the body, but for which they generally have no care. On the other hand, the good from the activity of the powers, as in loving and in worshipping, is an end in itself, and has no reference to anything beyond itself.

There is a third difference. We always feel ourselves at liberty to forego the enjoyment of pleasure, and respect ourselves when we do this for the sake of the good which comes from the activity of the powers, but never the reverse. These two are often, and to some extent naturally, opposed, and it is a part of the conflict of life to keep pleasure within its proper limits.

We have thus, from our susceptibilities, a good which we may call pleasure. From the activity of our powers, voluntary and moral, we have a good higher and different in kind, for which we need a distinctive name, but which we will here call happiness. This will differ with the powers, intellectual, æsthetic, moral, spiritual, which are in exercise. By these, taking cognizance practically, æsthetically, scientifically of the works of God, apprehending the character and wants of man, being brought into relation to the attributes and character of God, man is capable not only of the appropriate enjoyment from such cognitions, but also of putting forth in love all the activity of his nature for the good of the whole. What of good there may be from these can be known only by experience, but clearly it need be limited only by our capacity.

My own belief is that that part of our nature through which we have the highest good lies open to the direct action of the Spirit of God, as the susceptibilities do to that of the objects around us; that thus we may apprehend him directly; and that in his response to this, in love, man is capable of a good that is ineffable, and may be called "fulness of joy," or blessedness. The capacity for this I

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suppose as much belonged to man originally as his capacity for perceiving beauty.

The above distinctions are practical, and, from the tendency there is in men to seek pleasure in opposition to their higher good, are worthy of careful attention.

We now turn from this broad classification of good to inquire for the basis of one that is more exact. We speak of good as higher and lower, and we have an instinctive feeling that some forms of good are higher than others. Is there a criterion by which we may determine what is higher and what is lower?

In answering this question, I hope for indulgence if I enter upon a range somewhat wide. Moral science has usually been studied as isolated. My wish is to connect it with the laws of that physical system which not only supports man, but has its culmination in him. I wish to show that there runs through both one principle of gradation, and one law for the limitation of forces and activities, and so of the forms of good resulting from them. If this can be done, it will add to both physical and moral science the beauty of a higher unity than has commonly been noticed, and will show that there could have been but one author for both.

All good, and all arrangements conditional for good, are the result of some activity. They are in or from it. Arrangements conditional for good are the product of forces, good itself of faculties. A faculty is a force united to personality and subject to the control of the will. What we need to find, then, is a common law for the subordination and limitation of both forces and faculties.

This we find in their relation to each other as conditional and conditioned. The forces that are at work

around us and the faculties within us, from the lowest to the highest, may be ranked as higher and lower as they are or are not a condition one for another. That which is

a condition for another is always the lower.

In anything we may choose to examine, a house, or a portion of matter, we shall find some conceptions or properties that may be spared, and yet the thing continue to be that thing. But we may continue our analysis till we reach certain properties or conceptions which are indispensable, which underlie all others, and are conditional for that thing. So it is with solidity, or the occupation of space, in matter; so with the foundation of a house. These may be of no importance in themselves, but allimportant as conditions for something above them.

It is this relation of the forces of the universe and of their products to each other, as conditional and conditioned, that gives to it its unity. If its forces were diverse, it would not be a universe,—that is, if they were so diverse as to be free from this relation. Any being or thing conditioned upon nothing in the present system, and the condition of nothing, would be so utterly out of relation as to be alien from every conception of unity.

In seeking, then, for the law of subordination and limitation of the forces of the universe, we must begin at the lowest, and to find that, we must continue to drop from our conceptions of the universe every force and product that can be spared till we reach that which being taken away the universe would be dissipated, would become utter chaos, and so, having no unity, would cease to be a uniWhat is that force? Plainly it is the law of gravitation. By this, particles of matter that would otherwise be chaotic, are aggregated, and its masses move in harmony. This is a universal force. It is conditional for the

verse.

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activity of every other, and is the lowest of all. The product of this would be mere unsorted matter aggregated and moving in systems, and would be the lowest conception we could form of a physical universe. It would be the first approximation towards a good, the first step conditional for all others; for that which we find last in thus going back must have been first in the order of nature, if not of time.

Gravitation being thus given, what, in going down, is the last force we should have been obliged to drop before reaching this? What, in going up, would be the next step to fit matter for any use to which we can suppose it might be put? It would be to bring matter, chiefly of the same kind, into solid masses by what we call the attraction of cohesion. For this gravitation is plainly conditional, since matter must be aggregated before it can cohere. This gives us the next higher force.

The next force needed, for we will now pass up, is chemical affinity. By this, particles of matter having different properties are united, and form compounds. In the present state of our knowledge it cannot, perhaps, be proved that cohesion is always conditional for chemical affinity. If not, these two forces must be ranked with those groups to be spoken of hereafter. The compounds, however, formed by this force are conditional for the action of that power which we call life. The power of life assimilates nothing which has not previously entered into combination by this affinity.

Through the action of the three forces now mentioned we may have the conception of a world, inorganic, destitute of life, and having its unity solely from the fact that its forces are thus conditional and conditioned.

But the inorganic world is conditional for that which

is organic, and is under the control of that principle or force called life. And here, again, we have three great forces with their products. These are the vegetable, the animal, and the rational life.

Of these, vegetable life is the lowest. Its products are as strictly conditional for animal life as chemical affinity is for vegetable life, for the animal is nourished by nothing that has not been previously elaborated by the vegetable. "The profit of the earth is for all; the king himself is served by the field.”

Again, we have the animal and sensitive life, capable of enjoyment and suffering, and having the instincts necessary to its preservation. This, as man is now constituted, is conditional for his rational life. The rational life has its roots in that, and manifests itself only through the organization which that builds up.

We have, then, finally, and highest of all, this rational and moral life, by which man is made in the image of God. In man, as thus constituted, we first find a being who is capable of choosing his own end; or, rather, of choosing or rejecting the end indicated by his whole nature. This is moral freedom, and in this is the precise point of transition from all that is below to that which is highest. For everything below man the end is necessitated. Whatever choice there may be in the agency of animals of means for the attainment of their end, and they have one somewhat wide, they have none in respect to the end itself. This, for our purpose, and for all purposes, is the characteristic distinction, so long sought, between man and the brute. Man determines his own end; the end of the brute is necessitated. Up to man everything is driven to its end by a force working from without, or from behind; but for