will in which we aim earnestly at the best possible conduct is the only one in which Moral Intuitions are clearly heard. The one faculty of the soul only works freely when its corresponding wheel meets it truly and turns readily. Every man's memory will supply instances wherein the solution of some moral problem seemed to him impossible so long as he presented it to his mind in the formula “ What are my utmost rights in the matter?" "How little need I do in conscience to benefit my neighbour?" But all difficulty disappeared when at the feet of the Father of Lights he asked "What is my highest duty in the case? How much can I do to benefit my brother and please my God?"

Our second question has now been answered. The Moral Law has been found in the Intuitions of the Human Mind. These Intuitions are natural, but they are also revealed. Our Creator wrought them into the texture of our souls to form the ground-work of our thoughts, and made it our duty first to examine and then to erect upon them by reflection a true Science of Morals. But He also continually aids us in such study, and He increases this aid in the ratio of our obedience. Thus Moral Intuitions are both Human and Divine, and the paradoxes in their nature are thereby solved. All that in them is Human Reflection is fallible, open to all the errors of false logic and the inevitable imperfection of inaccurate language." All that in them is Divine Inspiration is capable of indefinite approach to infallibility in proportion as we defecate our souls of the gross atmosphere which dims and distorts the light of Heaven.†

*

* Δεῖν γὰρ περὶ αὐτὰ ἕν γέ τι τούτων διαπράξασθαι, ἢ μαθεῖν ὅπῃ ἔχει ἢ εὑρεῖν, ἡ εἰ ταῦτα ἀδύνατον τὸν γοῦν βέλτιστον τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων λόγων λαβόντα καὶ δυσεξελεγκτότατον, ἐπὶ τούτον ὀχούμενον, ὥς περ ἐπὶ σχεδίας κινδυνεύοντα διαπλεῦσαι τὸν βίον, εἰ μή τις δύναιτο ἀσφαλέστερον καὶ ἀκινδυνότερον ἐπὶ βεβαιοτέρου οχήματος ἢ λόγου θείου τινὸς διαπορευθέναι.—ΦΑΙΔΩΝ.

† "Human reason is feeble, and may be deceived; but true faith cannot be deceived."-THOMAS À KEMPIS, c. xviii.

CHAPTER III.

THAT THE MORAL LAW CAN BE OBEYED.

"WHAT are thou?" saith Epictetus. "A living soul chained to a decaying carcase. - MARCUS ANTONINUS, Medit. b. iv.

"Oh, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death? "With the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. The creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God.— Romans, vii. and viii., v. 24., et seq.

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THE Senses of man inform him of Phenomena; they represent to him the appearances of things. The Understanding of man regulates and orders the impressions conveyed by his Senses, and combines them in the identity of consciousness.

The world of Phenomena, revealed to us by the Senses, and apprehended by the Understanding, is governed by a fixed mechanism of laws, producing an unbroken chain of causes and effects.

Man, as an inhabitant of this phenomenal or sensible world (Homo phenomenon), is subject to the mechanism and necessity of the laws which govern it.

But neither the Senses nor the Understanding can reveal to us "things in themselves," the substances beneath all appearances, the unknown noumena which must underlie all phenomena, and which cannot again be phenomena.

*

The pure Reason of man alone enables him to cogitate the existence of this supersensible world of noumena. It supplies the Intuitions which enable him to predicate it, and disjoins the sensible and supersensible systems.

Of the nature and laws of this world of noumena it is impossible that we should know anything; the very grounds on which we predicate its existence being the necessity for somewhat below that which our senses can reveal as affecting them. Nevertheless, having assumed its existence, we perceive that it must contain the last ground of the world of

* "Of things absolutely or in themselves we know nothing, or know them only as incognizable; and we become aware of their incomprehensible existence only as this is indirectly revealed to us through certain qualities related to our faculties of knowledge. All that we know is therefore phænomenal, phænomenal of the unknown.”—Discussions on Philosophy by SIR W. HAMILTON, p. 608., Appendix.