been made of the author's power of drawing character. The following portrait is given, both as an example of the gift, and also for its own sake as the record of one whose friendship lives in the memory of those admitted to it, as one of the privileges of their lives. Between him and the author, many years his junior, there was the attraction of agreement and sympathy on the points that most occupied the thought of Churchmen during the eventful twenty years that preceded his death; which took place September 2, 1865.]

The death of Mr. Rickards of Stowlangtoft must be felt as a serious loss, not only in his own diocese, but in the Church at large, and especially in a wide intellectual circle, social, clerical, and academical, in which the thoughtful solidity of his mind, his strong judgment, his powers of criticism, his large information, and his conversational gifts were deeply appreciated. This high set of faculties were brought to bear mainly on religious subjects, but by no means to the exclusion of other subjects which naturally interest the scholar, and society generally. His was especially an independent mind. Intimately connected in early life with the leaders of an enthusiastic movement in the Church, he yet never allowed himself to be led by the impetus of other minds, or by his own sympathies with religious friends, a step further than his own judgment and perception approved. He did not bend to any standard

thrust upon him from without; he measured every religious party statement and aim by a criterion in his own mind, formed upon combined scriptural and ecclesiastical principles, as his own reading and thought and the authority of the great English divines had interpreted those principles. His standard was a comprehensive one, qualified by the rightful claims of doctrine ; and he possessed particularly the power of making a stand upon a ground taken. His aptness and readiness of expression, his presence of mind in anything like argumentative discussion, his sustained recollection of his own position in an argument, and the clearness with which he kept his point before him, eminently suited him for this defensive work, and this calm but strong hold of sober truth, amid opposite extravagancies. He was, however, pre-eminently aided in the exertion of this power by the extraordinary simplicity and sincerity of his religious character. Entirely unpresuming, and singularly guarded and watchful, he used, however, and benefited by the right which great purity of character gives the upright man-that, namely, of being conscious of his own uprightness, and deriving strength and vigour from that consciousness. He knew he had no selfish or private motive for anything he did, or any ground he maintained, and therefore he was perfectly unimpeded in the operations of his mind. Having given his heart to religion, and strong in the conviction that he had, he had no temptation to show his earnestness and the vigour of his Church principles by narrow and fanciful symbols. None saw with more acuteness the pettiness of mind, the pride, the self-aggrandising spirit, the dictatorial temper which works. under religious forms, and even enthusiastic impulses; his quiet discernment soon removed the veil from these religious manifestations, and disclosed the real man. As, on the other hand, none perceived more quickly a sterling character underneath the rough or even forbidding exterior. Fidelity to truth was combined with fidelity to friends, from whom difference of view did not in the least separate him. Man was not in his eyes simply the holder of opinions,-man was man. He loved through life and was loved by men of different theological views from his own; because the object of his affection was