excluded. Accordingly, if it be shown that there is an element. of freedom in the soul, the physiological hypothesis will have been refuted. No one has ever made better use of the consciousness of liberty, as an argument for immortality, than Plato in the Phado, from Professor Jowett's translation of which I take the following extract. The interlocutors are Socrates and Simonius. Socrates begins:

"What ruling principle is and especially the wise soul? "Indeed, I do not.

there of human things other than the soul, Do you know of any?

"And is the soul in agreement with the affections of the body? or is she at variance with them? For example, when the body is hot and thirsty, does not the soul incline us against drinking? and when the body is hungry, against eating? And this is only one instance out of ten thousand of the opposition of the soul to the things of the body.

"Very true.

"But we have already acknowledged that the soul, being a harmony, can never utter a note at variance with the tensions, and relaxations, and vibrations, and other affections of the strings out of which she is composed; she can only follow, she cannot lead them.

Yes, we acknowledged that, certainly.

And yet do we not now discover the soul to be doing the exact opposite-leading the elements of which she is believed to be composed; almost always opposing and coercing them, in all sorts of ways, throughout life; sometimes more violently, with the pains of medicine and gymnastic; here again more gently; threatening and also reprimanding the desires, passions, fears, as if talking to a being which is not herself, as Homer in the Odyssee (sic) represents Odysseus doing in the words

'He beat his breast, and thus reproached his heart;
Endure, my heart; far worse hast thou endured!'

Do you think that Homer could have written this under the idea that the soul is a harmony, capable of being led by the affections of the body, and not rather of a nature which leads and masters them, and herself a far diviner thing than any harmony?"

The voluntary element of consciousness is involved in the growth of human knowledge, to which it is as indispensable as either personal unity or personal identity. On the materialistic hypothesis, what is called error must be, equally with what is called truth, the creation of physical states; and in that case, why should the one be called error and the other truth? What is the criterion, and where are we to find it? The validity of the distinction can be maintained only on the ground that we possess a power of verifying our opinions, distinct from the passive susceptibility of impressions-a power which cannot be explained on the assumption that the mind is nothing but a tabula rasa, or, in other words, the necessary transformation of physical into conscious states. The mind, then, however indebted, in some respects, to the body, possesses

powers inherent in itself. We can arrest or deflect the stream of consciousness, by attention-an exercise of will underlying comparison, generalization, induction, and deduction; all the processes, in short, by which the system of human knowledge is built up. Take away from the mind this power of selecting its own objects, of discriminating and marshalling phenomena, and you remove the possibility of intelligence; nothing will remain but a flux of obscure and indistinct impressions.

Again, the power of self-determination is involved in morality as well as 1. intelligence. If the soul were but the product of organized matter, the distinction between the physical and the moral would disappear; conscience would be an absurdity, really having no higher authority, however imperious its tones, than the most abominable actions which it condemns-both springing alike out of physical states. There would be no room for a distinction between what we ought to do, and what we actually do, inasmuch as alternative choices would be entirely excluded. But against this identification of the moral and the physical-which introduces hopeless confusion into every department of human life, whether internal or external -conscience and the consciousness of liberty are perpetually protesting. Contemplating the law of righteousness, whatever our theories, and however inclined by appetite to depart from the course which it prescribes, we cannot but acknowledge its authority. The conflict of the flesh and the spirit-a conflict of which every one has some experience, many a most painful experience exhibits our personality in the boldest relief. All through life we are summoned to assert, in the face of temptation, our personal existence, and our connection with another world than the material. The soul takes its own course, uncoerced even by fire and sword, conscious of laws and powers peculiar to itself. And when it has bravely set at defiance foreign influences that menace its innocence and honourconquering fear by faith, and passion by principle-so far from confounding itself with the body, which it holds in subjection, and sways at its will, it soars aloft in the consciousness of personality and moral dignity, and confidently expects a destiny proportionate to its exalted nature and character. Even when, on the approach of death, the man is compelled to depart, however anxious to remain, to drop the plans which he would fain have carried into execution, and to quit the society into which he has struck the roots of his affection, he knows that his proper self is unsubdued. Even at the last hour, whether it calmly accepts the inevitable, or rebels against it, the soul asserts its independence, and resents nothing more passionately than that it should be identified with the "mortal coil" which

