process to the desire to attain those ideals.45 Prayer feeds that desire and so leads to their ultimate attainment. We have pointed out the fundamental difference that exists between the prayer of great religions like Christianity and Islam, and the prayer of some of the lower races of mankind. While the former supplicants pray that they may possess all the great moral qualities, and that their life and character may be moulded so as to produce the noblest and the highest result, the latter ask, in the majority of instances, for those things which add to their material wellbeing. By examples we have shown that, though the material factor is constantly present in the higher religions, still it is spiritualized in the highest possible way. Mankind at large has many lessons yet to learn; not the least of these is the serious recognition of that law of nature which goes under the name of "evolution." Among all "civilized" peoples, there is a growing tendency to forsake that narrow path their forefathers trod, and to divert their course to that broad way which, as we were formerly taught, leadeth to destruction. To-day science can only emphasize this truth our forebears taught us. Looking around we find man bent upon destructioneverywhere-waging iconoclastic wars of all descriptions. He topples over old idols-some of them foolish ones maybe-and erects in their place idols more hideous than existed before. He destroys that which the past itself held to be bad with that which the past knew to be good. He attempts to substitute the "gospel of hatred" for the "gospel of peace and good will" as a "new way to righteousHe flings "overboard law, religion and author ness. 9946 45 See Ribot, Psychology of the Emotions, 2d ed., 1911. 46 "We preach the Gospel of Hatred, because in the circumstances it seems the only righteous thing we can preach." Leatham quoted by Sir William E. Cooper, C.I.E., Socialism and its Perils, 1908, pp. 33-302. ity," to give us in place thereof a society where atheism and anarchy are supreme, and where the family exists no more! Man is thus attempting to divert nature's course to lead her into paths of his own devising; nevertheless, whatever theologians may now teach, it will be with nature herself that man will have to reckon and whose bill he will have to pay upon her just demand. The pronounced evils of our day-envy and hatred, malice and greed, no less than war and pestilence—have ever been the result of evil-thinking and evil-speaking; our forefathers were not so far wrong after all when they held that these were punishments, and that war followed in their trail. Were an analysis to be attempted as to the origin of many great wars, it would be found that they were brought about by the greed of man and by the desire to obtain that to which the offender had no right. The story would be that of Naboth's vineyard over and over again. It is from disasters such as these that it is the duty of the Christian to pray, so that his desire may become the father of acts which will frustrate those ends to which his greed would otherwise lead. There are other great evils beside those of war and of greed. He who manifests ridicule and attempts to bring into contempt those beliefs held sacred by others, has his own lesson to learn. Toleration is the one great virtue which the West may well learn from the East. Even the naked savage never ridicules the religious beliefs of his 47 Prince Krapotkin, quoted by G. W. Tunzelmann, The Superstition Called Socialism, 1911, p. 108. 48 Congress held in London, July 14-19, 1881. "Resolved-that all revolutionaries be united into an International Revolutionary Association, to affect a social revolution, money to be collected to purchase poison and weapons, ministers of state, the nobility, clergy and capitalists to be annihilated." See E. V. Zenker, Anarchism, transl. from the German (1898, p. 231). "In the new moral world, the irrational names of husband and wife, parent and child, will be heard no more.' Robert Owen, quoted by Sir W. E. Cooper, loc. cit., p. 41. It has been stated that a large number of Labor M.P.'s have been or are local preachers of anarchism. See Peter Latouche's Methods and Aims of Anarchism, 1908, p. 14. fellows; it is a besetting sin, not of savage, but of Christian lands. To live aright, man must conserve, not destroy. He must once again learn to "leave undone those things which he ought not to have done," and "do those things which he ought to have done," for Nature herself insists. Were modern science asked for one final word, surely it would be this: If to pray means to create and nourish in our minds those thoughts and aspirations whereby we may live a "righteous and sober life" and not follow the "devices and desires of our own hearts," then she would say "PRAY WITHOUT CEASING." Pray that our actions may be so shaped that they conform to Nature's will: that she may be our protector, not our avenger; pray that all erroneous teachings- those superstitions of to-day which arouse the passions of the hustings-MAY CEASE! To the Christian especially she would say-Pray ye in the spirit and in like manner of that old Catholic saint who told you that, "You were made Christians to this end, that you may always do the works of Christ; that is, that you love chastity, avoid lewdness and drunkenness, maintain humility and detest pride, because our Lord Christ both showed humility by example and taught it by forwards, saying, 'Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest for your souls.' It is not enough for you to have received the name of Christians if you do not do Christian works, for a Christian is he who does not hate anybody, but loves all men as himself, who does not render evil to his enemies, but rather prays for them; who does not stir up strife, but restores peace to those who are at variance.""" To those, whatever their creed may be, who are unable 49 Homily of Caesarius, Bishop of Arles, attributed to St. Eligius, quoted by Dr. Maitland, The Dark Ages, 5th ed., 1890, pp. 134-139. to share those thoughts which others revere, she would say: Let us not forget how very little our exact knowledge really is and remember that there may still be many more things than we wot of. Pray therefore that you may sympathize where you cannot understand; for what matters it if some tread a devious path, so long as nature wills? Lastly, she would ask all mankind-with its divers antagonistic creeds, with its love and its hate, its war and its peace, its weal and its woe-to turn to that great figure in bronze, which tops the heights of the Volcanic Andesthat sublime symbol not of the peace that is, but of the peace that ought to be-and in the silence of those now quiescent rocks, say with Shelley: "Join then your hands and heart, and let the past Be as a grave, which gives not up its dead To evil thoughts."50 So that all storm and strife, and sobs and tears may cease, and a new era dawn, where Nirvana-that "peace which passeth all understanding"-shall reign, and where, once more, "'neath the sky All that is beautiful shall abide, EDWARD LAWRENCE, F.R.A.S. ESSEX, ENGLAND. 50 Revolt of Islam. 51 R. Buchanan, Balder the Beautiful. RATIONALISM AND VOLUNTARISM. T may be of interest to consider some of the relative claims of rationalism and voluntarism, that real and explicit antithesis of recent times, whether we regard either theory in full or extreme form as satisfactory or not. Neither of them is, in fact, satisfactory in any absolute or exclusive sense. Their consideration is the more necessary as extreme forms of voluntarism are by no means rare in the thought of to-day. There is no need in doing so, to forget that, in every psychosis, there will be elements or rudiments of feeling, willing, and thinking, though one of these may have a dominating influence. Rationalism stands for thinking, as the great form or mode of realizing conscious content. That is to say, the essential activity of mental life is for it thought or ideation. Rationalism is concerned with logical priority rather than with the question of genesis, hence it here stands aside from psychology -though I do not mean to leave it untouched-which is concerned with genetic order. The logical The logical priority of thought thought-activity as the absolute prius of the world is the maintenance of rationalism. For in no other way can you get the world as a world of meaning. Neither blind feeling nor blind will can yield such. But thought, standing by itself, does not suffice to create a world. Pure thought needs the supplementing of will. That is the defect of rationalism. Will is not moved by reason alone, thought Hume, for he subjects reason to the feelings, as some still do. His stress on passion fails of justice to |