cal, and whether it be up or down, will be a matter of no moment morally so far as the individual man is concerned. Hence Huxley, as if envious of the extreme position of Moleschott, can speak of "consciousness as a function of nervous matter."* And so, if Huxley were to be relied upon, thought, emotion, and choice are material products, just as the movements of the steam-engine, or the sound of the steamwhistle, or the shock of the electric battery. Professor Tait may well protest as he does in the following passage:-"But to say that even the very lowest form of life, not to speak of its higher forms, still less of volition and consciousness, can be fully explained on physical principles-i.e., by the mere relative motions and interactions of portions of inanimate matter, 66 * His words have the merit of being very plain when speaking of the intentions and hopes of science as such. Any one," he says, "who is acquainted with the history of science will admit that its progress has, in all ages, meant, and now more than ever means, the extension of the province of what we call matter and causation, and the concomitant gradual banishment from all regions of human thought of what we call spirit and spontaneity.” But is not this a libel on the bearing and belief of the most prominent scientific men of this or any other age? Is it a fair representation of the history of science? No; surely such names as Brewster, Faraday, Forbes, Herschell, Joule, Thomson, &c., cannot be forgotten. however refined and sublimated-is simply unscientific. There is absolutely nothing known in physical science which can lend the slightest support to such an idea. In a purely material system," he adds, "there is thus necessarily nothing of the nature of a free agent." It is instructive to notice how J. S. Mill, after a most strenuous effort to resolve mind into a "series of sensations," is obliged to pass on from stage to stage, till it is necessary to complete the statement by calling it a series of feelings which is aware of itself as past and future. "Itself?" Yes; that is what he calls the "final inexplicability." This final inexplicability, which is aware of itself as past and future, is rather a cumbrous and roundabout way of speaking of mind; but we accept it as the expression of defeat on the part of one of the ablest of those who have tried to resolve mind into brain and nerve currents. If our only road lies along the line of physical inquiry, we may indeed speak of "fathers of our flesh," but could never speak of the "Father of spirits." There is for us, however, a wider world of thought and fact than these narrow physical circles afford. The writer of the suggestive words which bring our heavenly Father so near to our thought is reasoning from the less to the greater, from our earthly parentage to our heavenly parentage, from the discipline which the finite and erring fathers of our flesh may deem necessary to the discipline which the Infinite and wise Father of our spirits may think good for us; and from the disposition which we should cherish to the lower to the obedience we should render to the higher. Delitzsch, in his Psychology, says "there can hardly be a more classical proof text for creationism;" and yet he proceeds, because of his avowed traducianism, to divest it of this acknowledged proof-power. But, waving all controversy meantime about the Divine methods, it is enough for our purpose that the spirit has its paternity in God. These higher and lower plains of Fatherhood solve the problems of our complex nature as many of our modern speculations must ever fail to do. We should altogether fail, however, to take with us the full meaning of this high relation, if, influenced by certain doctrines in psychology, we were to limit the words to one aspect of our conscious life, and make the word spirit refer simply to spiritual character. The contrast between fathers of our flesh and the Father of spirits would break down under the pressure of such an exegesis. It is quite true that God is the Author of all that is high and holy in man; that it is under His influence all the higher range of human faculties rise into saintly attitudes in His presence; that under His chastening hand heart and conscience start into new life; but the writer is dealing with a truth that logically and chronologically takes precedence of that. He is dealing with the very being, the very existence of that personal spirit that can receive and become responsive to such fatherly discipline in the interests of holy culture. It is the very manhood of man he is thinking of; man as he is made in God's image. It is that which, to use Mill's words, knows itself as related to past and future, and is the basis of all the possibilities of human character. How high all this is above mere nerve centres and nerve currents, let all the attainments of the soul declare. Assuming the veracity of consciousness, we know that the spirit that can rise into moral glory or sink into moral shame, and that can embody its thoughts, its feelings, and choices in literature and art, in highly organised states and devoted missionary churches, must be something that lies behind mere nerve force. It is easy of course to ask a great many wrong questions about spirits, and by the use of mechanical and physiological metaphors to hide from the mind all true conceptions of what spirit is as distinguished from flesh. La Place could not by searching the heavens find God. But, then, the telescope was not the fitting instrument to aid that search. Imagine the anatomist after a great deal of labour complaining that he cannot discover the mind. Through what medium does he expect the spirit to manifest itself? Confining himself strictly to his science, he has no instruments that fit him for such a discovery, as well look for stars through a stethoscope. "We are spirits clad in veils, Man by man was never seen, To remove the shadowy screen." The prevailing tendency to study mind by coming at it through physical organisation, is leading many into serious mistakes. Is not self-consciousness as real a thing as the brain or the backbone? Why not start, then, from that centre when we are dealing with thought, or with feeling, or with volition? Beyond doubt physiology has lamps which it may let |