lies its true nature and requirements, there is sacrilege indeed. If the family-life is to be a channel of grace to the children, it must be purified and sweetened by the spirit of Christ.

3. It seems to me eminently desirable that we should better understand and more heartily believe in household-baptism and in the great and precious truths-none greater, none more precious-which it represents, namely: the redemptive purpose and effect of the organic law of the family; the sanctifying power of Christian parenthood, and the true meaning of the sacra ments as signifying not primarily something which we do and thereby publish before men, but as signifying something which God does for us and offers to us in the grace of the gospelsigns and seals" of the gift of life bestowed in Jesus Christ our Lord.

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VII.

EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.

ESSENCE AND EXTENT OF THE MORAL.

The idea of morality in general seems to be plain enough. We all imagine that we understand it thoroughly, until suddenly we are startled by some concrete question which throws the whole subject into confusion. Then we begin to ask, what is the moral-what is it that constitutes the essence of the moral in distinction from that which is not moral? There is no doubt, for instance, that the question of the observance of Sunday is a moral question. But how about the question of the running of railroad trains and stage coaches on Sunday? Is that a moral or merely an economic question? Shall it be decided on principles of utility and convenience, or on principles of morality? And who is responsible for its decision, one way or another? What about the question of divorce? Is that a moral question, or is it merely a question of natural inclination, or of social convenience and law? Is there any morality in the manner in which a man conducts his business-in the wages which he pays to his employees, or the profits which he charges on his goods? Or, to rise higher, into the sphere of the civil or institutional life of men, how is it with collective, social, and national acts and policies? Can these be classed under the category of the moral? Can they be said to be either morally right or wrong, or should they be judged merely on principles of convenience and utility; There can be no question that if one man were to put his hand into another man's pocket and take out his purse, the act would come under the category of the moral, and would be pronounced morally wrong. It would be stealing; and it would be stealing even if the man, instead of retaining the purse for his own use, should slip it into the pocket of a friend for the benefit of the latter. But what if the government, that is, the whole body of

the people, should perform a similar act under the form and power of taxation? Would it then cease to be a moral performance and become merely natural and economic in its character? What shall be said, then, about the question of a protective tariff? Is it an economic or a moral question, or is it both? And can there be such a thing as an economic operation and condition that is not also moral in its bearing? What about wars of conquest, which benefit the nation that engages in them? Are they to be judged merely from the standpoint of apparent utility to the successful side, without regard to the suffering and loss entailed upon the other side? Usually, when not swayed by self-interest, prejudice or passion, the moral reason of mankind is capable of answering such questions correctly. When, however, a man's interests are affected, or when his prejudices are aroused, then doubts may arise; and after doubts have arisen, it will usually not be difficult to find arguments in favor of the conclusion which one desires to see established; and then, in order to maintain the truth, it becomes necessary to go back and begin with fundamental principles of ethical thought.

What then, is the fundamental conception of the moral? What distinguishes a moral act or condition from one that is not moral? Herbert Spencer says it is the fact of teleology. A moral act is an act that is adjusted to an end. Action adjusted to an end according to Spencer, is conduct; and conduct is good in proportion as it promotes the ends of life in self, in offspring, and in one's fellows, and bad in proportion as it frustrates these ends. As a material definition this may be allowed to be correct. It is, however, material only, and therefore one-sided and incomplete. It defines the content of a moral act, but neglects the form. But in morality form is as important as content. Adjustment to an end does not of itself make an action moral. In order to this the adjustment must be the voluntary product of the actor. There is adjustment to ends everywhere in nature. The curious action of the Venus-Fly-Trap which catches and kills insects, whereby the soil around its roots is enriched, or of the Pitcher-Plant which, in a leafy receptacle, stores up a

supply of water for a dry season, is action adjusted to an end. The action of a bee building a honeycomb, or that of a squirrel laying up a store of nuts for the winter, is action adjusted to an end, likewise. It is, however, not moral action; for the adjustment is not produced by the self-directing will of the agent, but by the universal will acting in the constitution of nature according to an unvarying law. Hence in the sphere of the vegetable and animal world there can be no responsibility, no crime, no sin. There may be a failure of law, but there can not properly speaking be a violation of law. We never think of attaching moral blame to the actions of a plant or of an animal. There are also certain operations in human life which are of a like natural or spontaneous character. Breathing, for instance, though it is an action adjusted to an end, is yet not a moral action. Much of human activity in the early stages of life is merely instinctive. It is the spontaneous action of the natural life in agreement with its own inherent laws. If such spontaneous action happen to be contrary to the laws of reason and conscience the law of the flesh unconsciously warring against the law of the spirit—the agent is not responsible for the result, because that result has not proceeded from his own self-determination, but has simply evolved out of the general energy of his natural life.

Hence, in order to make Herbert Spencer's definition of morality complete, we must add to the notion of action adjusted to an end the idea of self-determination or freedom. Freedom is the necessary form of morality. Moral action is voluntary action; and it is voluntary not merely in the sense that it is performed willingly, that is, without compulsion from some external source; but it is voluntary in the sense that the will, or rather the person in willing, moves itself by the idea of an end or good which it has formed for itself. The bee and the squirrel are moved by the power of an end which the Creator has formed for them. Man moves himself, or directs the energy of his will, by the idea of an end which he has formed for himself. This is what makes him a moral being in all that pertains to his self-conscious and volitional life. Moral action or conduct is action consciously

directed by the idea of an end which the mind of the actor itself has formulated. Such an idea of an end constitutes the motive of an action; and no action is moral without a motive. Consequently a being that is incapable of a motive, is incapable of morality. And the ability to act according to a choice of motives is what we call moral freedom; and this constitutes the indispensable form of morality. All voluntary action, accordingly is formally moral, and as to its contents must be either good or bad.

But voluntary action, or action freely determined by the idea of an end, reacts upon the nature of the subject or agent, and leaves an abiding impression which, when accumulated to a certain degree, we call character. Character is the permanent stamp impressed upon the soul by a continued course of conduct, and is the mark of the worth or worthlessness of a soul; while, on the other hand, actions which are not voluntary, or actions which are not conduct, leaves the character unaffected. For such actions a man has no responsibility. No man is responsible for actions which have no rational motives and are not free. A person acting in a state of insanity, for instance, is not held responsible for his acts, unless his insanity itself should have its cause in his own volition, as in the case of drunkenness. It would, however, be a mistake to infer from the fact that there can be no moral act without a motive, that therefore the motive alone constitutes the moral quality of an act as good or bad. Kant's famous dictum that "there is nothing in the world, or even out of it, that can be called good without qualification, except a good-will," if understood in the formal sense in which it was first intended, is therefore one-sided, and must be pronounced erroneous. The quality of a moral act is determined by its content no less than by its form or motive. An act of assassination, for instance, does not become a morally good act by being committed with a good motive, such as the idea and purpose of ridding the country of a tyrant, or the church of an enemy. St. Crispin, it is said, was in the habit of stealing leather and making it up into shoes for poor people. Here the motive was good,