our knowledge on this subject. (1.) While the senses are several, and the bodily organization constantly changing, yet in every complex experience, and through all time, the central I, which thinks and feels, is an absolute unit. (2.) Matter is seen to be incapable of originating action-the central I has the power of absolute causation. (3.) As far as we ever see organization is always the result, never the cause of intelligence.

33. What is Idealism?

As the Materialist holds that the sensible is the only real, and that mind is a modification of matter, so the extreme Idealist holds that the sensitive and cognitive mind is the only real, and that the phenomena of the material world are only modifications of mind. When a man sees or feels a material object, the thought or feeling of which he is conscious is within the mind itself. The Idealist argues consequently that all the man really knows is the thought or feeling of which he is conscious, and that he can never be rationally certain whether there is any outward reality corresponding to that inward state or not.

In the most extreme form this tendency leaves the individual philosopher a solitary dreamer in the midst of the world. He can know nothing outside of himself and the successions of his own thoughts. This is the subjective Idealism of Fichte.

In a lower degree this tendency leads to an Idealistic Pantheism, when all the phenomena of the universe, internal and external, is referred to the modifications of one infinite spirit, which is God. Such is the Pantheism of Schelling and Hegel.

But the phrase, Idealism, is also applied, in a modified sense, to those systems of philosophy which, while admitting the existence both of matter and mind, yet build themselves ultimately upon the unresolvable first principles of man's internal self-consciousness.

34. What is Hylozoism?

Hylozoism, compounded of two Greek words, vaŋ wood, swi life-living, animated matter, designates a theory attributed to Strato of Lampsacus, who, confounding life and intellect with force and motion, regarded the universe as a vast animal self-developing through the plastic power of its own inherent life, i. e.,

unconsciously self-developing from eternity.-Ritter, Hist. An. Phil., book 9, chap. 6.

35. What is Pantheism?

Pantheism, as the etymology of the term indicates, signifies that system which maintains that all phenomena of every class known to man, whether spiritual or material, are to be referred to but one substance, and that the universal substance of God; and thus, matter and mind being declared to be only different modifications of one substance, Pantheism, from different points of view, assumes sometimes a materialistic and at others an idealistic complexion. The Atheist says that there is no God, the Pantheist that every thing is God. The Materialist says that all the phenomena of the universe are to be referred to one substance, which is matter. The Pantheist says that they are all to be referred to one substance, and that the absolute substance of God. Yet the Pantheist differs from the Atheist and Materialist more in the color and tone than in the essence of his creed. The Pantheist's God is not a self-conscious, voluntary person, separate from his creation, but he is that infinite, original, self-existent, universal, unconscious, impersonal essence to which all proper attributes belong, intelligence as well as the attraction of gravitation, whose infinitely various and ceaseless modifications of substance, by a necessary law of eternal self-development, constitute all things as they succeed each other in the universe of existence. God is neither sun nor star, ocean nor mountain, wind nor rain, man nor beast, but these are all fleeting modifications of God. God is ever eternally the same himself, but he is eternally, and by a necessary movement running through these endless cycles of self-modification, coming to self-consciousness only transiently in individual men, as they are born and die—and in the highest sense of all coming to himself in the greatest men, those heroes in whom all lesser men see and worship God.

This general system, modified endlessly as to special characteristics, has prevailed from the dawn of speculation as the necessary goal of those proud intellects which maintain their capacity to apprehend directly, and to philosphize worthily, upon the essential mysteries of infinite and absolute being. It was for ages before Christ the dream of the Hindoo theosophist, and of the Grecian Eleatic philosopher. In modern times, from the days of Spinoza to the pre

sent, it has been taught, among others, by Schelling, Hegel, Cousin, Carlyle, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Among the ancient Greeks, and to the present day among the Hindoos, the popular accompaniment of this abstruse and atheistical speculation has been Polytheism. The Pantheistic philosopher, by a sweeping generalization, referred all the powers of universal nature to one subject, the All. Their uneducated cotemporaries, unable to reach so wide a generalization, recognized a separate God in every energy of nature, and thus worshipped Gods and Lords many. In modern times, on the other hand, Polytheism having been for ever made impossible by Chistianity, the popular accompaniment of Pantheism in Germany, France, England, and America is the worship of man-sometimes heroworship, or the worship of great heroic men-sometimes of mankind in the mass, as the highest form into which the deity is ever developed, the clearest manifestation of God. This heresy is disproved—

1st. By the whole truth of human consciousness. If consciousness teaches us anything clearly it is that we ourselves are distinct individual persons. Pantheism teaches that we are only "parts or particles of God," springing from him and returning to him, yet always part of him, as the waves are part of the sea.

