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sary Truth.-In Arithmetic and Morals, therefore, it very clearly appears that when we have earnestly consulted our own individual consciousnesses upon those subjects, you will substantially say what I say, and that I will emphatically say what you emphatically say. So absolutely unquestionable are these principles that all the Governments and Legislatures of the Earth assume the truth of them, and postulate them as the foundations of their laws; whilst all human vocabularies and all Literature bear witness to the same doctrine. In one of his novels Disraeli remarks: "Let men doubt of unicorns, but of one thing there can be no doubt, that God never spoke except to an Arab." That saying might be very successfully criticised, but of two things there can be no doubt whatever-namely, that two and two make four," and that "lying is not a virtuous exercise." I say this, and you say this. I do not say it because you say it, nor do you say it because I say it. You and I in giving utterance to such propositions are but the mouthpieces of Nature, and do but give utterance, jointly and severally, to a Dogma of Nature-a Dogma of whose authenticity and absolute propriety we are jointly and severally absolutely convinced. What better sanctions for honesty and decency and general integrity of conduct would you like to have? It is impossible to conceive higher sanctions, since those you possess are the Dogmas of Nature herself. Let not such Dogmas be neglected. Neglect of them is the main origin of the confusion and folly which are rampant in the domains of Philosophy and Theology. It is at the peril of our souls and our bodies if we try to despise or neglect these supreme Dogmas.

8. Mr Balfour on the Authority of the Individual. -Mr Balfour has correctly expressed this doctrine

of the authority of the Individual with reference to Contingent Truth. "There is no theoretical escape for any of us from the ultimate 'I.' What 'I' believe as conclusive must be drawn by some process which I accept as cogent, from something which 'I' am obliged to regard as intrinsically self-sufficient, beyond the reach of criticism or the need of proof." 1 What pot, what pan are you acquainted with that could be more real than it really is? How much more real would you like it to be? Or, discarding pots and pans, does not the psychological idealist or dubitationist himself know perfectly well that he cannot walk about, say, on the surface of the Sea?

9. Men should possess, and not be possessed by, their opinions.-I hold with those who say that "Knowledge is for the sake of man, and not man for the sake of knowledge." But beyond this I hold, let me repeat, that knowledge is not merely for man collectively, but for man individually. No man should allow any opinion to possess him; he should always insist upon being himself the intelligent possessor of the opinion. I hold that our Maker has no stepsons and stepdaughters, as Sacerdotalism and certain kinds of Theologism would lead us to infer. If your priest or your parson be your intellectual dictator, you are no better than if you had been furnished with the brains of a bug. As far as human endowment for apprehending and realising truth is concerned, the Creator appears to have shown no preference, generally speaking, for priest over layman, nor for one kind of layman over another kind of layman. The organ-blower is as sacred as the organist; the minister's man, as the minister. To every earnest and devout soul, priest or layman -to every soul genuinely trying to be earnest 1 'Foundations of Belief,' p. 105.

and devout, I believe He has given the glorious faculty (in potentiality at least) of apprehending, understanding, and being personally convinced of the most illustrious of truths; that is to say, that He appears to have set up in the mind of every adult and sane person the criterion of the validity of the great truths which most concern him.

10. We are all in Holy Orders and ordained by the Archbishop of the Universe.-In other words, we are all in Holy Orders if we choose-all ordained to high possibilities of service by the Archbishop of the Universe. To such service I hold that the Archbishop of the Universe has laid His hands on us and ordained us. Under Him each head of a family should be the best of bishops over it. My father's blessing should be better to me than any episcopal laying-on of hands. All merely sacerdotal impositions of hands seem to be mere impositions. A bishop might as well take to table-turning as a means of advancing civilisation as try to promote Christianity by the imposition of hands, except as a natural and visible expression of fatherly affection for the neophyte; and no sensible bishop will attach any further importance to the ceremony. Mirthful nonsense is good sometimes. I am fond of seasonable hilarity myself; so are all sensible persons. But let all men abjure serious or grave nonsense.1 Serious or grave nonsense keeps mankind in a state of babbling imbecility.

11. Nothing intellectual or spiritual should be

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1 A sage gentleman was playing antics with his children one day when he saw a pedant approaching; whereupon he said to the youngsters, Let us be grave, my sons: here comes a fool." I think it is Johnson who tells the story, but I have lost the reference. Don't you think that even Christ himself must have been having a playful sally with James and John when he nicknamed them Boanerges?

received on trust.-Again, let it be very clearly observed that your knowledge, in so far as it is only yours, can be of no intellectual or spiritual worth to me -can be of no benefit to me at all. I can receive nothing intellectual or spiritual from you on trust. To do so would be to abdicate my functions as a man. You, though you may be a priest, must make your knowledge mine; that is to say, you must convince my understanding of its truth before it can be of any intellectual or spiritual service to me before it can possibly add anything to my personal endowment and dignity. religious man must have real understanding of his calling; and Christ apparently was of this opinion, for we read that He "expounded all things to His disciples." This, in essentials, every person calling himself a Christian should be qualified to do. Hence the utter and necessary worthlessness of all vicarious interference with our

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spiritual interests and accounts. No spiritual truth is of any good consequence to you or me until it is yours or mine by conscious-that is, by rational-conviction. If you wish to consult the Highest about any great question of Faith or conduct, tap the Oracle within. Each free being must in himself be the pivot of his own intellectual and spiritual activity. Dogmatic assertions of the occult, esoteric or transcendental kind, can be of no intellectual or spiritual worth either to the speaker or to the hearer. It is delusion or deception-all. Let it be clearly understood, then, that no doctrine touching the mental or spiritual state of the individual can be of any use to him until he has intellectually grasped it; that no knowledge can enlighten and strengthen and exalt him until it is intellectually and by conviction his own-just as no food can be of any consequence to him until it is masti

cated, digested, and assimilated by his very own body.1

12. But in things material you may avail yourself of the knowledge and labours of others.-Notice carefully that I have been speaking of doctrines pertaining mainly to mental and spiritual science. In every-day material affairs you may, to a large extent, avail yourself of, and profit by, the knowledge possessed and the labours executed by others. Although I, personally, know very little about steam or steam-engines, I can very easily avail myself of your knowledge and industry in respect of such things. It may easily be that I, who know almost nothing about steam and steam-engines, can travel as easily and profitably per rail to London as you who know all about them.

13. The Individual must be to himself the chief witness and judge of all high things. But it is quite otherwise in everything touching the science of Mind or Soul. In terrestrial navigation you may well avail yourself of the services of a good sea-captain, but in celestial navigation you should be your own pilot. As Cardaillac says: "The phenomena of the external world are so palpable and so easily described that the experiences of one observer suffice to render the facts he has witnessed, intelligible and probable to all. The phenomena of the internal world, on the contrary, are not capable of being thus described. All that the prior observer can do is to enable others to repeat his experiences. In the science of mind we can neither understand nor be convinced of anything at second hand. Here testimony can impose no belief; and instruction is

1 Similarly as to books. "It is to be lamented that we judge of books by books, instead of referring what we read to our own experience."-Coleridge, Essays, Shakespeare,' &c., p. 36.