of a purely intellectual being-capable of apprehending and discovering truth-but without any impulse towards other, or extraneous activity. But all impulses to activity are, from their very nature, relative. They are not more surely experienced in the ME, than they regard the NOT-ME. All impulses to activity embrace an element of Desire, and the direction of activity is determined, very much, by the character and strength of our desires. 2nd, Purely intellectual truths-whilst they are relative, as well as our moral impulses, embrace the relations of things to the intellect alone. The intellect, considered purely by itself, is satisfied by their recognition as truths. Its demands go no farther. They can become motives, only by passing into the moral region. But motives to what? That will depend very much on the moral convictions, i.e., on the previous influence of moral truths on the mind. Suppose, for example, that a man, by the discovery of a new combination of chemical agents, effects such an improvement in bread-making, as, by a trifling outlay on a simple oven, &c., would enable the poor to prepare for themselves a more wholesome and nutritious loaf than the bakers supply, at a great saving of cost. Suppose, to give full publicity to the invention, would be equivalent to proffering the families of the poor an addition to their income of, say, L.2 a-year. A benevolent man would throw the invention open at once; a selfish man would protect it by patent, charging almost as much for each oven as the saving it would effect. The intellectual truth has, in each case, become a motive, but to conduct, how different in its effects on society! Yet, the truth apprehended, and its intellectual apprehension, is, in the case of each, precisely the same; the change takes place in that region of our nature where moral influences have play-where moral truths are recognised— where moral motives have power. With contrasts of this nature in actual life, the world has long been familiar. Robert Haldane devotes his fortune (a splendid estate) to the training of young men for the ministry and missions to the heathen; his contemporary, Lord Kennedy, dissipates his on the turf, spreading folly and demoralization through the community. Dr Chalmers consecrates his great talents to the service of God, and from that time forth a new direction is given to the history of a church and a nation. Lord Byron devotes his genius to his own glorification, and ends his literary career by writing "Don Juan.” But we need not multiply examples. Indeed, like contrasts will readily occur to every one from the field of his own observation and experience in common life.

But the reason, the only reason, assigned by Mr Buckle why, with the progress of civilization, the influence of moral truths must diminish relatively to the influence of intellectual truths is, that the former are "more stationary, and receive fewer additions than the latter." That moral truths should receive fewer additions than intellectnal truths results at once from their own nature, and the nature of their function. They are of the nature of principles, as contradistinguished from mere facts, or those fixed combinations of facts, which we term laws. As principles,

they are immutable, but, so far from being, on that account, practically stationary, it is therefore they are capable of an indefinitely extending application. The really pertinent question then is-Does their sphere narrow or widen with the progress of Civilization? The right direction in which to seek an answer to this question may be indicated by asking another. Do the relations of men in society become more simple or more various and complicated with the progress of civilization? Do their voluntary relations increase or diminish- -are they widened or circumscrib. ed? Mr Buckle is a zealous advocate of liberty. The progress of liberty is equivalent to affording men in society greater and greater scope for acting as they choose. In these circumstances there must be something to regulate choice-to restrain selfishness and passion. Something must come in the place of that Force or that Law, which in ruder states of society circumscribes and limits individual freedom. Is it the mere intellectual apprehension of truths, or may these become motives, one way or the other, according to the moral convictions which rule the individual and society? The power that comes in place of force and of law as society advances, is, we are told, Public Opinion. Largely it is so, we most readily grant. But what is Public Opinion? Is it made up of intellectual convictions simply? or of those pervaded and consolidated by moral convictions? Our physicists, and speculatists of the positive school, would indeed, fain eliminate the moral element from it, but what else is it which gives Public Opinion its force, -its authority. It is not that certain facts are truths merely, but that certain conduct is right, and that the opposite is wrong. Is not this true of all the advances in Public Opinion?-is it not, indeed, their distinctive mark? Religious persecution has ceased, because it was felt to be wrong. Slavery has been extinguished for the same reason. The Corn Laws were abolished because they were proved to be unjust. Parliament was reformed, because the limita tion of the Franchise was felt to be iniquitable.

