If by morality is meant the morality generally recognised in Europe on the points of truthfulness, honesty, humanity, purity, self-devotion, kindness, justice, fellow-feeling, and not only recognised, but judged by a conscious superiority of reason and experience to be the right standard, as compared with other moralities-such as those of the Puritans, the monks, the Romans, the Hebrews-then I observe that, as a matter of fact and history, which to me seems incontrovertible, this morality has synchronised in its growth and progress with an historical religion, viz. Christianity. We are come to the end of eighteen of the most eventful and fruitful centuries of all, at least, that are known to us; and we are landed in what we accept as a purer morality than any which has been known in the world before, and one which admits itself not to be perfect, but contains in itself principles of improvement and self-purification. With this progress from the first, sometimes, I quite admit, with gross and mischievous mistakes, but always with deliberate aim and intention of good, Christianity has been associated. And in proportion as Christian religious belief has thrown off additions not properly belonging to it, and has aimed at its own purification and at a greater grasp of truth, the standard and ideas of morality have risen with it. The difficulty at this moment is to determine how much of our recognised morality, both directly and much more indirectly, has come from Christianity, and could not conceivably have come at all, supposing Christianity absent.

I do not here, in these few lines, assume that in Christianity and its long association with human morality we have a vera causa of its improved and improving character. But with this immense fact of human experience before me, unique, it seems to me, in its kind, . and in its broad outlines undeniable, no abstract reasonings can reassure me as to the probability that with the failing powers of what has hitherto been, directly or indirectly, the source of much, and the support and sanction of still more, of our morality, our morality will fail too. It seems to me quite as easy to be sceptical about morality as it is about religion. If the religion has been proved to be not true, then of course it is no use talking about the matter. But if not, a declining belief in it may, with our present experience, be thought, at least by those who believe in it, to be attacking the roots of morality, if not in our own generation, at least in those which come after.

It is matter of history that in what we now generally accept as true morality there are two factors:-(1) On the one hand, human experience, human reasonableness, human good feeling, human selfrestraint; and (2) on the other, the belief, the laws, the ideas, the power of Christianity. It is difficult to conceive what reason there is to expect that if one factor is taken away the result will continue the same: that the removal or weakening of such an important one

as Christianity would not seriously affect such departments of morals as purity, the relations of the strong to the weak, respect for human life, slavery.

THE DUKE OF ARGYLL.

Considering that these papers are contributed by men belonging to very different schools of thought, and that they deal with a question very abstract and very ill defined, it is surely very remarkable that so much agreement should emerge on certain fundamenta points.

Most remarkable of all, in this respect, is the paper emanating from one of those who follow the teaching of Comte.' In that paper I find the following propositions :

I. That morality is independent of theology; but

II. That it is not independent of religion, inasmuch as morality without religion cannot suffice for life.'

III. That religion means a scheme which (among other things) brings man face to face with a Power to which he must bow, with a Providence which he must love and serve, with a Being which he must adore-that which, in fine, gives man a doctrine to believe, a discipline to live by, and an object to worship.'

IV. That this scheme or conception of religion is new,' and differs from mere theology in the following distinctive points :

(1) That it avoids certain words or phrases, such as 'infinite,' 'absolute,'' immaterial.'

(2) That it avoids also all' vague negatives."'

(3) That it resolutely confines us to the sphere of what can be shown by experience of what is relative and not absolute,' and 'of what is wholly and frankly human.'

I will examine these propositions in their order.

Proposition I. clearly depends entirely on what is meant by theology, and on the distinction which is drawn in the propositions which follow between theology and religion. Two things, however, may be said of this proposition: First, that, as a matter of historical fact, men's conceptions of moral obligation have been deeply influenced by their conceptions and beliefs about theology, or about the 'whence and whither.' Secondly, that, as all branches of truth are and must be closely related to each other, it cannot possibly be true that morality is independent of theology, except upon the assumption that there is no truth in any theology. But this is an assumption which cannot be taken for granted, being very different indeed from the assumption (which may be reasonable) that no existing theology is unmixed with error. The absolute independence of morality as

regards theology, assumes much more than this; it assumes that there is no theology containing even any important element of truth.

Proposition II. is, I think, perfectly true.

Proposition III. contains a definition of religion which might probably be accepted by any theological professor in any of our schools of divinity as good and true, if not in all respects adequate or complete.

Proposition IV. defines the elements in all theologies which constitute their fundamental errors, and which distinguish them from religion as defined in Proposition III. In short, Proposition III. defines affirmatively what religion is; and Proposition IV. defines negatively what it is not. It adds also a few more affirmative touches to complete the picture of what it is.

Looking now at the erroneous theological elements which are to be thrown away, we find three words fixed upon as specimens of what is vicious. One of them is the Absolute." Most heartily do I wish it were abolished. More nonsense has been talked and written under cover of it than under cover of any other of the voluminous vocabulary of unintelligible metaphysics. It is admitted that the Absolute is unthinkable,' and things which are unthinkable had better be considered as also unspeakable, or at least be left unspoken. Next, immaterial' is another word to be cast away. The worst of this demand is, that the words material and immaterial express a distinction of which we cannot get rid in thought. I do know that the pen with which I now write is made of that which to me is known as matter; but I do not know that the ideas which are expressed in this writing are made of any like substance, nor even of any substance like the brain. On the contrary, it seems to me that these ideas cannot be so made, and that there is an absolute difference between thought and the external substances which it thinks about. This may be my ignorance, but until that ignorance is removed I must accept those distinctions which are founded on the experience and observation of my own nature, and I must retain words which are necessary to express them.

