where it seems as though he had been given a free hand to reconstruct the world in his own image-here, even here, the darkness cannot swallow up, cannot quench, the light. Surely, then, light is stronger than darkness. Again, he might say, it is just in so far as there is some good in anything that it really can exist. For "the good," as Aristotle says, "is that which all things aim at," and the end implies a beginning. The truth of things is obscured by their evil attributes, which do not naturally appertain to them, and would finally work their destruction, if left to take effect unhindered. Evil may work itself into a man's being so deeply and widely that it can only be got rid of at the cost of great suffering. But purgatory is not destruction. It is the release of that which is good in him, of his true self. This belief, or this kind of belief, cannot be sustained, so as to keep a man cheerful, kindly, pure of heart, without an act of will. But the act of will, gradually becoming a habit through exercise, is called in to support, to reinforce, reasoning.

Reason is that constituent of one's being which speaks with authority. True authority is that of right reason, opeòs λóyos. The term "reason" is not to be taken in the sense of the individual's personal reason alone. There is needed to begin with, an open doğa, a right "opinion", derived from the right reason, and the right practice in accordance therewith, of others. Many do not get beyond the stage of "right opinion": how many have done so, in the course of the ages, how many do so now, who can tell? But true religion-the living for God-is maintained in this world by the power, by the authority, of reason. It is not reason employed critically, as a solvent, as a disintegrating force. It is reason employed synthetically-reason that takes account, or at least endeavours to take account, of all the facts, and among the facts to be taken account of are the knowledge, the experience, the achievements of other persons besides oneself. That faith and reason are inextricably associated comes clearly into view when people protest against logomachies over religious matters. "Submit yourselves to your spiritual pastors and teachers," they say, "take their teaching on trust. Don't question, don't argue. Be content to believe-do not seek to know." Let them be asked "Why?" and they will not be

content with merely repeating what they have said. They will say that the authority of pastors is grounded on their Divine commission. "They are ambassadors of Christ, they are messengers of the Lord of Hosts. To call their teaching in question is to contend with God Himself." Or it will be urged that reasoning is waste of energy. It is either travelling in a circle, for you come back to the belief you started from; or you lose that belief, and grope in darkness, all at random. Or, further, it will be asserted that the reason is carnal, and therefore cannot be reconciled to the will of God, whereas faith is the energy of the spirit in which consists man's likeness to God. All such reasoning is believed to be sound by those who use it. With reasoning the warmest advocates of a submissive faith must contend against reasoners. Even a direct revelation must be defended and certified by the same means and method as any ordinary experience. "You say that you had a vision of the Lord Jesus. How do you know that it was the Lord? You have heard that Satan may assume the appearance of an angel of light."

But if reason is at the basis of religion, how is it that we have so many varieties of religion? Because the personal factor cannot be eliminated. Individuals differ in character, in attainments, in capability, in enlightenment. Character counts for a very great deal. Men are prone to make God for themselves in their own image and likeness. It is not always right reasoning that is at work. It may often enough be sophistryand that not necessarily conscious. The Pharisees held their religion to be wisdom. Much of it was so-but not all of it, and the most sophistic part, the wisdom that seemed to be such, but really was not, this was the part in which they took especial interest and pride.

After all, reason is also at the basis of the physical sciences. But we find many "schools" of medicine. We find a good deal of science falsely so called, and we find it flourishing like a tree planted by the water side. Science falsely so calledwhat is it but a structure raised by perverted exercise of reason? Political theories again are formed by exercise of the faculty of reason. But here again, how many varieties, how many divergences!

But when the Doctors of Divinity disagree, who is to de

eide? The individual must decide for himself. He may join himself to some one among them, or he may say "a plague of all your Churches," and make up a creed for himself. But even if he puts himself to school with the most authoritarian of all the Doctors, or if, being already of that school, he decides to leave it, he is acting on his own judgment. In every case "there's a reason," and there is the exercise of the reasoning faculty, or, if you prefer the phrase, there is a weighing, a comparison, a sifting-out, of "considerations." The man who has had this experience may think it better to say that he came to his decision "after much prayerful thought" than to say that he came to it "after carefully reasoning upon the problem," and his preference would deserve respect. But the relation of "much prayerful thought" to "careful reasoning" is that of species to genus, of form to matter.

IV.

