46 REV. CHANCELLOR LIAS, M.A., ON 



think over the matter, the less 1 can believe that ideas can exist 

 in onr minds antecedent to experience. Tennyson's view that 

 experience alone can enable ns even to grasp the primary 

 fact of onr own identity, and that thns, by experience alone, 

 can we " round to a separate mind from which dear memory 

 can begin,"* seems to me a satisfactory explanation of the 

 fact that even conscionsness of one's own existence, the 

 primary condition of all active life and profitable thought, 

 can only exist afl"er our expericTice has reached a certain 

 stage in its development. Nor shall I be alarmed if this 

 assertion should be shown by some objector to involve a 

 contradiction. Mr. Herbert Spencer has shown that all 

 ultimate ideas land us in contradictions; but we accept 

 obvious facts nevertheless. I will therefore venture to 

 assert that, like the idea of self, the idea of God, as formed 

 by man, is, primarily at least, the product of experience. 



The capacity for drawing conclusions from facts is, no 

 doubt, innate in us. And there is, doubtless, in the case 

 of ideas of God, anotlier ultimate source than mere 

 experience— that is, if the Christian idea be true. For 

 tliat idea involves a revelation. And tliis revelation does 

 not simply consist in imparting information to the mind 

 about God; it consists in the impartation to the soul or 

 spirit of man, of tlie very nature of the Divine Being 

 Himself.f But in the first instance we form our conceptions 

 of God from observation. Observation itself may, no doubt, 

 be quickened by the teaching of those from whom our 

 first ideas are derived. But even that very teaching itself 

 is a form of experience. And our experience confirms, 

 modifies, corrects tliose ideas, when imparted. 



The very variety of the conceptions formed by mankind 

 of the Divine Being tend to support this view. The 

 fundamental principle, in every case, is that of a Being 

 above and beyond ourselves, and above and beyond Avhat 

 we see around us. But that principle assumes various 

 forms among various ract^s. Yet only the most degraded or 



the i-esult of inheritance, or of the Will of the Creator, in the same way in 

 which a machine is contrived by the inventor or formed by the maker to 

 fulfil a certain purpose. This original draught, so to speak, of the 

 machine will condition its action when brought into contact with facts. 

 But there can be no action on its part until it does come in contact with 

 facts. 



* In Memoriam. t 2 Pet. i, 4. 