Then, as regards the word 'infinite,' in like manner, I cannot dispense with it, for the simple reason that the idea of infinity is one of which I cannot get rid, and which all science teaches me is an idea inseparable from our highest conceptions of the realities of nature. Infinite time and infinite space, and the infinite duration of matter and of force, are conceptions which are part of my intellectual being, and I cannot think them away.' Metaphysicians may tell me that they are forms of thought.' But if so they are at least all the more frankly human,' and I accept them as such.

Next we are to avoid 'vague negatives altogether.' Well, but surely a definition of religion as distinguished from theology, which consists in avoiding' certain terms, such as we have now examined, is a definition consisting of vague negatives' and of nothing else.

But then we come next to an affirmative definition: confining ourselves resolutely to the sphere of what can be shown by experience.' To this I assent, provided experience be not confined to the sphere of sense, and provided everything which any man has ever felt, or known, or conceived, be accepted as in its own place and rank, coming within the sphere which is thus described.

Again, it is demanded of us that we confine ourselves resolutely within 'what is relative and not absolute.' To this I assent. All knowledge is relative-relative both to the mind which knows, and relative also to all other things which remain to be known. Absolute goodness, and absolute power, and absolute knowledge are all conceivable, but they are all relative; and to talk of any object of knowledge, or of any subject of knowledge as non-relative, is, or seems to me to be, simply nonsense.

Lastly, it is demanded of us to confine ourselves to what is wholly and frankly human.' If this means that we are not to think of any Power or any Being who is not related to our human faculties in a most definite and intelligible sense, I accept the limitation. But if it means that we are not to think of any such Power or Being except under all the imperfections, weaknesses, and vices of humanity, then the limitation is one which I cannot accept either as conceivable in itself, or as consistent with what I can see or understand of nature.

But ought we not to be agreed in this? If there is a Power to which man must bow,' 'a Being which he must adore,' and a 'Providence which he must love and serve,' it is clearly impossible that this Being, Power, or Providence can be wholly human,' in the sense of being no greater, no wiser, no better than man himself.

The whole of this language is the language of theology and of nothing else-language, indeed, which may be held consistently with a vast variety of theological creeds, but which is inseparable from those fundamental conceptions which all such creeds involve, which is borrowed from them, and without which it has to me no intelligible sense.

With these explanations I accept the tenth paragraph of Paper No. IV., and that part of the last paragraph which has been already quoted, as expressing with admirable force and truth at least one aspect of the connection between morals and religion.

PROFESSOR CLIFFORD.

In the third of the preceding discourses there is so much which I can fully and fervently accept, that I should find it far more grateful to rest in that feeling of admiration and sympathy than to attend to points of difference which seem to me to be of altogether secondA A

VOL. I.-No. 2.

ary import. But for the truth's sake this must first be done, because it will then be more easy to point out some of the bearings of the position held in that discourse upon the question which is under discussion.

That the sense of duty in a man is the prompting of a self other than his own, is the very essence of it. Not only would morals not be self-sufficing, if there were no such prompting of a wider self, but they could not exist; one might as well suppose a fire without heat. Not only is a sense of duty inherent in the constitution of our nature, but the prompting of a wider self than that of the individual is inherent in a sense of duty. It is no more possible to have the right without unselfishness than to have man without a feeling for the right.

We may explain or account for these facts in various ways, but we shall not thereby alter the facts. No theories about heat and light will ever make a cold fire. And no doubt or disproof of any existing theory can any more extinguish that self other than myself, which speaks to me in the voice of conscience, than doubt or disproof of the wave-theory of light can put out the noonday sun.

One such theory is defended in the discourse here dealt with, and, if I may venture to say so, is not quite sufficiently distinguished from the facts which it is meant to explain. The theory is this: that the voice of conscience in my mind is the voice of a conscious being external to me and to all men, who has made us and all the world. When this theory is admitted, the observed discrepancy between our moral sense and the government of the world as a whole makes it necessary to suppose another world and another life in it for men, whereby this discord shall be resolved in a final harmony.

I fully admit that the theistic hypothesis, so grounded, and considered apart from objections otherwise arising, is a reasonable hypothesis and an explanation of the facts. The idea of an external conscious being is unavoidably suggested, as it seems to me, by the categorical imperative of the moral sense; and moreover, in a way quite independent, by the aspect of nature, which seems to answer to our questionings with an intelligence akin to our own. It is more reasonable to assume one consciousness than two, if by that one assumption we can explain two distinct facts; just as if we had been led to assume an ether to explain light, and an ether to explain electricity, we might have run before experiment and guessed that these two ethers were but one. But since there is a discordance between nature and conscience, the theory of their common origin in a mind external to humanity has not met with such acceptance as that of the divine origin of each. A large number of theists have rejected it, and taken refuge in Manichæism and the doctrine of the Demiurgus in various forms; while others have endeavoured, as aforesaid, to redress the balance of the old world by calling into existence a new one.