economy of grace. For the present, we must concern ourselves with the former: What is sin?

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To this question St. John, in his First Epistle (iii. 4), gives a brief and instructive answer: Sin is lawlessness.' Having this answer, we might go on at once to ask: And what is the law.' But we must pause. In human jurisprudence, that which is legal is not always right. Laws themselves, not infrequently, are utterly wrong. Our English forms of legal procedure have ever recognised a distinction between jus and lez, between law and equity. festly, human laws are referable to a higher standard. And the Scriptures themselves testify concerning the Divine law, that it is holy, and the commandment holy, and just and good.' What, then, is this ultimate standard which seems to be presupposed in all law? What is right? This very old question appears to involve three distinct enquiries: What 'right' is? When is anything right? What things are right? To the first it has been correctly answered that 'right' is not an entity. It has no concrete, separate existence. The term expresses the quality,

rightness'; and this implies agreement with a duly-authorized standard. In order to answer the second and third enquiries, we must determine the ultimate standard of appeal in matters of morality. But this, of necessity, leads us to the battle-field of the philosophies. And yet to call it a battle-field scarcely agrees with the scene before us. It is a mêlée, most difficult to describe and most carefully to be avoided. Our observations shall be as brief as possible. Truth and morality are essentially connected. The moral agent must be guided by his knowledge of duty and responsibility. Hence the sciences of mental and moral philosophy are inseparably intertwined. To one who wishes to know accurately the

ultimate standard of appeal in morals, the question as to the sources whence and the means by which knowledge may be obtained, is of the utmost importance. Around this question the conflict has raged, and its fierceness has been in proportion to the confusion.

So far as any classification of the combatants is possible in mental philosophy, they may be regarded as holding one of two conflicting theories concerning the sources of knowledge. On the one side may be placed those who affirm that all knowledge of the not-self is derived entirely from the not-self as the result of experience. These are the experimentalists. On the other side are those who, whilst they admit the foregoing theory as to things in general, contend that there is also a knowledge of the not-self, independent of and prior to experience.

The former of these two theories admits of several modifications. Experience is a term of wide application. It includes all the phenomena of consciousness, whether they belong to the outer or to the inner life, attendant upon reflection or external observation. External observation may be carried on personally or by proxy. The results of observation by proxy become our own by means of testimony; and when we accept the experience of another in place of our own observation, then we know -by faith we know.' This is the source of by far the greater part of knowledge, for every man and in every science.

The forms of experimental philosophy greatly differ. It will suffice if we distinguish three of them. The materialist identifies 'self' with a sensitive material organism having its environment of matter, by whose varying influences it is variously affected. The effects so produced are, individually, 'sensations'; and in their combined result, 'knowledge.' So I understand the teaching. I do

not stay to discuss it, since it lies not in our pathway. The sensationalist, when not a materialist, recognises the sensitive organism and the material environment, together with its varying influences. But he also recognises a conscious self, as distinct from the ever-changing material organism with which it is associated. He recognises mental activity in perception, and deduces laws of thought, as he does laws of matter, from the results of his observations. He may do all this, and more, and yet remain a pure sensationalist. He might acknowledge the reality of an external Divine revelation, and still maintain, as the law of life for man, that the knowing self derives all its knowledge from experience, without the intervention of any mental activity other than its own.

These, however, do not exhaust the resources of the experimental philosophy. There is another school as definite as any, and one which, possibly, is of all the philosophies the nearest to truth. Between the knowing self, with its mental activity and material organism, and the not-self, this third theory interposes the mental activity of the knowing not-self. In other words, between the learner and the lesson it recognises the living teacher, whether human or Divine. Of this essential link between the unconscious babe and the stores of truth which surround it, we must speak again.

