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Three final existences

conclude hastily that they belong to it in some peculiar sense. In order therefore that we may see clearly what Christian Doctrine really is, what it brings that is novel either of darkness or of light to the whole conception of being, we must endeavour to gain some notion of the actual circumstances in which we find ourselves, of the problems which our condition inevitably proposes to us, of the imperious impulses which drive us to seek some solution of them, of the solutions which have been formed independently during the præChristian growth of humanity, before we can rightly appreciate the characteristics of the Christian solution.

I assume at the outset as a clear result of personal and social experience, of the main teaching of the life of the individual and of the life of humanity, that as men we are so constituted as to recognise three final existences which sum up for us all being, self, the world, and GOD; or, to put the thought in another form, that we are so constituted as to recognise in that which is without us, 'the not ourselves,' something which corresponds in a certain sense to the 'body' and 'soul' which we recognise in our own being, a ' material' order and a force controlling it.

We become first conscious of the reality of

these existences through experience, through life. And it is through experience, which we are able to interpret, that we discern more of their nature. The process is necessarily slow. It is only by degrees that we learn to interpret severally the simplest impressions of sense, the position (for example) and the movements of objects in space; and it is reasonable to expect that it will be more difficult to gain a general interpretation of the many phenomena which tend to give precision and completeness to the master thoughts of our whole nature.

So in fact it has been and is both with the individual and with the race. We have each of us in the course of our own growth, and we can see that the same is true of nations, shaped gradually the conceptions of self, the world, and GOD, which we now have. In this there has been nothing arbitrary, nothing accidental. In the largest sense we have taken 'living' as our guide in the process, so far as it has been consciously pursued. In part however it has been accomplished silently, 'naturally,' as we say, by a kind of moral growth. At the same time we start on our individual course from different points in the line of the great inquiry. The accumulated experience of the past is to a certain extent the inheritance of each succeeding generation, but this wealth of

experience on which we now enter must be vitally appropriated in order that it may become effective. And it cannot be too often repeated that neither knowledge nor feeling is an end for man; we seek to know more truly and to feel more justly that we may fulfil our part in life with more perfect service.

Questioning then my own experience, and interpreting, so far as I am able, the life of others, as it falls under my observation, I hold that the assumption which I have made, that as men we necessarily recognise these three existences, self, the world, and GOD, is fully justified. The conviction rests ultimately on my personal consciousness; but, as far as I can see, my fellow-men act under the influence of the ideas which I distinguish by these names. At the same time the names are used with a wide range of meaning, and it is necessary to mark somewhat more exactly the sense in which I take them as expressing for man the final elements of being.

I am conscious of self.' I feel-I know, that is, immediately with the most certain assurance which I can realise-that I am something more than a collection of present sensations or thoughts. I feel that there is a past which is individually

my own, and that there will be a future, long or short, which will be mine. I feel that there is an inalienable continuity in a limited series of experiences which belongs to me alone. And I carry on the anticipation of this essential permanence of the 'I' beyond the region in which experience can work. All around me act, as far as I can judge, under the influence of the same convictions. Looking without I observe that men, to speak generally, are filled with anxiety for their posthumous reputation; and that they are scrupulously reverent of the dead.

I am conscious also of the world.' I feel, that is, that there is outside me something finite by which I am affected in various ways. I feel, however difficult it may be for me to determine the relation between my perceptions of things and the things themselves, that my perceptions are not originated, though they are conditioned by my individual 'self.' I feel that my present personal life is inconceivable without the full recognition of the medium in which it is passed and by which it is modified.

I am conscious in the third place of GOD. It is not necessary for me to inquire here into the origin of the conception. I feel that the

6 The reality of these existences cannot

conception being present corresponds with what I observe within and without. I feel, that is, that beside the 'self' and 'the world' in which the 'self' moves, both of which are changeable and transitory, there is That which is absolutely One and Eternal. Each man is for himself the centre of unity from moment to moment, but I feel that this fleeting image of unity must answer to a reality in which all being 'is and moves.' I feel moreover that all that is noblest in men, all by which they are capable of striving after the good and the beautiful and the true, all by which they are bound one to another, must find its archetype in this One Eternal.

And yet more than this, when I look without, I feel that the order which we regard gives rise to ideas of purpose and progress which, being what we are, we refer, under the imagery of our own finite experience, to the action of a wise Designer. And, last of all, the analogies of life constrain us to think of Him as One who may be loved and who Himself loves, while He is yet dwelling in light unapproachable and robed in awful majesty. I cannot think of Him as other than Holy and Just, however feeble human words may be to express what I dimly divine.

The consciousness of these three existences