named; but President McCosh, in his discussion with Dr. Hopkins, says: "We regard God as having a claim upon our love, not because we are necessitated to love him, or because all men love him, but because it is right, and men see it to be so at once." Here, though we see what is right, it does not necessarily follow that we do what is right; the moral emotion does not respond to the intellectual cognition, as it ought to, to make good Dr. Porter's theory as to the origin of the moral; nor does it alter the case even though we question Dr. McCosh's proposition, "that it is self-evident to man that God has a claim on his love." The fact is, "men do not see this at once," nor till after intellectual, moral and religious experiences, which would obtain slowly, were we to wait for the evolution of the moral and religious out of the intellectual, as Dr. Porter has it. Dr. Porter remarks upon the cultivation of the moral nature in an admirable manner, and his theory of morals is one of cultivation, progression, evolution. But the present inquiry is not about the cultivation of moral sensibilities; it is about their origin. According to Dr. Porter, they are the product of reasoning upon a special subject; but according to theories he controverts, they are inherent in man's soul-constitution.

The affection of the mother for the child is natural-inborn-is not the product of reasoning about mutual relations, and this natural affection gives rise to an intuition of duty in ministering to its wants. Reciprocally there is on the part of the child a natural repose of faith in and of dependence upon its parent which gives rise to an intuition of

duty in obedience to the maternal voice. The same repose of faith' and of dependence characterizes the relation of the intelligent creature to the Creator, when this relation is not disturbed and interrupted by conscious transgression.

But these affections and intuitions of duty presuppose the co-existence of a moral nature and moral faculties, without which there could be no intuition of duty. Between the brute and its offspring there exist similar feelings of affection, faith and dependence, yet entirely destitute of any element or idea of duty, because there is in the brute no moral nature, though there is some degree of intelligence.

Now we come to Dr. Porter's direct consideration of the conscience. His "Elements" (section 105) reads: "Conscience should not be used as an appellation for a separate or special moral faculty, for the reason that there is no such faculty. Every step and result of the preceding analysis has gone to show this."

"Neither the intellect, sensibility nor will is known to exercise peculiar functions. The same intellect, so far as it knows itself, acts with respect to moral relations under the same laws and by the same methods of comparison, deduction and inference as when it is concerned with other material.

"Nor can we discover new and peculiar intuitions or categories, whether directly furnished by the intellect, or indirectly derived from the sensibility or moral sense. The only intuition which makes itself conspicuous is the intuition of adaptation which involves design. But this intuition, it need not be

said, is in no sense limited to the moral intellect or moral reason, but is assumed as the postulate of science and philosophy in every form."

Comment on the above: The substance of Dr. Porter's "preceding analysis," which he refers us to, and of his proof of the supremacy and sufficiency of the intellect conjoined with the will in generating moral ideas, is this: that intellect determines or decides between our varied sensibilities, affections, desires, as to which,under the circumstances, best accord with man's highest good. If the will chooses to act in accord with this decision, it is a moral act; if not, it is contra to moral act. This theory ignores the conscience-faculty not merely by the ipse dixit, "there is no conscience-faculty," but it ignores the warning power of conscience, which, knowing the intent of the will, warns it not to put it in execution, if not a right one. If there be a warning power in conscience or in the moral nature-as poets, philosophers and all men have it-let us take notice that intellect, as intellect, does not warn, it can only advise. It is the moral feeling inborn that warns.

As to the statement above cited, that " we discover no new and peculiar intuitions or categories," the very essence of the category is in the nature of the subject. The peculiar subject requires the peculiar category; moral causes—a category of relation with the moral element in it.

There is the difference and peculiarity of a type of being between nature as external and our moral nature, and this difference gives peculiarity to the moral intuition and the category; for in a disclosure

of moral relations and moral law, the function of intellect is not solely one of concepts and judgments. under the categories of the understanding, whereby through sense-impressions we obtain a knowledge of the material world and its laws involving cause, effect, quantity, quality, degree. Nor is it an intuition like a geometrical axiom; nor is it a logical process of the pure reason, formal and destitute of content-but it is a pure, rationalized moral intuition which intuits the duty of obedience to the moral-religious nature, as loving truth and the right-hence the necessary judgment that this "love of the right " must be "for sake of the right."

As to the quotation, "The only intuition which makes itself conspicuous," science, it is true, assumes or postulates that its subject-matter has system, form, design; but what has this to do with intuition? If we could see the system, form, design in science by intuition, the road thereto would be easy--no need of close study. A locomotive or a watch shows its design not by intuition, but by study of its structure and use. In fact we cannot intuit adaptation, design, for these we discover by the use of the understanding through categories of relation; but the understanding does not intuit; it connects intuitions into a synthesis, a unity of perception. The category has its own place and function; nor can we speak of it as "derived from the sensibility."

The category gives form to impressions of sense. Sense-perception is not complete till the impressions of sense are cognized by the understanding facul ties, and through the categories of quantity, quality,

relation, are brought into an orderly synthesis, giving such order and unity to the object as makes of it an object of experience.

This does not mean that the condition of the object is one of chaos, which the understanding faculties have to transform into an orderly arrangement. It means that the order in the object is seized upon by the à priori conditions or forms of the understanding, and are made its own; for though these à priori faculties wait for the excitation of sense-impression, they yet evidently have the priority, for the continued activity of the understanding does not depend on the continued presence of sense-affection; but by power of the imagination it creates objects of its own, which, though like nature, do not in reality exist in nature. This is the substance of Kant's theory of perception, or of a transcendental use of the understanding in the apprehension of the phenomenal object-vastly more satisfactory than the theory of a dead passivity of the understanding in the reception of sense-impression. Even Dr. Stirling, who, at times, “damns Kant with faint praise," credits him here with having "made a distinguished notch." But, it may be asked, what have perception-theories to do with the conscience? Much, vitally much, for if our understanding be mere receptivity, like a blank sheet of paper, instead of connecting given intuitions in experience, we might, with Dr. Porter, predicate of it an intuition of design; and as for categories, we would have no use for them; if no categories, then there is no condition, form or faculty to the moral