Himself out from all access to them. And, as with the influence which one human mind exercises over another, so the Divine operation is to be regarded as taking place in entire harmony with the laws of our mental and moral freedom. The supreme design, indeed, of all the spiritual aid sought and imparted in prayer, is to restore and enlarge that freedom. In a word, all Nature, rightly understood, is in prayer. "The eyes of all wait upon Thee." Every earnest supplication which is uttered illustrates, and harmonizes with, all the laws of man's nature. Every such prayer answered, illustrates all the perfections of the Divine nature. Is it wonderful, then, that the feeling of the necessity of prayer should be absolutely universal ; that man's "heart and flesh should cry out for the living God?" The great mystery of goodness lies in the appointment or principle of the efficacy of prayer: the existence of the appointment itself is a fact, an ultimate fact.

16. Whence arises our idea of a moral quality in actions? We can trace the diversified relations in which we stand to cach other, and to God. We may be able to show that certain lines of virtuous conduct towards the different beings to whom we are related, are more advantageous than any others. And from this perception we may derive a powerful motive to pursue such conduct. But quite distinct from this motive of advantage, and prior to it, there arises in the mind a feeling of obligation that certain states of mind in relation to them are right, and ought to be manifested. And this feeling, springing up unbidden, and antecedent to all knowledge of consequences, we can only regard as an ultimate fact of our moral constitution.

17. Our idea of immortality possesses the same ultimate character. Arguments, metaphysical and moral, are adducible in its support. But the belief of it exists prior to the argument, and independently of it. The conception of it seems easy and inevitable. The yearning expectation comes up from the depth and ground of our nature. The bare imagination of its opposite produces a sense of sudden recoil. Everything within and around us appears to presuppose the fact, and to take it for granted.

18. Moral evil, also, viewed subjectively, must be regarded as an ultimate fact. Made possible by the freedom of the will, it became actual by the determination of the will. No outward influence can account for its origination. The tempter himself is a tempter only, furnishing merely the occasions of evil. Evil has its seat and strength in the will. It is, as we shall hereaf

ter have occasion to show, an act of the will, which was meant to subsist in harmony with the will of God, but which aims at self-subsistence in opposition to Him.

19. And thus we find that every part of our constitution, from the elementary atom to the sense of moral obligation, points directly to an ultimate fact. Take whatever branch of inquiry we may, and begin with whatever part of it we will, we soon find ourselves verging on the region of metaphysical research. A single question, on the most familiar subject, may land us in it. We are always moving near the point where, if explanation be sought, a principle has to be presupposed. The contingent asks for the necessary. the conditioned for the unconditioned. Matter and motion, organization and life, nerves and sensation, the subjective and the objective, both of these and their cause, physical dependence and moral freedom, prayer and its power, an action and its obligation, contingent existence and immortality, a conditioned nature and sin- each of the two members in these successive steps (and others might be named*) can be shown to be reasonable; but the nexus which binds them in harmony together, baffles our perception in every instance. Yet all these ultimate facts were involved in the constitution of the first human being. Most of them, as far as the earth is concerned, came into existence with him, or were originated in his person. The great mysteries already involved in the conjunction of Freedom and Purpose in the Divine mind, and of Creative mind with created matter in the Divine conduct, were now made manifest in a being whose constitution combined matter and spirit, and whose conduct reconciled liberty and law; and who, in this new and lofty sense, was the image of God.

*Such as thought, in its relation to language; the power of belief which evidence presupposes but cannot create; and the ideal beauty which nature suggests but does not realize.

CHAPTER XVI.

NECESSARY TRUTHS.

1. FROM the ultimate facts of man's nature and condition, let us ascend to the necessary truths on which they repose, and in which they have their ground; from the contingent expressions of the Divine will, to the Infinite Nature of which that will itself is the expression. Considered as mere phenomena, the existence of all the objects and events in the created universe is entirely contingent on the sovereign will of God. Considered as ultimate facts, they are contingently necessary; necessary on the supposition of the phenomena having been called into existence, but only on that supposition. While these ultimate facts themselves presuppose truths, or principles, which are purely and absolutely necessary.

2. We have already remarked on the nature of necessary truth,* as that which is, and must be true, and the opposite of which is metaphysically inconceivable. We say metaphysically inconceivable as distinguished from that educational inconceivableness of a thing which has sometimes pronounced a truth impossible in one age, and its reverse inconceivable in a succeeding age of better information. By the former, we mean that inconceivableness which arises from the constitution of the mind; by the latter, that which is derived from the mere strength of the opposite associations, and the modification of which is always conceivable and possible.

