the boundaries of any true knowledge? Assuredly not; I am in such belief obedient to a conviction out of and beyond the range of the phenomenal, but not contradictory to it. With such a conviction I may be still strictly philosophical in all that relates to the philosophy of the phenomenal world, and strictly correct in what relates to the supra-phenomenal world, to which the higher ministry of Nature, as well as the constant teaching of Revelation conduct me. I may entertain the profoundest respect for the scientific attainments of Professors Owen and Huxley, and fully confide in their physical and biological science; but beyond that, and in relation to the soul, I may altogether disagree with them, and feel myself quite capable of judging of the existence and distinctness of my soul. Their justly-granted reputation rests not upon their psychology or anti-psychology. Recognition of the soul rests upon supra-phenomenal science.

Here, then, we see how responsibility for our knowledge of things surpassing the phenomenal, finds its due place. Ignorance cannot be pleaded to bar this responsibility, since we are as much bound by the supra-phenomenal world in our higher as by the phe

nomenal in our lower nature.

The soul being recognized, it has its needs, its sustentation, its proper objects, and its destiny. These form the conditions of all higher human life, and the satisfaction of these is as imperative in the spiritual kingdom as the satisfaction of bodily wants in the corporeal and material. A man ought not to remain in ignorance of the demands of any one part of his compound nature.

Outside of the province of the physical and phenomenal there lies the whole region of our primary intuitions which are not controlled by physicism. Hence come our conceptions of causation, of free-will, of morality, of responsibility, of God. With those who denounce our primary religious conceptions as unscientific, we can hold no argument, for we have no common ground of standing. In despite of such persons, we say there is a science of the supraphenomenal as well as of the physical, and you cannot monopolize the term science and always limit it to the physical. If you deny the possibility of a true science of the supra-phenomenal, then for you at least who deny it, there is no goal but complete scepticism, within the black shadow of which all varieties must vanish—all, God, man, self, others than self, personality,

individual existence-in short all distinctions and all certainties. This is nihilism, universal scepticism, in which the word ignorance has no proper place.

With the inherent difficulties, doubts and indefiniteness of our primary intuitions, the purely physical school often contrast what they are wont to term the "certainties" of physical science and its methods. This language is however in a great measure illusory, and quite unsuitable by way of disparagement. Nothing would be easier than to specify some of the uncertainties of physical science and its methods. What are called the "exact sciences" can only be justly so called by comparison. Absolutely there is no such thing as an exact science, for the exactness is merely relative. To quote the language of a scientific writer, Professor Jevons, borrowed from his lately published Theory of Political Economy: "Astronomy is more exact than the other sciences, because the position of a planet or a star admits of close measurement, but if we examine the methods of physical astronomy, we find that they are all approximate. Every solution involves hypotheses which are not really true: as, for instance, that the earth is a smooth, homogeneous spheroid. Even

the apparently simpler problems in statics or dynamics are only hypothetical approximations to the truth. We can calculate the effect of a crow-bar, provided it be perfectly inflexible, and have a perfectly level fulcrum, which is never the case. The data are almost wholly deficient for the complete solution of any one problem in natural science."

Were a contrast to be drawn between the methods of physical science and primary intuitional knowledge, it might be drawn in favour of the greater certainty of the latter, inasmuch as primary intuitions are bound up with consciousness, and are direct exercises of it, productive of immediate effects, while mathematical conclusions require the intervention. of a train of reasoning.

Although then we cannot be culpable for nescience, we are so for not seeking and satisfying all attainable cognitions, especially if these are acknowledged as proposed objects of pursuit, and as attended with corresponding mental and moral benefits. Such we cannot but think are the Divine intimations in the scheme of Nature as manifested to our minds, and as presented to us for perpetual inquiry. And if our present position in relation to it

be that of highly capacitated beings,-of beings specially qualified to comprehend progressively more and more of the seen in order that we may thereby be led ardently to desire higher capacities and larger and fuller revelations, then voluntary ignorance is not only a loss but a sin. It is the choosing of darkness rather than light.

When, moreover, we believe that the whole visible universe is a magnificent representation of the power of the Creator, and the beneficence of the Provider, then the sinfulness of remaining wilfully ignorant of what he has revealed of himself becomes more apparent; and the question of our responsibility for neglect of opportunities of knowing Him in His mighty and manifold works comes before us for deliberate consideration.

In proportion to our conviction of the real purport of our present life in relation to God, will be our sense of this responsibility. If we feel that the chief object of our existence is to know the Divine Being in all the relations he sustains to us, and to do all that such knowledge will prompt us to perform, and if we admit that our opportunities of knowing Him in outward nature are many and perpetual, and more than ever so