torious analysis" you have got rid of freedom, immortality and God, you will find that you have also to abolish the conceptions of duty, morality and responsibility.

Now, this apparent opposition between necessity and freedom has sometimes been sought to be solved by making the things of nature absolutely different in kind from spiritual beings. Thus it may be said that, while inorganic things and even the highest of animals are absolutely subject to the law of mechanical causation, all their movements taking place solely in response to the action upon them of the environment, man, on the other hand, as a spiritual, self-conscious, moral being, is the originator of his own acts. This solution. Kant was unable to accept. It seemed to him that we cannot thus remove man from the sphere in which mechanical causation rules. When a man, e.g., seeks to satisfy any desire, is it not the case that that desire is excited by some object acting upon him? Given the man's natural susceptibility to certain objects rather than others, and the response which he makes when placed mentally in the presence of a certain object is just as fixed as the movement of a stone under the influence of external forces.

Is morality, then, a dream, or is it possible to defend at once the inviolability of natural law and the absolute obligation of morality? Kant answers that they can be reconciled, if we only reflect upon the meaning of natural law. In exact opposition to Aristotle, he maintains that it is the will or practical reason which alone can be regarded as presenting a law for all rational beings, while natural law is merely the manner in which by the necessary character of our intellectual faculties we construct for ourselves a system of experience. But this system is never a completely rounded whole, and breaks down in contradiction the moment we assume it to be a determination of ultimate reality. If we are to preserve the unity of the intelligence with itself, we must recognize that the world of experiencethe system of sensible objects, to which we apply the principle of natural causation-is but an analogue of that ultimate reality which escapes from the framework within which our understanding seeks to confine it. Kant, it is to be observed,, does not, like agnostic thinkers, maintain the impotence of reason to comprehend reality: what he urges is, that reason in its theoretical use is not supplied with the data necessary for an ultimate view of things, being tied down to sensible objects as presented in space and time. The ideas of reason are always larger than the sensible experience which constitutes our knowledge: and therefore the intellect can never pronounce against the ideas of the supersensible, though it is unable to

compass a knowledge of any reality corresponding to them. It is different with the practical reason, which issues a moral law that admits of no limitation, but demands that all rational beings should conform to it. Now, morality is impossible without freedom, and therefore we must refer our actions to ourselves as self-determining beings. There is no real incompatibility between the inviolability of natural law and the absolute obligation of moral law; for, though our actions really proceed from ourselves, we have to represent them, so far as they fall within the phenomenal world of experience, as occurring in accordance with natural law.

In essence this doctrine of Kant means, that in the self-conscious life of man, and above all in his moral life, we have the highest, and indeed the only real, revelation of the ultimate nature of things. Man, who physically is but a small and insignificant object, hardly visible in the immensity of the spatial universe, yet bears within him the consciousness of the ultimate principle of all things. If morality is the true nature of things, the universe, though it can never fall within the compass of our knowledge, must be such that the ideas of Reason are capable of being realized; and as such a universe, is, in Kant's view, impossible without the immortality of the soul and the existence of an infinitely perfect God, the moral law carries with it the reality of these two ideas. God cannot be an object of knowledge, because he transcends the limits of space and time, but we have a rational faith in Him, since if He does not exist, morality, which is bound up with our very nature as self-conscious beings, would be a fiction.

You will not expect me, in a lecture already I fear too long, to do more than indicate what I regard as the truth, and what the inadequacy, of this noble philosophy. Its truth seems to me to lie in this, that the universe can reveal itself only to a rational being, to a being who, weak and limited as he is, yet contains within himself the principle of the whole. Its inadequacy lies in the assumption that the world of experience is at best a symbol, and an unreal symbol, of reality as it truly is, and therefore so far from revealing, hides reality from us by an impenetrable veil. We may, and indeed must, distinguish between the world as imperfectly conceived and the world as more adequately interpreted, but to speak of science as dealing only with appearances, and morality with the world of real being, is to do justice to neither. The conception of the cosmos as an assemblage of objects, rigidly bound together by mechanical law, is the first condition of a systematic view of things; but if it is supposed that this is the last word, we fall into the grievous mistake of taking