The sphere of Public Opinion is ever widening, as the sphere of Force and of Coercive Law is narrowing. An extended knowledge of physical laws influences Public Opinion, and so does a purer taste. But a conviction of RIGHT is the most influential, as it is the most imperative element. The discovery of the "laws of phenomena," impels us to activity just in proportion to the good we expect to get out of our knowledge The direction our activity will take in turning our new knowledge to practical account, will, therefore depend on what we regard as the " GREATEST GOOD." Were the moral element eliminated from Public Opinion-as John Stuart Mill and Mr Buckle so earnestly desire - we should regard gratification, enjoyment-in a word-PLEASURE, as the greatest good, and pain as the great evil to be shunned. Taste and refinement, instead of acting as correctives of this low estimate, tend rather to fortify and strengthen it, as prompting us to avoid and avert whatever is disagreeable. The influence of this feeling has been distinctly to be seen for some

time, on our social manners, on our criminal legislation, and on our religious convictions. We shrink from giving pain, and from its contemplation as a punishment, even when we feel that it is deserved. In our social intercourse, our sense of duty is often not strong enough to make us utter disagreeable truths; we need not ask how it would be if all such sense of duty were extinguished.

But the social tendencies just referred to, serve to set in light the proper relative position of intellectual and moral truths-that as Civilization advances, the proper sphere for the latter does not narrow but widenthat the well-being and progress of society demand, not that their power should be relatively diminished, but correspondingly enhanced. As in every true man the influence of moral and religious motives becomes more deep, comprehensive, all-pervasive of his activity-of his very being-just as he advances in manliness, so must such influences become more deep, universal, all-pervasive in Society, as it advances in true Civilization. As Force and Law retire from the sphere of social life, social well-being demands that individual sense of duty, (which can live and thrive only in an atmosphere of sound and beneficent moral feeling), should fill and occupy their place.

IX.-DOUBT AND FAITH.

"BEFORE the investigation of physical phenomena can begin, a spirit of scepticism must arise, which, at first aiding the investigation, is afterwards aided by it." Such is Mr Buckle's theory of the genesis, function, and development of Doubt or Scepticism. Let us now look at this deeply momentous question, not with a view of direct controversy with Mr Buckle, but simply towards ascertaining the true state of the case.

"All things are double," saith the son of Sirach, and one (if not always, each,) of every pair implies the opposite. The Relative implies the Absolute. The Negative implies the Positive; bitter, sweet; pain, pleasure; evil, good; and Doubt, Faith. There can never be a negative without a positive, and the negative can never be broader or deeper than the positive. The depth of the shadow is always proportioned to the intensity of the light; and it is strictly and always dependent on that intensity. How faint the shadow cast by the moon, compared with the shadow cast by the sun!

Doubt has a great function. It bears a testimony, not else to be borne. Are we now afflicted with a Scepticism-a Pyrrhonism-more sweeping, all-devouring, than the world has ever before known? It only testifies to the wider sweep, the profounder reach of Faith. Doubt implies faith,

D

-implies faith preceding it, wherever it extends. Wherever doubt fixes, there faith has been before it. In view of these facts, we may look with the less surprise on the unprecedented sweep of Modern Doubt, with the less alarm on its unwonted prevalence. In both its pressure and its range it is the index of contemporary Faith. Nor this alone; it reacts on Faith as well as indicates it. It purifies, deepens, and strengthens that which it would subvert. The dependence of Doubt on Faith is yet farther seen in this, that its type, in any age, will be found corresponding to the prevalent type of Faith. Levity or seriousness will characterise Doubt, according as the Faith of the age is shallow or deep. Thus, the depth of tone, and moral earnestness of the scepticism of our time, as compared with the levity of the eighteenth century infidelity, only corresponds to the superior depth and earnestness of the living faith of the time. These conditions, which Doubt certainly observes, and cannot but obey, deserve to be marked, equally by the enlightened believer, as by the confident sceptic. To duly understand and appreciate them would relieve the one from much groundless anxiety, and check in the other, the weakness of much premature and vain-glorious triumph.

