is, "There is no matter without mind, and there is no mind without matter; there is no world without God, and there is no God without the world." Instead of using two nouns, as natural realism does, this monism, in defining the primal being as "dynamic reason," uses an adjective and a noun. Matter is regarded as rational dynamic, and mind is regarded as dynamic reason. And the tertium quid, which it invests with primacy, is something that can neither be produced nor described nor conceived. There is certainly no philosophical idolatry in worshiping this nondescript; for the likeness of it is not to be found, either in heaven or on earth or under the earth. For one, I shall wait until it materializes before I take off my hat in its presence, meanwhile refusing to challenge the clear and emphatic testimony of consciousness, which declares that matter and mind are not identical or reducible to a common term, and insisting that reason must be content to say that they find their unity in the Primal Will, whose creative and causative energy is unfathomable.

Only four theories of knowledge are possible. The conscious subject may be merged in the object of consciousness; or the object of consciousness may be identified with the conscious subject; or the conscious subject and the object of consciousness may be regarded as the conscious or unconscious self-diremption of an original indifference and identity; or the conscious subject and the object of consciousness may be regarded as essentially distinct and separate-an ultimate datum of consciousness the denial of which undermines the entire fabric of knowledge. For when metaphysics subverts psychology the Samson tumbles the temple upon his own head. All thought may as well be suspended if consciousness cannot be implicitly trusted. Whatever difficulties its testimony presents, they are certainly not overcome and removed by discrediting the witness. These four theories give us materialistic monism, idealistic monism, the monism of original indifference or absolute identity, and natural realisın. And for one I am a natural realist, because I am not prepared to bring the indictment of falsehood against the clear and uniform testimony of consciousness. There is a unity of creative will, but it does not obliterate the essential difference between the ego and the non-ego.

So much for monism as a theory of knowledge. It is plain

that it cannot stop here. Every theory of knowledge conducts to a theory of being. We cannot help assuming that things are as we know them. Our knowledge of them is the measure of their existence for us. And so monism passes into a theory of universal existence. The relation between matter and mind having been resolved into a relation of identity, the question arises, What is the relation of mind to mind, and of all finite minds to the Infinite Mind? And here, again, two courses are open to us. It may be said that finite mind is the only concrete reality, and that Infinite Mind is only a collective expression for the sum total of finite rationality. Or it may be said that the Infinite Mind is the only mind, and that finite minds are only its self-limitations and manifestations. The outcome, in the latter case, is that there is only one reality-the Infinite Mind-and that the universe of matter and mind is only the dual manifestation or localization of that Mind. This would seem to be pantheism; but there are many who insist that they are not pantheists, however pantheistic their speech may seem to be. That protest must be accepted as honestly made; but this cannot shield them from the criticism which insists, with justice, that the pantheism which they repudiate shall be absent from the statements in which they embody their creed. Dr. Strong is not a pantheist. He insists upon the reality of moral distinctions. He repudiates the idea that God is the author of sin. He affirms the creative origin of the universe in time. He repudiates the notion that matter is eternal. He rejects the doctrine of universal restoration. All this is squarely antipantheistic. But these statements appear as qualifications in a monistic theory of being, with which they cannot be made to agree. Consistency demands either the repudiation of the theory or the surrender of the qualifications. The logical outcome of the theory is pantheism. The following are the main positions which are maintained and defended, and which are accepted as, at least, provisionally true:

I. There is but one substance-God, of which nature is a self-limitation under the law of cause and effect, finite spirits a self-limitation under the law of freedom, and redemption a self-limitation under the law of grace.

II. There are no second causes in nature. The laws and the energies of nature are only the habits of God's action or his

generic volitions. An exception is made in favor of finite spirits, who are said to be the only real second causes, because they have freedom; but finite spirits are defined as "circumscriptions" of the divine substance-a phrase which reminds one of Leibnitz, who regarded monads as "born of the continual fulgurations of divinity from moment to moment."

III. Dr. Strong argues that, as in the Trinity there are three infinite personalities in one substance, so in the same numerical substance there may be multitudinous finite personalities; and he gives his adherence to the statement that God is the "integration of all finite consciousnesses in an all-embracing consciousness." God has but one infinite Son-Christ; but in the substance of the one infinite Son of God there are many finite sons of God.

IV. To all this the Christology of Dr. Strong's papers corresponds. Christ is the natural life of humanity, that is, its substance; and it follows that he was responsible for the sin committed by his own members. We are quoting the author's own words; and he adds that, because Christ was thus responsible, it was impossible that he should not suffer, not make reparation, not atone.