the part for the whole. Not to mention that such a doctrine leads to the denial of all art, by abolishing its very source, the ideal interpretation of existence, it ultimately destroys, as Kant says, all the higher interests of man. Why should it be assumed that knowable reality is bounded by that which can be described in mechanical terms? If, as all modern philosophy assumes, knowledge must be an interpretation of experience, surely the experience we interpret must be taken in its totality, not arbitrarily limited to one aspect of it! Now, recent science has been forced to go beyond the Aristotelian view, that the conceptions of organism and evolution are limited to any special sphere, and above all to the transitory life of individuals. The facts of experience have compelled us to conceive of all orders of existence as bound together within a single system, which has developed, so to speak, entirely from within. We have, indeed, been forced to discard the fiction of an arbitrary creation of the world, and an arbitrary interference with it after its creation, but this has only revealed to us all the more clearly its all-pervading system and rationality. And if the universe, as we must believe, is rational through and through, there can be no absolute division between nature and spirit, any more than there can be any real antagonism between science and philosophy; on the contrary, just as in nature there are indications of a tendency towards an ideal end, which is continued in the efforts of man to realize an absolute good, so the ordered system of the cosmos revealed by science is but the less explicit form of that spiritual unity which it is the work of philosophy to detect and articulate. We must, then, insist upon the equal importance of the work of science and the work of philosophy. Without the careful and laborious efforts of science, our modern cosmogony would have remained a thing of vague guesses and unverified hypotheses, each giving way to a new guess and a new hypothesis; and without the complementary work of philosophy, the higher interests of man, and the systematic unity of the whole, would have fallen into irretrievable confusion: by the co-operation of both it is possible, as I believe, to find satisfaction at once for the intellect and the heart; to bring to science the reverential feeling of one who is tracing out the ordered system of a rational principle, and to infuse into philosophy that scrupulous regard for fact without which it becomes the plaything of fancy or the arbitrary construction of a mind that refuses to be loyal to truth, and imagines that all theories are equally true, and equally false; in other words, that truth is a fiction woven from the groundless hopes of men. It is difficult to understand how anyone, who has given the least attention to the

immense progress from the ancient to the modern conception of the cosmos, can continue to deny that, incomplete as our knowledge is, its process has not been a mere beating of the air, but an actual penetration into "the open secret" of the universe; and similarly, he has followed the history of philosophy to little purpose, who is not constrained to acknowledge that the reflective thought of man has not been in vain, but has afforded more and more a rational ground for regarding the universe in which we live, and the spiritual interests of man, as the ever-clearer revelation of that Divine Reason which is the infinite and eternal principle of all that is and has been and will be.

Queen's University.

JOHN WATSON.

CURRENT EVENTS.

It would seem as if, for us Canadians, the fight against political impurity were one from which there is no prospect of early discharge, and yet if we are to realize our ideals of national life we must carry on the conflict in the hope of final victory.

Political Impurity

Once More.

It is a disappointment and surprise to find the Minister of Finance unseated for corruption. True, the bribery has been performed by his agents not by himself, although the question of personal complicity has not yet been decided by the courts. Few can believe that Mr. Fielding could have been guilty of this, and it would be a cause of profound regret if the case should be decided against him, but bribery by his agents has been the cause of his undoing. It would be unfair to hold a candidate responsible for the conduct of every heeler who may act on his behalf; and yet the candidate who is strongly opposed to every form of corruption should be able to impress his views upon his party supporters; so that we are forced to conclude that any member, and more particularly any minister of the Crown, who is unseated on account of bribery by his agents, has not been setting himself very sternly against political corruption.

But, whatever may be the conduct or the fate of individual members, those of us who have the purity of government and the honour of the country at heart, whether we be inside or outside the field of party conflict, must do what we can to banish bribery and corruption from our political life. No man is indispensable to his party, and no party is indispensable to the country, but purity is indispensable whatever party may be in power. This has been asserted by the voice of the people most notably on two occasions, once when the late Sir John A. Macdonald was defeated because of the Pacific Railway scandal, and more recently when the Ross government in Ontario was defeated because of the popular conviction that it had permitted corrupt practices which it should have suppressed. It would be a hopeful sign if political corruption were more frequently punished and if the party that even permits and profits by it were. condemned to suffer for it. But both parties seem equally culpable, and, if the opportunity is offered, or the occasion seems to require it, both appear to be equally prepared to buy their way to power. There are honourable men on each side in connection with the party management, and there are honest and intelligent voters on each side