no cosmos. Meanwhile, we proceed to say that, while the ego can be experienced, it yet cannot be thought save in distinction from, or contrast with, a non - ego, and herein we agree, as to the way in which in our thinking we dichotomise the cosmos, with Lotze. When the great outer world has let loose upon us the stream of sensations, which marks our worldconsciousness, self-consciousness turns it to subjection and service of our will and understanding. The world by itself, and apart from the mind, is certainly The uncoördinated data of sensation are brought to order and unity by the activity of mind itself. We cannot rest in world-consciousness, and seek no more ultimate reality than the world. Our self-consciousness is founded, however, not upon the contrasted external world which becomes for it, but upon a prior and immediate certainty of self which, as a central vision and supreme oversight, is only more fully developed by later contrasts that present themselves to our self-consciousness. Selfconsciousness-the I-is, no doubt, stimulated and nourished from without, but it is not the product of the world-consciousness-the Thou-the ego having a certainty of self so immediate as not to wait in dependence on the opposition of the Welt or nonego. The reality, identity, and continuity, however, of this ego are attested, in what we think no unimportant manner, by the assured certainty of the sameness of objects which is ours in objectively recognising them, and ours because of the persever OUR WORLD-CONSCIOUSNESS. 381 ing identity of our own ego as the knowing subject. In our late philosophical thinking, it seems to us to be more fully understood how necessary this worldconsciousness is, too, to our realisation of Godconsciousness, since we could not without it rise above the animal creation. It is likewise seen that the world-consciousness rests on securest grounds only as it becomes interwoven with the God-consciousness, since it is then that certainty of the finite world reaches its highest. "Dark is the world to thee: thyself art the reason why; For is He not all but thou, that hast power to feel 'I am I'?" But recent theistic philosophy has been able to find, in the unfoldings of consciousness in experience, a richer development of our consciousness of God, as well as of the ego and the world, as part of our normal development. Whatever opposition we might be tempted to give, as against idealistic tendency, to certain hazardous forms of transition from our own consciousness to God's, has here no relevancy or place. We shall take our own way of briefly showing how, in gaining the highest knowledge possible to his enlightened consciousness, man still maintains, through every stage of his union with the Highest Consciousness,-even the Divine, as that is realised through the continuous loyalty of his will,-the unity of that wondrous self-hood in which consists his self-conscious personality. "Though the Absolute cannot in any manner or degree be known," says Spencer in his 'First Principles,' "in the strict sense of knowing, yet we find its positive existence is a necessary datum of consciousness; so long as consciousness continues we cannot for an instant rid ourselves of this datum; and thus the belief which this datum constitutes has a higher warrant than any other whatever." Spencer's thought of the Absolute Being as a Power recent theistic thought has, of course, retained, but under the conception of a rational Power, capable, as "a necessary datum of consciousness," of being truly thought and rationally known. It has not been content to know that He is without pressing on to know what He is. God is regarded by it as the prius of the universe, its Ultimate Ground and Fundamental Reality, as the Absolute Being that must be the living, personal God. God is known to it as He reveals Himself in the Universe; but also as He reveals Himself to the religious consciousness. Personality has now been more vividly realised, it appears beyond dispute, as the highest blossoming of man's conscious spiritual life. Recent Christian Theism, we may remark, has, it seems to us, very distinctly gone beyond the declarations of the common religious consciousness, and has lent a more attentive ear to the claims of what calls itself "the Christian consciousness," as a new consciousness which Christianity has brought to our race. This has been, as we think will hardly be questioned, a most warrant PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN CONSCIOUSNESS. 383 able procedure, philosophically, since philosophic thought cannot be exercised to highest purpose save as it seeks and finds access to the highest facts of knowledge and experience. To which we add, that we make fuller allusion to the matter because we are clearly of the mind that there has been a rather unapostolic, and not over-worthy, timidity, theologically, to face, in all its bearings and relations and implications, the fact of the common Christian consciousness as it springs out of specific experience and personal verification of the truths of Christianity. But we claim for our late philosophical thinking that it has, at the same time, more distinctly apprehended and recognised the impossibility of anything like what we will venture to call a Philosophy of the Christian Consciousness, except on the supposition of the natural consciousness, based, of course, on natural revelation. When it has cross-questioned man's natural consciousness, it has found a more or less developed sense of sin, craving for righteousness, and longing for harmony with God, and has perceived that the so-called Christian consciousness is nothing but the Christ-consciousness that supervenes on the replacing of this orphanhood of the spirit by the consciously realised sonship of the soul as it finds that "he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. It has more carefully noted how this special— that is, Christian-consciousness becomes formed, in historical psychological manner as "that know ledge which the Christian has in himself of spiritual things," a more vital, less scholastic character, being thereby imparted to theology. We are, of course, well aware of the objection taken to the phrase "the Christian consciousness," by those who have thought the historical and objective bases of belief were being brought into jeopardy. Whilst we look to scientific psychology as ultimate arbiter for us in questions that concern consciousness in any of its forms or modes, we yet take leave to say that we regard the phrase as scientifically legitimate and appropriate. More: not only does no reason appear why there should not be a thoroughly scientific psychology of the "Christian consciousness," but we are strongly inclined to think that the materials and encouragements for such real and thoroughgoing Philosophy of the Christian Consciousness, as we should like to see, have so greatly accumulated within recent times that whoso will may make the high attempt to show, as we think could be irrefragably proved, that the "Christian consciousness" has a title to scientific validity not inferior to that of any other form or mode of consciousness. Meanwhile, we are concerned to record it as a gratifying feature that recent theistic philosophy has shown itself more open-eyed to behold how naturally it obtains that the conscious life of the mind of man, when it has become spiritually renewed and enlightened, has a peculiar content, which, it sees no reason to |