The intuitional philosophy was expounded sufficiently for our present purposes in the Fernley Lecture for 1879. We are there told that 'our intuitions of time, space and causality are born with us, but lie hidden till developed by experience. So our moral intuitions are born with us, but need to be deepened, defined and authorized by God's revelation of Himself in providence and grace.' Thus men possess 'an innate consciousness of the distinc

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tion between right and wrong.' This common moral consciousness makes known to every child of man 'what "right" is,' so that any definition of right is unnecessary.' (P. 3.) But we are also told that 'man's conscious energies appear in the three forms of intelligence, feeling, and will and desire. They are the workings of faculties which themselves remain in unconsciousness. The hidden preparedness for conscious activity is what is termed the constitution.... The conscious energies are the outcome of the unconscious constitution.' (P. 22.) Manifestly there is some confusion here in the use of terms. The new-born infant has no 'conscious energies,' so far as we can discover. Indeed, it is allowed that its innate intuitions 'lie hidden until developed by experience.' They are, therefore, merely 'faculties, and belong to the unconscious constitution.' But how can an innate consciousness of a distinction' 'lie hidden' 'in unconsciousness'? How can there be a consciousness of a distinction' when there is no knowledge of the things distinguished? If, indeed, it is meant that in the original constitution of the soul there are latent possibilities which experience afterwards develops into faculties for the perception of truth and the reception of knowledge; or if it is meant that the faculties are themselves there and need only to be called into exercise, then these opinions are by no means peculiar to intuitionalism; nor do they concern only the ideas of time, space and causality. They are equally true as to form, colour, harmony, the properties of rectilineals and of curves. But if it is held that the infant possesses any innate knowledge whatsoever, the whole theory is unproven and is contrary to experience. Time, space and causality' are no more 'entities' than are 'right' and 'wrong.' None of these terms have

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any meaning apart from concrete things and their perceived relationships. Right cannot be morally distinguished except by one who can appreciate action and responsibility, an acknowledged standard and divergencies from that standard. Mr. French admits that experience and revelation are essential. How is it proved that these innate intuitions,' so-called, have any existence apart from experience and revelation? Historically, the ideas of time, space and causality are the outcome of patient and prolonged instruction. And the common moral consciousness,' which is supposed to be the possession of every child of man, is never found except as awakened, directly or indirectly, by the Living Teacher. It is misleading to say that 'the supernatural everywhere presupposes the natural and builds upon it.' The supernatural lays its own foundation and rears its own superstructure. The light of nature,' as it is called, which no one would wish to put out, is itself' not merely 'a sort of natural revelation.' It is rather to be recognised as an actual, however partial, revelation of God in and to the soul of man, restored to him by Divine energy, as a part of 'the free gift' which hath come upon all men unto justification of life.'

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It seems to me, therefore, that Mr. French yields unnecessarily and somewhat too hastily, when he admits that as soon as our mental and moral constitution is viewed, as modified by supernatural influences, the philosopher oversteps his province and enters that of the divine.' (P. 73.) For if this be so, then the craft of the mental and moral philosopher is at an end. If he may not view human nature as modified by supernatural influences, he cannot view it at all. Man is born in sin,' and therefore with nothing 'innate,' except what is in accord

ance with his fallen condition. 'In me, that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good.' The thoughts of the imaginations of his heart are only evil, continually.' But what man is as thus 'born,' no one can by observation determine; for no sooner does he become a member of the race, than the redemption-grace brings him into direct relations with the Spirit of God. From that moment onwards his mental and moral life is modified by supernatural influences.' No system of mental and moral philosophy, therefore, can be accepted as reasonable if it ignores the facts set forth in Scripture, or refuses to recognise the presence and influence of the superhuman. It is not a question about original mental constitution, undeveloped faculties, mental activity in perception, and fixed laws of thought. Recognising all these, it may still be true that our knowledge of the not-self is derived entirely from the not-self as the result of experience, and chiefly through the mediation of the knowing not-self, the living teacher. securing this result, the parent, the tutor and the prophet are, or should be, the ministers of God. mately, He is His own interpreter. To Him we look for our standard of appeal. Has He made it known?

In

Ulti

It must be carefully noted that we are seeking the standard of 'rightness' for man. I emphasize this, because Mr. French says that if we would consider the term "rectitude" as a quality of the mind, or the term "right" as a notion that comes before the mind-we can only do so by placing the created and the uncreated side by side,and by affirming the absolute identity of the distinction between right and wrong in God and in man.' (P. 2.) Now, supposing that the intellectual feat could be accomplished, the affirmation could not truthfully be made. That which is 'right' for the Creator