they are derivations from experience, only the experience is much vaster than it was supposed to be. The truths are à priori to the individual but à posteriori to the race; each of us is obliged to believe what his forefathers have learned of the relation of things. That some of them have been unvarying, so far, he knows, but that any of them are necessary he does not know. Our warrant for claiming a knowledge of being beyond the range of experience is precisely what it was before the discovery of the universal postulate, the experience itself; and all the old questions come trooping back as clamorous as ever. What right have we to say that Force persists and that Evolution is the law of all being forever? of the unknowable Absolute that we know it exists?

Here, indeed, we reach that sweeping petitio principii which includes all the others noted hitherto, and which sums up Mr. Spencer's philosophy from the provisional assumption of the indispensable postulates of thought at the beginning of the First Principles, to the assignment of an infallible criterion, or Universal Postulate, which closes the Principles of Psychology; a circular argument whose diameter is so vast that the inexorable curve of the circumference, its fatal return into itself, is imperceptible at any one point. By the organization of our consciousness we affirm, and must affirm, the present existence of an objective universe; its necessary evolution out of preceding forms according to the laws of Matter and Motion; the laws of Matter and Motion as determined by Persistent Force. Returning from persistent force we must affirm the Indestructibility of Matter and the Continuity of Motion; their concurrent redistribution through all time; and, finally, the necessary evolution of Consciousness out of them. First we assume the necessities of Consciousness in explaining the Universe; then the necessities of the Universe in explaining Consciousness; or, shortening the diameter so as to bring the extreme terms together, we say that because Consciousness is thus constituted we know that Force persists; because Force persists, we know that Consciousness is thus constituted. Against this double petitio principii it is submitted that one or other of the alternative propositions with which we began has been made good; either, a consciousness so derived and con

stituted cannot know with certainty anything beyond itself; or, if consciousness certainly knows anything beyond itself, it cannot have been so derived and constituted.

The truth is that our knowledge is founded not upon impotence but upon power. Consciousness comes into its cognitions through the direct use of its faculties; not through the roundabout application of any criterion, however sure, or any postulate, however universal. We know that the universe exists because we see it, and hear it, and feel it, and remember it; we know that much of the order of its co-existences and sequences is invariable because we know that it must be so; and it is precisely because it must be so that negations are inconceivable. The warrant for all these truths is the simple fact that consciousness affirms them, and consciousness affirms them because it knows then to be truth. With these selfauthenticated dicta of the mind, all reasoning must begin, and upon them any explanation of things, scientific or philosophi cal, must be founded. The indispensable first step towards a coherent and sufficient theory of the outer universe is to withdraw consciousness from the theory, for to include it is to impeach the character of the sole witness we have; to leave the fabric of our conclusions in the air, a superstructure without a foundation.

We began our examination of Mr. Spencer's Theory of Evolution by noting what seem to be the salient points of contrast between the earlier, or intuitional, and the recent, or empirical, systems of thought. Down to a period not very remote the mind of man was preoccupied with the essential nature, the efficient and final causes of phenomena; that preoccupation failing, there remained for study the phenomena themselves, which necessarily and rightfully became the subject-matter of succeeding speculation. Our whole conclusion here is that the Theory of Evolution, which we have examined, or any other of like kind, is not that philosophy of phenomena which is the legitimate and final successor of antecedent philosophies. In the first place, it omits the phenomena no less than they, since it leaves the only forms in which they appear to us uninterpreted; in the second place, its universal syntheses are quite as contradictory and incoherent as their ideal abstrac

tions; in the third place, it invalidates such explanations as it does give by impeaching the trustworthiness of consciousness itself upon which all knowledge depends. We may infer that the final philosophy of the future must be some eclectic system which combines the recognition of the Absolute Reality, characterizing the past, with the recognition of Phenomena, characterizing the present; the whole founded upon the basis of the authentic utterances of consciousness as they stand.

ARTICLE III.-THE PERSON OF CHRIST.

THE subject of the person of Christ has enlisted the attention, and engaged the profoundest thought, of the wisest and best men in the Christian Church in every age, since the days of the Apostles. It has been regarded as the great mystery of Christianity, and more difficult of apprehension, in some of its aspects, than even the doctrine of the Trinity itself. One of the last desires expressed by the dying Melancthon was, that he might in eternity understand this subject as he had never done on earth. In his last hours he thus addressed himself, "Thou shalt enter into light! Thou shalt see God! Thou shalt learn of what kind is the union of the two natures in Christ."

The following facts are almost universally admitted by Trinitarians, viz: that Christ had an existence as the divine Word, the second person of the Trinity, before His birth into this world; and that after His birth He appeared as a man, and, sin excepted, had all the experiences of a man, so that He may be properly designated as the God-man. While these facts are very generally admitted, different theories for explaining and harmonizing them have been adopted. The theory most commonly held is as follows: that the Divine Second Person, in becoming incarnate, took into personal union with Himself a true body and a reasonable soul; that this created human soul or human nature had all the attributes of a perfect humanity, but was impersonal; that Christ had but one personality, which was divine and eternal, and that this personality held and acted the two natures, the divine and the human; that these two natures, however, were not commingled, but remained entire and distinct, each possessing and exercising the qualities and attributes peculiar to itself.

"Whatever is true of either nature, in Christ, may be predicated," it is claimed, "of His person." Thus we may, with equal truth, affirm that Christ was conscious of knowing all things and of growing in wisdom, of infinite blessedness and human sorrow, of divine omnipotence and human weakness; in a

word, that He was in the conscious exercise of all the attributes of divinity, and, at the same time, was subject, like other men, to all the conscious experiences of humanity. This theory maintains that the created human soul or human nature in Christ was possessed of intelligence and will; that it formed judgments, increased in knowledge, rejoiced and grieved, and yet, that in Christ there was but one ego, but one personality, that of the eternal Word, possessing and exercising all divine attributes, the same as before incarnation. That this theory has its difficulties, and difficulties so great as to render it wellnigh inconceivable by the human mind, is admitted by some of its ablest defenders. Says Prof. Tayler Lewis, in an able Article upon a kindred topic in the Biblical Repository: "The doctrine of the God-man, of the Divine, not simply superadded to, or in connection with, either as a temporary or abiding indwelling, but as forming one person with the human, yet remaining Divine,-this baffles Reason. Here she utterly loses her way. Her highest light is but thick darkness." "This mystery of the two natures in one person is not escaped even by those who reject the doctrine of the Trinity." "On the lowest hypothesis of pre-existency, we have the real difficulty for the reason, although it may not be of so startling a kind as is presented by the doctrine of the absolute Godhead. We have still that most mysterious fact at which reason staggers-a prior and a posterior existence forming one personality."

In this discussion it is of the first importance to regard strictly the distinction between a nature and a person, “a distinction which is of as great consequence," says Professor Shedd, "in Christology as in Trinitarianism." It is difficult here to give exact definitions, but not difficult to understand the distinction. By nature, in this connection, is meant, not the unknown substance or essence on which properties depend; but rather, the properties themselves, those essential qualities or attributes of a thing which constitute it what it is. By a mental nature is meant the faculties, attributes, or capabilities of the mind. Thus, there is the capacity for thought, for feeling, and volition. A nature, however, never thinks, nor feels, nor wills, but a person. It can be conscious of nothing, it can experience nothing, for all conscious experience is by a person. Attributes pertain