2d. By the truth of all the judgments of conscience with regard, first, to sin; second, to moral responsibility. Pantheism, by making every thing alike a necessary self-development of God, makes sin impossible, destroys all distinction between good and evil, and by denying the personality of God, and by making the fleeting personality of man an illusion of his own consciousness, it of course makes moral responsibility a myth.

3d. By the whole argument from Design, (see above, question 23,) Design proves intelligence and free will, self-conscious purpose, and therefore personality.

4th. Pantheism, by referring the phenomena of mind and of matter to one substance, must oscillate between the absurdities of Materialism and of Idealism. There is a choice of follies, but no middle ground.

5th. By the whole system of historical testimonies and experimental evidences that establishes the truth of Christianity.

6th. By the uniformly degrading influence which this system has always exercised upon the morals of every community that has drunk deeply of its spirit.

CHAPTER II.

THEOLOGY AND ITS SOURCES.

1. How may religion be defined?

I. In the abstract, religion signifies the relation which man as an intellectual and spiritual being sustains to God.

II. In the concrete, religion signifies (1.) subjectively, that inward spiritual state and experience which justly corresponds to the reality of our relations to God; thus a religious man is one who has an inward religious experience; (2.) objectively, those doctrines, institutions, and practical observances whereby these relations of God to man, and of man to God are revealed and promulgated, and the duties corresponding to those relations are practiced. In this sense the Mahomedan is a false, and the Christian a true religion.-Dr. Hodge.

2. What is THEOLOGY, and how is it to be distinguished from religion?

The English word theology is derived from the two Greek words, fɛós, λoyós, signifying discourse concerning God, then that science which systematically comprehends all that is known to man concerning God, and our relations to him. The terms theology and religion are contrasted thus:

Religion is practical and experimental. Theology is scientific. Every religious man is a theologian just so far as his knowledge is accurate and comprehensive. Every true theologian must be a religious man as far as his knowledge is experimental. The more accurate and comprehensively systematic our religious knowledge, the more is it a theology; and the more real and practical our knowledge of God becomes, the more is our theology a religion.

Theology is to religion what physical science is to the practical arts. It is not essential, though it would be an evident advantage, if every artizan were a chemist, ard every navigator an

astronomer. Yet without science all art would be unintelligent and limited. Theology defines religion, and sets it upon a more certain ground. It purifies it from foreign alloy, and defends it from all hostile attacks. By making it more intelligent, it makes it more worthy of God, and more effective for the salvation of man.-Gaussen.

3. What is the distinction between natural and revealed theology?

Natural theology is that science which proposes to itself the solution of these two great questions, 1st, Does God exist? and 2d, What may be legitimately ascertained concerning the true nature of God in himself, and concerning his relations to man, from the principles of human reason and conscience, or from the evidences of God's works, either in creation or providence. A distinction here must be carefully observed between that knowledge of God to which the human reason was able to attain by means of its own unassisted powers independently of revelation, e. g., the theology of Plato and Cicero, and that knowledge of God which the human mind is now competent to deduce from the phenomena of nature under the clear light of a supernatural revelation, e. g., the theology of the modern rationalistic philosophers. Natural theology, as reached by unassisted reason, was fragmentary, inconsistent and uncertain. Natural theology, as appropriated and vindicated by reason under the clear light of revelation, is itself a strong witness to the truth and supernatural origin of that revelation.

Revealed theology, on the other hand, is that science which treats systematically, 1st, of the evidences authenticating the Christian revelation as from God; 2d, of the interpretation of the records which transmit that revelation to us; and 3d, of all the information furnished by those records of God and his relation to man, and of man and his relation to God.

4. What relation does PHILOSOPHY sustain to 'heology?

Philosophy includes, 1st, the systematic treatment of all that the reason of man teaches with regard to God, and those necessary and universal ideas, e. g., space and time, cause and effect, right and wrong, etc., which lie at the basis of all human thought