powers. See before, Psychol. of Ethics, Pt. II. chap. i. sec. 7, p. 154. It is only the possibility of the outbreak of moral disorder which here concerns us, not the actual outbreak itself, which must be matter of history, not of philosophy. The clue here obtained is nothing more, for there still remains the difficulty of deciding how a nature perfectly balanced could disturb its own harmony. So far as present experience can guide, the explanation lies in the freedom of the will, that is, the power to take or not to take the guidance of moral law. Why such a power should have been left to any being, is not a question at all, for without such power there could have been no morality. Why God should have created moral beings, is a question which is not concerned with the possibility of the disorder of their nature when created. But the possibility of disorder may be enough to account for the fact of disorder, in the event of its taking place. 6. The permission of the outbreak and continuance of moral disorder still remains the darkest mystery which the universe occasions. If there be absolute sovereignty, why is moral evil allowed? Archbishop King has well indicated the alternatives to which our thoughts may turn. 'There are three ways whereby God may be conceived able to have prevented bad elections: first, if he had created no free being at all; secondly, if his omnipotence interpose, and occasionally restrain the will, which is naturally free, from any wrong elec tion; thirdly, if he should change the present state of things, and translate man into another, where the occasions to error and incitements to evil being cut off, he should meet with nothing that could tempt him to choose amiss.'-Origin of Evil, chap. v. sec. v. sub. 2, p. 312*. More shortly,-No free beings; -free agents always restrained when tempted to transgress; or free agents whose freedom is never tried in such a way as to test voluntary submission to moral law. Of these, the first must be discarded as involving a claim for restriction upon the absolute; the second, as implying a breach on the nature of the creature; and the third, as inconsistent with the conditions of moral life. 7. If then we can see no way in which moral beings could certainly be guarded against an outbreak of moral evil, why did the Sovereign Being not visit with the punishment of destruction any moral agent who voluntarily destroyed the harmony of the moral world? This is the final form of a mystery, which is insoluble from the lower side of existence, and whose solution can lie only in the heights of Absolute Being. IV. THE FUTURE STATE. (IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.) 1. With an Absolute Being as the Great First Cause, the final problem of the Metaphysic of Ethics concerns the question of future existence for ourselves as moral beings. Having moral life from him, what is our destiny? What are the rational expectations which may be formed as to a life beyond the present state? The immediate occasion for the question is the fact that there is a limit beyond which the present life cannot be continued. In seeking its answer, we must consider first the facts out of which the question arises, and afterwards the relation of the Absolute Being to the problem. 2. The facts which point towards the termination of our present state of existence are connected with our physical nature, not with our mental. In physical life, there is a progression of bodily development until maturity is reached, after which there is gradual decay. But in mind, there is the law of progress, without evidence of the same law of decay. That our nature is one, and that weakness of body can entail restraint upon mental action, are admitted facts; but the latter places the source of restraint in the body, not in the mind. Besides, the body may be dismembered and the mind continue active as before. The phenomena of consciousness connected with amputation are of interest here. But chief importance attaches to the contrast between the facts of physi cal and mental life during the infirmities of age. At such a time, when the recollection of the occurrences of the day is difficult, recollections of events which happened threescore years before, are vivid and exact. Such facts point towards the possibility of continued existence of the spirit, apart from the body. See Taylor's Physical Theory of Another Life. 3. Besides these, the facts of our moral life seem to warrant a conclusion to the certainty of a future state. If there be moral obligation and responsibility, their full significance can be realized only in another state of being, where account of moral actions can be rendered. On this line of reflection, it is legitimate to conclude that the future state must be one of rewards and punishments. But the argument does not rest on what Comte has called 'the police consideration of a Future State,'-Philos. Positive, Martineau's Transl. II. 165; a consideration which is the legitimate logical accompaniment of the utilitarian and necessitarian view of responsibility, as expressed by Mr. Mill, 'Supposing a man to be of a vicious disposition, he cannot help doing the criminal act, if he is allowed to believe that he will be able to commit it unpunished,' Exam. 575; a consideration all trace of which is lost under a transcendental universalism, such as that of Spinoza or Hegel. I am not, however, looking along the line of a 'police consideration' of restraint, but along the line of higher intellectual and ethical possibilities, where, in full harmony with obligations held sacred here, the spiritual achievements of the present life will remain as a personal possession, whose real worth shall find acknowledgment from the Absolute Ruler. The argument, resting on our conception of perfection of character yet to be attained, our progress towards it, our aspiration after it, finds, in all these considerations, warrant for anticipating that the Future which obligation implies, must afford scope for the realization of the possibilities after which we aspire.See specially the very striking passages towards the close of the Apologia of Socrates, preserved by Plato. 4. While the most prominent facts of our life thus combine to support the belief that there is for man a great Future, there is nothing which logically warrants an inference to Immortality of existence. Such a conclusion can be sustained neither from the immateriality of the soul, the favourite logical basis-see Dr. S. Clarke's Answer to Dodwell, with Defences;— nor from the ceaseless motion of the soul, as with Plato in the Phædrus;-nor from the ideas of abstract beauty, goodness, and magnitude, as in the Phado;-nor from the nature of the soul as a simple being, as argued by Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) in his Phädon. Mendelssohn's Phädon is a Dialogue after the Platonic model, preceded by a sketch of the character of Socrates, first published at Berlin, 1767, which reached a fifth edition in 1814, and is criticised by Kant, Kritik der Rein. Vernf., Meiklejohn's Transl. p. 245. The finite, since it is not the self-sufficient, cannot afford an argument towards immortality. The nature which is dependent upon the Absolute Being for its origin, must be dependent on his will for its continuance. While, therefore, Futurity of Existence is clearly involved in the facts of the present life, Eternity of existence must depend upon the Divine Will, and can be known only as matter of distinct revelation, not as matter of metaphysical deduction. All that is greatest in us points towards an immeasurable future. Thither we must look for the solution of many of our dark problems, and for that purity and grandeur of personal life unknown in the present state. But Immortality, if it be ours, must be the gift of God. Over the best intellect, if it be restricted to pure speculation, must hang the great uncertainty which found utterance in the closing words of the Apology of Socrates,'The hour to depart has come, for me to die, for you to live; but which of us is going to a better state is unknown to every one except to God, ἄδηλον παντὶ πλὴν ἢ τῷ Θεῷ. APPLIED ETHICS. THE application of psychological and metaphysical conclusions to personal and social life is a task so much more simple than that of discovering the fundamental positions of the science, that the main points belonging to this division of the subject may be presented in brief outline. The great leading questions here requiring attention are, the formation of moral character, the guidance of individual life, and the regulation of social life. To touch upon the more essential points involved in the disposal of these questions, is all that can be attempted in such a Handbook as the present. Connected especially with Sociology there is a vast range of intricate inquiry which cannot be embraced here. I. LAWS WHICH REGULATE THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 1. Character, as distinct from nature, is an established order of disposition which by development gradually acquires strength, in accordance with the rules of life most commonly acted upon. Its measure is found in the prevailing dispositions; the standard of measurement, in the moral law. acter is, therefore, good or bad, according as the reigning dispositions are in harmony with Conscience, or antagonistic to its authority. In accordance with the law of development, Char |