3. "Even those philosophers who profess to derive all our knowledge from experience, and who admit no universal truths of intelligence but such as are generalized from individual truths of fact even these philosophers are forced virtually to acknowledge, at the root of the several acts of observation from which their generalization starts, some law or principle to which they can appeal as guaranteeing the procedure, should the validity of these primordial acts themselves be called in question."† When Mill, for example, inquires, "How can we imagine an end to space or time?" and endeavors to account for its inconceivableness by stating, that as "we never saw any object without something beyond it, nor experienced any feeling without * Supra, p. 55.

† Sir W. Hamilton's Diss. on Reid, p. 743.

something following it; therefore, when we attempt to conceive the last point of space, we have the idea irresistibly raised of other points beyond it; and when we try to imagine the last instant of time, we cannot help conceiving another instant after it," he is, in effect, surrendering the all-sufficiency of experience. The "irresistible idea," and the conception which we "cannot help," are laws of intellect. Far as experience may carry us, these laws go "beyond," and transcend it. Experience only suggests the existence of space by revealing the existence of the objects contained in it; but from the instant the idea of space is awakened, the intellect cannot think it non-existent. The objects contained in it we can, in thought, annihilate; but who can think of space except as existent? We feel that it exists independently of the mode in which we conceive of it; independently even of there having been any created minds to conceive of it at all; that it exists necessarily.

4. It may be proper to repeat here, that every necessary truth is characterized by universality; which is only saying that a truth which could be shown to be not necessary for one mind, would, by that very fact, be proved to be not necessary for any mind. As necessary, also, a truth is primary or original; neither dependent on, nor derived from, any anterior truth. And, therefore, inexplicable; for if we could explain why or how it is, that explanation itself would be the prior and primary truth. While its certainty is such, that the certainty of every subordi nate truth of the same class depends on it.

5. But what are the metaphysical principles which possess these characteristics of necessary truth? Without proposing to give a full enumeration of them, we have already specified four; and have stated the ground of our selection—namely, that they are such as are presupposed by the very possibility of a Divine manifestation such as must have been present to the mind of the Creator as the absolute conditions of a creation. All body must be in space: then the creation of the universe presupposes the space in which it exists; and although no eye had ever opened in it, no atom ever floated through it, the non-existence of space is inconceivable. Every succession must be in time; then, for the same reason, duration must have existed prior to, and independently of, the creation, for it is an indispensable condition of its existence. Everything which begins to exist must have an efficient cause: the contrary is inconceivable.

* System of Logic, vol. i. p. 317.

Even Hume did not deny that the notion of Cause was indispensable in relation to all natural knowledge. The bare conception of a creation presupposes the power adequate to cause it; and a power, therefore, which must have existed even apart from the actual causation of the material universe. Every substance implies attributes or properties, and every property implies a substance. The one cannot be thought of without implying the other. The properties of the objective universe imply a subjective, of which they are the manifestation. Matter presupposes spirit. And thus we ascend from that causative Will of which creation is the effect, to that Divine Nature of which the properties or characteristics of creation are the revelation.

6. This leads us to speak of other truths as necessary, truths which, as presupposed by the very possibility of a Divine manifestation, are independent of it. Every contingent determination implies moral freedom, and freedom implies the power of contingent determination. The Divine determination to create man, presupposes the power of abstaining from such a purpose; otherwise the determination would result from a necessity or fate, the very opposite of freedom; or, rather there could be no room for any determination on the subject. Then, the freedom which this purpose implies would have existed, and could not but exist, even if man- - at once its proof and its image- had never been called into being. How this freedom is compatible with that moral necessity or certainty which the Divine Perfection is under, of choosing always that which is best, is not the point before us. Both the freedom and the certainty are primary and necessary truths each in its own peculiar sphere; and, if primary, they cannot admit of demonstration, since there can be nothing by which to demonstrate them. The only point of their coincidence is in that Personal perfection which makes them both equally necessary.

7. The distinction between right and wrong is another immutable truth. Men may differ slightly respecting the application of the terms, but the antithesis between the ideas is a universal conception. They may neglect to apply it to certain classes of actions and affections; but the oracle from on high no sooner commands it than the voice within repeats the command. Its reality is recognized in the structure of all languages. So far from being created by law, it is itself a lawgiver. Laws presuppose it, and are good only as they utter its mandates. Its throne is higher and older than Sinai itself, to which it has to