In saying that when the Doctors of Divinity disagree, the individual must decide for himself, the writer has no intention of proclaiming a Declaration of Independence or Anarchy. This caveat indeed has already been entered, but it may not be unnecessary to repeat it. The authority of reason is not to be confounded with the despotism of passion or concupiscence, though reason is only too often prostituted to the service of the baser powers. The seat of this authority is "within" the individual, but not there alone. The individual soul is less "individual" than we are apt to think it to be. In itself it is more than one ovoía, and one cannot be absolutely sure that there is one TóσTaois. Furthermore, no one is an isolated atom. No one mind can grow without intercourse with others. Isolation (so far as it is possible) prepares the way of mental degeneration and collapse.

A single fact, such as 28/4 or 3 V9, or (a—b)2 a2-2ab+b2, or Euclid I, 20, is cognizable by any number of "individuals." No one of them, or even all together, originated the fact. There are facts, such as the existence of the planet Uranus, the discovery of which is assignable to certain persons. But to discover is not to create. The understanding does not "make Nature." But "rerum cognoscere caussas," is the apprehension by the reason within us of the reason that is in the

world without, and Nature or the Kosmos is such that "by divers portions and in divers manners" human minds can see into it, get hold of it.

Disregard of Nature is attended by loss and suffering. No one can absolutely be a law unto himself. Those who are said. so to be unless the description is used in malam partem, to indicate a course of life which is more or less of avoμía -are men who observe and learn of Nature, and especially human nature.1 They observe and study it in themselves as well as in others, after the manner of the Psalmist, who wrote, "My heart showeth me the wickedness of the ungodly." They have learned, they have been chastened, they have been encouraged, by the precepts and examples of others, men and women of like passions with themselves. Without superstition, they believe that even in this world the natural order of events will afford, not only the strong appearances, but even the certainty, or moral retribution.* And this holds true, not only of the "esprits forts", who hold the secret religion of "all sensible men", but of multitudes of others, who hold to creeds and are members of churches.

But while the "individual" is not an isolated "atom", while no one can be absolutely a law unto himself, each one is distinct from each and every other, and is severally responsible. Even when one lets another choose for him, the first exercises choice -he chooses to let the other determine what is to be said or done. Again, the thoughts, the emotions, the pains and pleasures of one cannot be confounded with those of another. It is possible to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, yet it remains true that the heart knoweth its own bitterness. One person "follows" another's reasoning, and assents to it. One sojourns in the cities of many, and learns their thoughts, words, and works: observes and studies, so far as he can, the heaven above, the earth and the sea below, and apprehends the reason that is in them. But the light of the universal reason comes to him through the windows of his own reason-or, to vary the metaphor, through the eye of the mind.

1Human nature being part of universal Nature.

*Ps. xxxvi. i.

This sentence is an adaptation of one contained in Ch. lxii. of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall."

If that eye be "single", he walks in the light. If it be evil, he walks in darkness, knowing not whither he goeth. Is there any instance in which it can be said that the "windows" obstruct none of the light, but are absolutely transparent, that the "eye" is perfectly "single"? In other words, is any man's judgment entirely infallible? If it were, would not that man also be entirely impeccable? But, as the wise king confessed long ago, there is none that sinneth not. To this we must add, that there is none who can in the course of his lifetime enjoy complete immunity from the sins of others, and there are many who make their start in life hampered and burdened, even maimed, by the sin of predecessors,even by errors committed without any vicious intention, but in sincerity and carefulness. Yet, while the individual's choice, even in cases where it is most deliberate, is influenced so often by "conditions and circumstances" in the shaping of which he has had no part, it is his choice every time. No one else has made it. He can no more deny that it is his choice, the conclusion of his own reasoning (whether deliberate or hasty) than he can deny the fact of his own existence. On the other hand, the more truly reasonable the choice, the less of mere "self-assertion" there is to be found in the act. In suppression of the lower edn, which are so commonly denoted by the word "self", because they make for conflict of persons and so emphasize distinction and sharpen severally-in suppression of the lower edn, reason has its "perfect work."

V.

In illustration (as it may be) and conclusion (as it must be) of what has been written, let us consider that particular acknowledgment of authority in religion which is the object at once of the sharpest censure, the sincerest grief, the highest rejoicing, the most emphatic praise. One who is a Protestant "born and bred", yields assent and submission to the claims of the Church of Rome. It is doubtful whether this assent, this submission, is ever yielded without a painful conflict. The "convert" is held back by the knowledge that he will grieve those who are nearest and dearest to him, that between him and them there will henceforth be a wall of separation. They and