Ruler of the Universe. His authority is self-evident. When we see him through our intellectual, moral and spiritual vision-to obey him must be right. This is our intuition of duty in its abstract form" as universal law-obedience to the Supreme: "I come to do thy will, O God!" Doing antedates knowing: duty is prior to knowledge: as Kant would have it, the intuition of duty is a product of the reason creating the idea of duty; but this creation is not of an abstract form of duty which exists constitutionally, but is of the idea of duty in its reference to an object.

The system of Kant can be briefly summarized: It finds in the constitution of the soul faculties for cognizing nature, and for the discovery of truth. These faculties have a transcendental character; that is, to a degree they create the things and qualities perceived-the phenomena.

There is in nature ground or substratum for a certain form or order; yet nature does not present herself and reveal herself to man's intelligence just as she is in her inner self. The primal elements lie concealed within herself. She appears to us in such form as the mind of man itself imposes upon the unknown content. This form and order exists in the mind--has a prior existence. Nature was made for man, not man for nature--and without this prior existence in the mind, this order of nature would not be seen in nature.

Nor is this a mere correspondence and harmony between mind and matter, for mind dominates matter, and compels nature to reveal herself in the forms that mind bestows upon her.

The phenomenal world is the world we perceive and know. The noumenal is the realm in nature entirely beyond our cognition.

It will assist us to grasp the constructive, formative or transcendental character of the mind in the cognition of nature, if we reflect that there are laws of nature-for instance, the law of gravity--that subtle, inscrutable force pervading all matter-

so unknown, yet so well known as to its law of action; which is, that the attraction of gravity decreases as the square of the distance increases, exactly in accord with the geometrical properties of the circle, to-wit, areas proportional to the square of the radii; and geometry with its axioms, intuitions, theorems and problems is a science that has its seat, origin and source, not in nature, but in intellect.

If also we reflect that mind must have preceded matterpreceded nature and her laws-the creative mind, in whose image is furnished man's mind; and being thus fashioned, must have analogous creative power.

The soul of man is instructed, not by nature alone, as by a separate individuality, for without formative mind nature would be formless and incapable as a teacher; nor yet by mind alone, for without material to excite the mental powers, the forms of the mind would be empty-destitute of cognition, and without result. This prior existence and pre-eminence of mind over matter, in the constitution of nature, gives an a priori cast or character to our cognitions--to the knowledge of the soul in what pertains to the intellect, and in what pertains to moral law.

We are not fettered and crippled by the slow and doubtful instruction of mere sense-perception, as the theory of Locke would have it, as well as the “ Data of Ethics" in the Spencerphilosophy, in gathering information and instruction about an independent outer world; nor yet are we to soar in flights of the pure reason— -with fancy and enthusiasm unrestrained by our sense-perceptions--into the regions of a pure idealism.

But for understanding nature, and our relations to the Creator of nature, the soul itself has in its inner self a constitutional transcendental endowment to give form and law to what it thus is able to perceive, cognize and know of nature and of the Supreme Source of Nature.

7. THE GOOD; THE GOOD WILL; THE SUMMUM BONUM.--But how do we know that there is such a principle as "the good" and our innate love for it? because we are conscious of it in our inner experiences, and because the existence of this principle is

cognized by the consensus of our intellectual and moral faculties.

We can conceive of the creation of a right constitution by an All-wise Creator, for what is right will live and abide, in virtue of its own inherent nature. We cannot conceive of the creation of anything wrong in principle; for if wrong it would speedily go to decay and ruin, from its own inherent lack of a true constitution, just as an unbalanced fly-wheel would go to pieces by its own rough motion.

The natural existence, then, of the right and good in human nature we are conscious of both by internal experience and by the intuitions of our intelligence, which contradict the possibility of the creation of a moral being destitute of this principle of the right. And in accord with our intuitions is the scripture: "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good." (Genesis 1: 31.)

Hence we are justified in positing in the moral nature the principle "the good," and the soul's love of it, for we love ourselves, and have right to, so far as we certainly see in ourselves the work of the Creator. And we are justified in positing, in union with the abstract good, an element of abstract duty, as an innate forceful tendency of the soul to obey the Supreme, the Creator, in his office or function as a wise Law-giver and Judge. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" This tendency exists from no motive persuading to virtue through hope of reward or fear of punishment, or even from that grand idea and notion in Ancient philosophy, "that the dignity of human nature requires it;" but the

true ground of right and duty lies deep in the Divine constitution-his holiness and our relations thereto.

It is necessary to make a sharp distinction between the ground of morality and the ultimate end. The ground-principle is elementary; without it there can be no morals--no chief-good or ultimate end. There must be the "good-will" in unison with the universal law-Kant's categorical-imperative, as a groundprinciple to build on--a starting point.

This we have by the constitution of human nature; but the will being free to act contra to this constitution, our first care and chief-good- not our ultimate end is to cultivate and preserve the good con stitution.

This done, the ultimate end is arrived at - if it be arrived at—as a necessary consequence; for the good-will will act under the best instruction and information it can obtain in its search after a philosophy of life in the concrete, namely, the specific duties of life.

Obedience, then, to the voice of the moral nature demanding the right for its own sake, from love of it, is the "ground of duty." But Ancient philosophy and most of the Modern overlooking this ground-element have sought to discover the moral principle in the summum bonum, the chief-good, the highest end to which man should strive to attain, which effort, being a labor of the reasoning faculties and of our experiences, under the guidance of wisdom and prudence, has always been without certain result; for both reason and experience, being liable to error and slow in a search for truth, can never assure us that

we are on the right track; or that we see clearly the highest, final or ultimate end of ourexistence, which, indeed, we must clearly see if we would posit in it the ground-principle of our duty and conduct in life.

The search after a ground-principle in the lofty superstructure, and not in the corner-stone of its solid foundation, is what has given birth to so many pseudo-philosophical theories falsely called Moral Science. Whereas, when we realize that the true ground of duty is where Kant puts it—in the "goodwill" obedient to law, to the intuitional universal law of duty-his categorical-imperative-then we have a sure start and guide in the path of duty. Not that every concrete duty is seen by intuition; but it is this, that we by intuition do see the true groundprinciple of duty-obedience to the "imperative" in the moral nature. But if we posit the ground-principle in the ultimate end, and say, for instance, that this end is "the love of God," man is destitute of a ground-principle that is universal law, for men do not love God. They ought to, and are so commanded, but the fact is, they do not, except through obedience, self-discipline and contemplation of the Divine attributes. But the love of what is true and right, as an element or principle abstract from the question of a particular content or object, all men constitutionally have; nor will any man deny it; nor will any man deny the duty of obedience to it. This is "universal law," and is so recognized in the consciousness. This dominates the soul in obedience to the Great source of all truth and right.