6 J^atural History Society of JST. JS., Bulletin No, IV. 
the nations the politicians rule more by expediency than by any 
fixed laAvs. The experience of the past is but little used to guide 
the present — a common-sense view of justice and right has through 
many centuries built up a system of common law, and it is doubtful 
if statute law enacted by the wisest legislators has added much to 
its wealth. The laws of trade form a battle ground for party to 
fight against party, rather than an exhibition of concentrated wis- 
dom. And though in our courts the law of evidence is tolerably 
understood, there is a vast field of indistinct knowledge that some 
day may come under the codifying ethics of the intellectual laws. 
In the region of morals there are laws, as in all else. We cannot 
conceive that any department of philosophy can exist without them. 
And to this one especially is the term ethics truly applicable. 
Whilst by the exercise of our natural powers we can come to right 
conclusions in natural philosophy — in the organic world and in the 
working of the intellect, however abstruse and difficult the last may 
be, yet in the moral field our ability is very limited, and it is doubt- 
ful if the moral laws ever could be decided by the unaided intellect 
of man. I do not say that with advancing knowledge we may not 
rise to a rational perception of these rules, and feel their necessity 
and see their beauty in clear outlines. But when nation differs from 
nation in circumstances and characteristics, nay, when individual dif- 
fers from individual, there is but little possibility of a oneness of 
conclusion in the moral rules which should govern our actions. If 
these rules are to be universal they must come from authority out- 
side and above humanity. 
THE MORAL PART OF MAN 
connects him with something above him. It enables him to respond 
to demands from a higher source. It constitutes the border land 
where the seen and unseen blend ; where the spiritual illumines the 
darkness, and renders certain and universal what otherwise would be 
uncertain and limited. It has been well for man that co-eval with 
the race a moral revelation has been promulgated, that it came from 
a higher source, that it opened out, as we rose in our power to re- 
ceive it, until it culminated in a living example. The Divine Logos. 
The moral differs from the other departments of knowledge. In 
them the faculties of man are left to grapple with the world, and its 
phenomena ; in the other we have the necessary proffered help. 