it is about to "shuffle off." To quote the oft-quoted words of Pascal: "Man is but a reed-the very frailest in nature; but he is a reed that thinks. It needs not that the whole universe should arm to crush him. He dies from an exhalation, from a drop of water. But should the universe conspire to crush him, man would still be nobler than that by which he falls; for he knows that he dies; and of the victory which the universe has over him the universe knows nothing." Yes; to see that death is at hand, and to be able to reflect on the situation, that is itself proof of the soul's independence and immortality. If, as I have endeavoured to show, the soul is in possession of inherent powers that are independent of the physical, and even of the vital forces, "why should it be thought incredible" that the soul should survive the body? If the soul possesses what the life of the body cannot give, it must also possess what the death of the body cannot take away. Let it be admitted that death destroys the organs of sense, does it destroy the powers which recognize the sense-given phenomena, and which construct, out of that indigesta moles, the stately and symmetrical temple of human knowledge? Let it be admitted that by the death of the body we may cease to receive the sensible impressions to which we have been accustomed; who knows whether there may not be some other mode of communicating with matter? And even though matter should be placed entirely beyond cognition by the dissolution of these present organs of ours, is there nothing but matter that can afford an object for cognition? Certainly not. If there were nothing but matter cognizable, nothing at all would be known or knowable, since matter is known only by mind, and as opposed to mind. Therefore, if matter is known or knowable, something else is known or knowable. But, says some objector, if matter cannot be known except in relation to mind, is it not also the case that mind can be known, or can know itself, only in contradistinction to matter? No, we reply; the ego can know itself only in contradistinction to some non-ego, but that non-ego is not necessarily material. There is no reason, therefore, to fear that the mind, on the dissolution of the body, will be bereft either of knowing power, or of objects on which that power may be exercised. A. M'N.-B.

(To be continued.)

KANT used to say that the two objects which filled him with awe were, the starry heavens, when he looked up to them, and the depths of conscience, when he looked down into them. Both proclaimed the God with whom we have to do.

48

EDEN: ITS GARDEN AND RIVERS.

IT is quite apparent at first sight that "the garden" and "Eden are terms of unequal import. The latter, being the more comprehensive, includes the former. The garden was not conterminous with Eden, but was planted eastward in it. The spot on earth whereon the original pair were first placed was thus localized and limited in extent. It stood alone, however, in respect to condition; it was a garden, differing from the Eden which surrounded it, and still more, from the outlying regions of the earth beyond. In this matter we see God acting in a manner befitting the moral nature of man, and leaving scope and sphere for the conditionality of obedience or disobedience. Had man remained with God, "willing and obedient," we need not doubt that by the Divine blessing, and in accordance with the demand made by the increase of the race, the garden would have become extended by ever widening circles, even to the remotest parts of the earth. But the alternative of disobedience was interposed, and the garden was obliterated.

In the 9th verse, we are informed that the Lord God made to grow out of the ground "every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food." All trees are the embodiment and expression of natural ideas, and, therefore, all trees are beautiful-some, however, being more beautiful than others. this latter class belonged the trees of this garden. But they were also fruit-bearing trees-"good for food." In varying degrees, all the trees of the earth combine beauty with useful

ness.

To

It may be to intimate the higher nature of the pleasure derivable, that pleasantness to the sight is mentioned prior to usefulness for food. Man depends on the fruits of the earth for the maintenance of his physical being, and these he does appreciate; but, as mere material food, they do not yield, to the elevated soul, a joy at all commensurate with that which results from the discovery of the attributes of God in his manifold wonderful works.

In the garden there was also the "tree of life" (ver. 9). Its designation intimates that it stood in some specific sense related to human life. The nature of its fruit may have been such as to promote a continued vitality in the human body. This may be legitimately deduced from chap. iii, 22, where the reason for the expulsion of man, as a sinner, from the garden is thus stated"Lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever." Although, hitherto, animals which had been made after their respective kinds, died, and were normally

subject to death on the earth, man, made in the likenessafter the kind—of God, was created according to the original Divine plan, an exception to this rule. But he having sinned, and God seeing that the victory over sin would be more speedy and complete by causing the body to pass through the furnace of the grave, in wisdom and benevolence brought man under the law of death. By this God also showed disapprobation of sin consistently with his infinite holiness. In giving a visional picture of the Paradise above, the Seer of Patmos describes the spiritual analogue of this tree. It yields twelve fruit-harvests, one each month-i. e., its supply never fails. The inhabitants of the heavenly Paradise never hunger. In Rev. xxii, 14, the principle of admission to eat of the fruit of this tree is beautifully stated-"Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have a right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." Adam disobeyed and was shut out from the literal tree of life, because obedience to the command of God was the condition of the right granted to eat of the precious fruit. In like manner, every one entitled to enter the eternal Paradise of heaven, and to eat of the tree of life, whose fruits fail not, obtains his title only on the condition of yielding the obedience of faith-obedience to the great command, to believe in the Gospel of the ever-blessed God. The degree of enjoyment in the heavenly Paradise, too, will be proportionate to the alacrity with which we now run in the way of God's commandments.

Man being excluded from the tree of life in the earthly paradise by reason of transgression, its use was no longer required, and therefore it vanished from among the trees of the earth. But we yet see the same thing in principle-trees possessed of virtues conducive to the prolongation of human life. Take, for example, the Cinchona tree, whose bark yields so many medicinal preparations, extensively used throughout all the world, according to the belief, that they tone the system, and counteract its morbid conditions, thereby tending to give increase of life. The force in this comparison becomes more apparent when we suppose that, though man had not sinned, and had not been made subject to the dissolution of death, his body, even when supported by the fruit of the tree of life, would have likely gone on to a condition of change, passing from a more material to a more spiritual condition, as a preparation for translation to higher glory-immortality in the original condition of body being thus prevented.

There was yet another fruit-bearing tree in the garden, and one to which belongs a very special importance-" the tree of knowledge of good and evil." This tree was doubtless material

No 9.

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Vol. 3.