If we would judge rightly of Doubt, then, we must first recognise Faith. Faith stands contrasted to distinct knowledge and exact science. Its soundings are deeper, as its reaches are higher. Its domain is outlying. It deals with the Intangible, the Unseen; with the unstoried Past, the illimitable Future. Faith is thus, from its nature, liable to error. It has a vast open side, by which it is ever in danger of passing off into credulity. Doubt, in its initial stage, is a call on Reason to test the validity of Faith. What we regard as Faith may be only Credulity; and it is the normal (and inestimable) function of Doubt to explode credulity. But a function, delicate, in proportion to its value. A mental exercise full of peril, as the truth, and the interests at stake, are momentous. Doubt will attend a living advancing Faith, as the shadow attends the moving body. Faith may be but a dim instinct, a blind following, till it pass through that sifting, verifying, process. We do not say that those who have never doubted cannot believe, but they can give no account to others or themselves of the grounds of their Faith.

Thus prepared to find the activity of Doubt commensurate with that of Faith, if not to recognise it as a necessity that it should be so, we now inquire-What it is that will keep Doubt to its normal function, and preserve it from attacking what it belongs to it only to ascertain and purify? A difficult inquiry, truly; one demanding, in order to a clear answer, a distinct discrimination of the sphere and functions, respectively, of Faith and Reason. A task this not to be formally entered on here; not to be attempted in more than the barest indication.

The sensuous understanding is the instrument of exact science; and, in the case of the well instructed, Faith here gives place to knowledge, as science extends. In the uninstructed, Credulity covers Nature, so

far as Nature elicits any mental exercise at all. Nature abhors a vacuum, and, in the infancy of science, superstition held in possession vast fields from which it has now been wholly dislodged. Not merely so; superstition has retreated from a much wider space than science has yet occupied. Before the instructed eye its half-luminous mists have cleared away from her deepest recesses and her far horizon. The temper of scientific men now is, to admit nothing but distinct knowledge-to accept nothing that cannot be proved.

A sound and healthy state of mind where the sensuous understanding is the proper organon. But, are we, therefore, to conclude that it is superstition or credulity to accept anything that cannot be proved? That conclusion would be warranted only by our being perfectly sure that there is nothing in the universe but what can be weighed, measured, or computed. But so far from being sure of this, we know that there are things which cannot; know it in the most intimate form of all knowledge-it is matter of consciousness. Who shall measure the force of love or of hatred, sound the depths of sorrow, or limit the compass of enjoyment! Here is something which we know refuses to come within the compass of our scientific formulæ ; something—much—of what makes up the daily inner life of ourselves and our innumerable fellows of the human family. We cannot deny it, we dare not doubt it; or we may as well doubt our own existence. And this, which is so deeply real in ourselves, may there not be such Reality elsewhere? Similar consciousnesses to ours, but of higher powers and wider scope? Is it credulity to conclude there may be such, or to believe there are such, as it is credulity to believe, for example, in the existence of centaurs or satyrs? If we make it a question of experience, in the sense of the sceptic, we find that the one conclusion is quite in harmony with our experience, while the other is not.

We here arrive at a point of view from which Existence is seen separating into two vast domains-the domain of Nature, which is the field of Science, and the domain of Consciousness, which is the field of Philosophy and Faith. In regard to the first, it is a sound canon to hold our knowledge always subject to scientific correction, and accept conclusively only what is scientifically established. But, apply this canon to consciousness, and what ensues? That we can have no certainty beyond our own, and no scientific certainty even there. If we will accept nothing save the conclusions of exact science, we must, as regards the highest order of existence, that of rational being, be for ever shut up within the narrow sphere of consciousness and observation. In regard to Nature, science carries us much deeper and much higher than observation, but in regard to living consciousness, it can never carry us further. Yet here is a world to which our deepest instincts point; to which our highest and noblest aspirations tend. Whether we send our thoughts backwards or forwards, we soon pass the bounds of the observed and