All this is defined as "ethical monism," to fight which may be found to be fighting against God. It is commended as a " mighty movement of the Spirit of God," leading to a deeper understanding of truth and preparing the way for the reconciliation of diverse parties and creeds, by disclosing their hidden ground of unity. I believe that it is so intended. I have known Dr. Strong for a quarter of a century, and I believe him to be as honest as he is able. When he says that he is not a pantheist I believe him; but in this, my confidence in his personal intentions, I am constrained to assume that his language does not fit his thought, and that he would and must repudiate the inevitable implications of his statements. From a trained theologian we have a right to demand that his language shall express his exact thought. And when I weigh, without prejudice or favor, what he has written I must say that to fight his doctrine is to fight for God, and that his irenicon is the disintegration and the death of all Christian faith. It will not do to let such bold propositions as I have enumerated above stand and then claim. that not an article of Christian doctrine is contravened. Let 24-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. XI.

the reader judge for himself whether every article is not surrendered, that is, if language has any meaning and if logic has any force. Nor can it be seriously maintained that the doctrine propounded in these articles is a new discovery, though the author writes with all the enthusiasm of a new convert. The rhetorical garment is woven on a modern loom, but it covers a face and figure which have long been familiar. The leading philosophical concepts, and even much of the phraseology, may be found in the writings of Descartes, Leibnitz, Spinoza, and Malebranche; and the theological representative of the system is Schleiermacher, who, to say the least, is fearlessly consistent in accepting the results of his pantheistic scheine. Let us examine these four propositions very briefly, in the order of their enumeration:

I. "There is but one substance-God." Now, by this is not meant that God alone has his substance from himself, that he alone is causa sui, and that all other beings derive their existence from him and depend upon him for their continuance. It is not the old doctrine of the aseity of God upon which Dr. Strong fixes attention. He makes it perfectly plain what he does mean when he adds that the universe, through all its ranges and grades of being, is a self-limitation of the divine substance. He quietly assumes that the word "substance" can only mean the "ens per se subsistens," that which has independent existence, which constitutes the ground of all existence, other substances than which there cannot be the common assumption of all pantheism. But the word "substance," as the equivalent of the Latin substantia, and of the Greek words ovoía and vñóσraois, which were used interchangeably, also means simply that which is or that which stands under-the essence of a thing, as distinguished from its properties. There may be existence' which is not self-existence. There may be substance, which is not "ens per se subsistens." This old and familiar distinction Dr. Strong wholly ignores in affirming that there is but one substance. He maintains that God is transcendent; but the old doctrine of the divine transcendence assumes a very different form under his hands. In theology, the transcendence of God means that his personal being and life are absolutely independent of the universe, independent even of space and time, eternally untrammeled and unlimited. He limits the universe,

quickens it, and rules in it; but in doing that his eternal being retains its absolute poise, and his personal substance is not divided or communicated. All that Dr. Strong means by the transcendence of God is that the universe does not exhaust him. There is infinitely more in God than there is in the universe. But there is nothing in the universe which is not in God and which, in its limited form, is not God. The only substance which the universe has is the self-limited substance of God. Now, this does not identify the universe and God as coequal and coterminous; but it does more than make God the causative ground of the universe-it affirms that the universe is only the manifestation of the self-limited substance of God under the law of cause and effect, or under the law of freedom, or under the law of grace. So far as it has any substance, that substance is the substance of God; or, in other words, God is the substance of the cosmos. This may not be cosmological pantheism, but it is pantheistic cosmology; and there is not much to choose between them.

II. The denial of second causes in nature is a necessary part of Dr. Strong's ethical monism. He declares the laws and the energies of nature to be only the habits of God's action or his generic volitions. He is not content to say that the laws of nature simply represent God's habits of action, that God is the principle of universal order. Even this statement, that the order of nature is only another name for the personal action of God, I should be disposed to challenge as strenuously as I should oppose Fichte's identification of God with the moral order of the world. To make the natural and moral order of the universe only another name for the personal action of God may be so interpreted as either to personalize the universe or to depersonalize God. It would be easy to take the step that this natural and moral order is the only God of which we have, and can have, any knowledge. But Dr. Strong adds that the ener gies of nature are simply God's habit of action. The energy of God is the only energy there is. Force and personal will are assumed to be convertible terms.

The statement is plausible, but will not bear close and careful scrutiny. Our personal knowledge of what is involved in volition does not warrant the statement that energy is a form of personal will. He who does nothing but will, who has no physical