of the creature; and the third, as inconsistent with the conditions of moral life.

7. If then we can see no way in which moral beings could certainly be guarded against an outbreak of moral evil, why did the Sovereign Being not visit with the punishment of destruction any moral agent who voluntarily destroyed the harmony of the moral world? This is the final form of a mystery, which is insoluble from the lower side of existence, and whose solution can lie only in the heights of Absolute Being.

IV. THE FUTURE STATE. (IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.)

1. With an Absolute Being as the Great First Cause, the final problem of the Metaphysic of Ethics concerns the question of future existence for ourselves as moral beings. Having moral life from him, what is our destiny? What are the rational expectations which may be formed as to a life beyond the present state? The immediate occasion for the question is the fact that there is a limit beyond which the present life cannot be continued. In seeking its answer, we must consider first the facts out of which the question arises, and afterwards the relation of the Absolute Being to the problem.

2. The facts which point towards the termination of our present state of existence are connected with our physical nature, not with our mental. In physical life, there is a progression of bodily development until maturity is reached, after which there is gradual decay. But in mind, there is the law of progress, without evidence of the same law of decay. That our nature is one, and that weakness of body can entail restraint upon mental action, are admitted facts; but the latter places the source of restraint in the body, not in the mind. Besides, the body may be dismembered and the mind continue active as before. The phenomena of consciousness connected with amputation are of interest here. But chief importance attaches to the contrast between the facts of physi

cal and mental life during the infirmities of age. At such a time, when the recollection of the occurrences of the day is difficult, recollections of events which happened threescore years before, are vivid and exact. Such facts point towards the possibility of continued existence of the spirit, apart from the body. See Taylor's Physical Theory of Another Life.

3. Besides these, the facts of our moral life seem to warrant a conclusion to the certainty of a future state. If there be moral obligation and responsibility, their full significance can be realized only in another state of being, where account of moral actions can be rendered. On this line of reflection, it is legitimate to conclude that the future state must be one of rewards and punishments. But the argument does not rest on what Comte has called 'the police consideration of a Future State,'-Philos. Positive, Martineau's Transl. II. 165; a consideration which is the legitimate logical accompaniment of the utilitarian and necessitarian view of responsibility, as expressed by Mr. Mill, 'Supposing a man to be of a vicious disposition, he cannot help doing the criminal act, if he is allowed to believe that he will be able to commit it unpunished,' Exam. 575; a consideration all trace of which is lost under a transcendental universalism, such as that of Spinoza or Hegel. I am not, however, looking along the line of a 'police consideration' of restraint, but along the line of higher intellectual and ethical possibilities, where, in full harmony with obligations held sacred here, the spiritual achievements of the present life will remain as a personal possession, whose real worth shall find acknowledgment from the Absolute Ruler. The argument, resting on our conception of perfection of character yet to be attained, our progress towards it, our aspiration after it, finds, in all these considerations, warrant for anticipating that the Future which obligation implies, must afford scope for the realization of the possibilities after which we aspire.See specially the very striking passages towards the close of the Apologia of Socrates, preserved by Plato.

4. While the most prominent facts of our life thus combine to support the belief that there is for man a great Future, there is nothing which logically warrants an inference to Immortality of existence. Such a conclusion can be sustained neither from the immateriality of the soul, the favourite logical basis-see Dr. S. Clarke's Answer to Dodwell, with Defences ;— nor from the ceaseless motion of the soul, as with Plato in the Phædrus;-nor from the ideas of abstract beauty, goodness, and magnitude, as in the Phado;-nor from the nature of the soul as a simple being, as argued by Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) in his Phädon. Mendelssohn's Phädon is a Dialogue after the Platonic model, preceded by a sketch of the character of Socrates, first published at Berlin, 1767, which reached a fifth edition in 1814, and is criticised by Kant, Kritik der Rein. Vernf., Meiklejohn's Transl. p. 245. The finite, since it is not the self-sufficient, cannot afford an argument towards immortality. The nature which is dependent upon the Absolute Being for its origin, must be dependent on his will for its continuance. While, therefore, Futurity of Existence is clearly involved in the facts of the present life, Eternity of existence must depend upon the Divine Will, and can be known only as matter of distinct revelation, not as matter of metaphysical deduction. All that is greatest in us points towards an immeasurable future. Thither we must look for the solution of many of our dark problems, and for that purity and grandeur of personal life unknown in the present state. But Immortality, if it be ours, must be the gift of God. Over the best intellect, if it be restricted to pure speculation, must hang the great uncertainty which found utterance in the closing words of the Apology of Socrates,'The hour to depart has come,-for me to die, for you to live; but which of us is going to a better state is unknown to every one except to God, άδηλον παντὶ πλὴν ἢ τῷ Θεῷ.

APPLIED ETHICS.

THE application of psychological and metaphysical conclusions to personal and social life is a task so much more simple than that of discovering the fundamental positions of the science, that the main points belonging to this division of the subject may be presented in brief outline.

The great leading questions here requiring attention are, the formation of moral character, the guidance of individual life, and the regulation of social life. To touch upon the more essential points involved in the disposal of these questions, is all that can be attempted in such a Handbook as the present. Connected especially with Sociology there is a vast range of intricate inquiry which cannot be embraced here.

I. LAWS WHICH REGULATE THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER.

1. Character, as distinct from nature, is an established order of disposition which by development gradually acquires strength, in accordance with the rules of life most commonly acted upon. Its measure is found in the prevailing dispositions; the standard of measurement, in the moral law. Character is, therefore, good or bad, according as the reigning dispositions are in harmony with Conscience, or antagonistic to its authority. In accordance with the law of development,

character may assume a selfish or benevolent, an upright or a dishonest type. The goodness temporarily manifested in a single action, may find an abiding representation in the disposition which prompts the moral agent readily to reproduce such forms of action when opportunity offers. The morally right disposition by development gains strength, and acquires an aptness to exert its influence which places it more at the command of the person.

2. Dispositions which incline the mind to duty are named Virtues. There are, then, as many virtues in the perfect human character as there are natural dispositions declared to be morally right, and fitted for influencing conduct in fulfilment of moral law.

3. The laws which regulate the formation of moral character are concerned with two distinct spheres-the one, intellectual or guiding, the other, operative or executive; the one concerned with deciding what is right, the other with doing it. The law of Association rules in the one case, the law of Habit in the other.

4. THE LAW OF ASSOCIATION, which provides generally for facility in retaining and recalling knowledge, enables us to classify actions and dispositions as right and wrong, that we may act upon the classification, without needing to test its accuracy on each occasion. In this we are naturally helped, as Herbert Spencer and others have maintained, by the moral convictions which have prevailed before our own time. The results of the observation and experience of previous generations are necessarily transmitted. But on no basis of ethical philosophy can it be warrantable that the moral judgments prevalent in society, whether in our own time or in earlier ages, should have unquestioning submission.

5. THE LAW OF HABIT, as concerned with our activity, is most important in the formation of character. It provides for greater facility in action by frequent repetition of the act. It must not be confounded with the law of Custom. Under