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V.

Further considerations corroborate this result. In the first place, when we raise the question of the reality of the physical world we are irresistibly led to recognize that, apart from mind, material existence is inconceivable. Consciousness is indeed the metaphysical ultimate; matter is but an inference, and on another plane of reality altogether. No property of matter, as we know it, can possibly have any existence apart from sensibility and thought. The perceiving subject does not create its objects-at least if it does it is unconscious of doing so and lives under an incredible illusion-but, as we have seen, it certainly makes' them, or constructs them, by its own activity. Something, then, co-operates with our mental activity, causes our sensations, and interacts with us: thus is our experience constituted. This something, then, is active, or causally efficient. But the only efficient causes we know are minds. Of our own activity we are immediately conscious, whereas science admits that its matter' is inert, and that what physicists call 'energy' lacks the power of self-direction. And so an investigation of the presuppositions of human knowledge forces upon us the belief that Nature is at bottom spiritual and teleological. We are indeed upon firm ground when we base our teleology on these considerations rather than on the facts of particular adaptations in the field of biology. The world is intelligible: it is a cosmos. And this fact seems to leave us no alternative to the supposition that the world is either itself intelligent or that there is intelligence behind it.

Further, the world is a unity. Every science proclaims this truth, and philosophy at several points seems equally to demand it. To take one instance: An intimate study of the causal nexus in terms of which science explains the world, reveals that the transition from cause to effect can only be accounted for by supposing that both the cause and the effect are changes in one and the same Being, the universal World-ground. A single all-embracing spiritual Being is a necessary postulate, if change and causal action

in the physical world are to be made conceivable for us. This is an argument which we cannot now present in detail. It must suffice to add that it is one of the greatest and at the same time the least disputable of Lotze's contributions to philosophy.

Thus we may conclude that the cosmological and the teleological arguments may be stated in forms in which they are not liable to Kant's objections. And if they still fall short of yielding all that theism requires they are not on that account valueless to theology; for they can be further supplemented. And if they lack demonstrative cogency, so, we may reply, does every proof whatever that refers to external existence. We have not science and nescience, knowledge and faith, sharply contrasted with each other: we have only degrees of probability and belief. If theistic faith cannot be proved, it is at least reasonable. And that is all that can be said for the whole body of human science likewise.

But the spiritual and intelligent Being to which philo sophy points us as the unconditioned ground of the world needs to be shewn to be a moral Being, before philosophy can be said to guide us to theism. Now we would urge that it is precisely this final or supplementary step in theistic proof, and nothing more, that our moral experience is adequate to supply. Granted that belief in a spiritual and intelligent World-ground has been justified, then it may be claimed that our moral nature, i.e. the existence of conscience with its categorical imperative, on the one hand, and the objectivity of our moral judgements, on the other, render it necessary to attribute moral goodness to that ultimate Being which we have theoretically been led to postulate. And this is all that theistic argument requires. Our moral experience alone can furnish us with knowledge as to God's purposes and God's character if there be a God. And if we have previously found justification for reasonable belief in a Supreme Reason and Will, which is the One World-ground, then we are driven by the facts of our moral life to regard that Supreme Being as an ethical Being or as a Personal God. Of course much more than this is usually claimed on behalf of the moral argument. Our ethical

experience is held to furnish a proof of God's existence, and it is very commonly believed to supply the only proof. The writer has never himself been convinced by such arguments, least of all perhaps in the form that they received from Kant. But, possessed with the belief already acquired that the objective world and human thought have been adapted for each other by a Supreme Intelligence-a belief which the practical side of our nature abstracted from others can never logically engender-one finds it an easy, and indeed a necessary, step to infer from human moral experience that this Supreme Intelligence is a moral Being and pursues a moral purpose.

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VI.

We must add but few words with regard to what will seem to most Christians by far the most reliable ground on which to base belief in a Personal God-the life and Personality of Jesus Christ.

