FIDO FIDES. 
279 
Job speaks of the “ spirit of a beast that goeth down¬ 
ward." In the correspondences of things, from which 
we derive our idea of harmony, instinct is the spirit of 
the brute; but, for all we know, instinct may be as 
much the product of matter as mind, for its successions! 
developments are in a downward course, just as those of 
intelligence are in an upward course. We can only reason 
upon w'hat we know, and we know this—that within us 
is a life added to that of thought, and that when intel¬ 
lectual parallels are at an end, man acquires a distinct 
place in the universe, by virtue of his impulses to moral 
good. The doctrines of Kant have never clashed with 
the conclusions of physiology. We may fearlessly con¬ 
nect thought with organization; and then Kant would 
ask about ideas a priori, about the spiritual resources of 
man, about his power of conceiving things that lie 
beyond the region of experience—such as infinity, God, 
the supreme Good. The answer must be, that man is a 
threefold creature; that these, his highest efforts, are the 
province of his imperishable spirit; and that thence his 
faith, though reason may assist it, is above reason in its 
nature, as it is also in its destiny. Intelligence drags 
him down to earth, conscience lifts him towards heaven, 
as a creature desirous of attaining “ to the all good and 
the all fair." His aspirations are upward; *;uch, too, is 
his path. It is his spirit that leads him; and only by so 
much as he trusts to that will his aims be purified, his 
faith perfected, and he himself fitted for an inheritance 
of eternal joy. 