The philosopher, in setting about his task of elaborating a view of the world as a whole, starts from the facts of experience. He has indeed nothing else to set out from. And his method is not different from that used by the scientific investigator, nor, again, from a considerable part of that of the historian. But the facts of human life with which the historian is chiefly concerned have hitherto been generally neglected by framers of philosophical world-views. They are, however, as much as the facts of the course of the physical world, a part of the reality to be interpreted. What has happened, or has been an element in human experience, no matter where or when, is for ever woven into the web of reality, and for ever has its implications. If philosophy disregard such historical events she becomes untrue to her ideal of universality and performs an act of self-mutilation. And events that are pregnant with metaphysical significance should be recognized as of vital importance for any explanation of the world as a whole. The facts-if they be facts-which compose the Christian tradition are fraught with the dynamic potency that belongs to a 'cause,' and with the significance that attaches to the first stage in the gradual unfolding of a revelation. The

impression wrought upon the minds of His contemporaries by our Lord's sinless bearing, His unlimited claims and self-assertion, His quickening words, His works, His resurrection this 'impression' was the first of the chain of events from which we ought to be able reasonably to argue back to the historic life of Jesus and to a metaphysical conception of His Personality. The facts are obstinate, and have certainly never been explained away; the 'impression' is generally allowed to be a certain fact, independent of vexed questions as to date and authorship of written record; and the argument from such facts to the only cause adequate to explain them, and the metaphysical postulate which they necessarily presuppose, is, it seems to us, as secure as most of those which we come upon in science and philosophy. The questions,' What manner of man is this?' 'What think ye of Christ?' are as relevant to the construction of a world-theory as questions about physical evolution or the nature of causality. They can only be brushed aside by a thorough-going scepticism as to the capacity of the method of historical science to establish the actuality of attested events which have left a mark such as no other alleged facts have ever done upon human life. Such scepticism, we are all aware, is just now rife; but many of us, doubtless, consider it none the less unreasonable on that account. When historical science comes to its own, the present doubtfulness as to the whole field of what we call 'sacred history,' a doubtfulness which seems to be much more a matter of psychological climate than of logical coercion, will have passed; and in the Person and work of our Lord we shall realize that we have the basis for a more direct, a more concrete, and a more convincing proof that there is a Personal God than can be afforded by the philosophies which refuse to give the facts of human history their due. Moreover, we shall not need to endeavour to feel satisfied with the comparatively cold comfort of bare theism; the God in whom we shall have been brought to intellectual rest will be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

F. R. TENNANT.

ART. VIII-JERSEY, GUERNSEY, ALDERNEY AND SARK.

1. An Account of the Island of Jersey. By the Rev. PHILIP FALLE. To which are added notes and illustrations by the Rev. EDWARD DURELL. (Jersey: Giffard. 1837.) 2. The Chronicles of Castle Cornet. By FERDINAND BROCK TUPPER. Second Edition. (Guernsey: Barbet. 1851.) 3. Rambles among the Channel Islands. By a Naturalist [R. ELLIS]. (London: S.P.C.K. 1854.)

4. Histoire du Cotentin et de ses iles. Par GUSTAVE DUPONT. Quatre tomes. (Caen: Legost-Clarisse. 1870-1885.) 5. The History of Guernsey and its Bailiwick. By FERDINAND BROCK TUPPER. Second Edition. (Guernsey : Le Lievre. 1876.)

6. The Death of Major Francis Peirson, 6th January, 1781, being an Account of the Battle of Jersey, illustrated by P. J. OULESS. (Jersey: Le Lievre Bros. 1881.) 7. The Channel Islands. By the late DAVID THOMAS ANSTED, M.A., and ROBERT GORDON LATHAM, M.A. Third Edition, edited by E. TOULMIN NICOLLE. (London: W. H. Allen and Co. 1893.)

8. The Channel Islands and Western Normandy. By C. B. BLACK. Thirteenth Edition. (London: A. and C. Black. 1905.)

THE collective title of the Channel Islands' applied to the islands of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, Herm, Jethou and Brechou very often misleads by giving the impression that they form a unit with some common bond. But, in fact, Guernsey has no more connexion with Jersey than either has with England. The islanders are thoroughly loyal to the Crown and proud of their connexion with the United Kingdom, but they maintain and assert their independence. The Parliament at Westminster may intend and make the necessary arrangements for an Act to apply to the islands, but it rests entirely with the legislative assemplies of both whether it is adopted and comes into force.

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