standing' is of the profoundest significance. The proclamation of the human mind as the law-giver of nature marks a turningpoint in the whole history of metaphysics. Kant was the first who dared to say: it may sound exaggerated and absurd to say that the understanding is the source both of the laws and of the unity of nature. It is correct, nevertheless, and accords with experience.

Now Jesus proved by practical application the ideality of both space and matter, as, by disappearing suddenly from those about him, by passing bodily through closed doors; and, on the lake, when the disciples, because of adverse winds had been rowing all night and were yet a long way from the shore, Jesus coming to them walking on the water was received into the boat and, John adds, "Immediately the ship was at the land whither they went." (John, 6:21.) Jesus knew the ideality of space or distance and the knowing of this truth freed him and those with him from the limitations which a mistaken belief in the reality of distance had imposed upon them. In the same way he overcame other human concepts, falsely called laws of nature, as by quieting the winds and the waves, by simply knowing that such turbulence is not a manifestation of real nature but of the mortal or human mind. Inasmuch as the human mind prescribes the laws of nature (so-called), the setting aside of any such law by the divine Mind does not involve a conflict of laws but merely the assertion of real law as against unreal law. Jesus wrought his miracles not by the suspension of law but by the assertion of real law, the law of reality, of the real universe, the mundus intelligibilis.

The same logical necessity which drove Kant to the conclusion that God I did not create and does not know of the sensible or physical universe, compels the same conclusion with regard to physical man and his material consciousness. God did not create and does not know of the existence of such man,

any

for the very sufficient reason that no such man or consciousness has real existence. If any such man or consciousness really existed God would certainly know of it. But neither senseperception nor the human understanding which alone construct the sensible universe so-called is, according to Kant, attributable to God. God is the pure practical Reason; and man, the only real man, being the image and likeness, however feeble, of this pure Reason, has likewise neither sense-perception nor sense-consciousness. There is no gainsaying this conclusion as to man, even from the standpoint of philosophy; it has its warrant in the whole Kantian system, with Plato looming large above the horizon of a distant past. A thing can not be said to have real being which is not known to God. The only way to have real being is to be known of God, to be an idea of the practical Reason. But the carnal man or consciousness "is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Rom., 8:7); that is, is not subject to the law or categories of divine knowing and therefore can neither know the ideas of pure Reason nor be known as an idea of pure Reason, and has therefore no real being.

Thus, as with other phenomena so with man: "Space itself, however, as well as time, and with them all phenomena, are not things by themselves, but representations, and can not exist outside our mind; and even the internal sensuous intuition of our mind (as an object of consciousness) which is represented as determined by the succession of different states in time, is not a real self, as it exists by itself, or what is called the transcendental subject, but a phenomenon only, given to the sensibility of this to us unknown being."*

And again: "The logical nature, understanding and reason, is really the ego-in-itself, while, on the other hand, time and space belong merely to sentiency, to the sense representation of the *Critique of Pure Reason, p. 401.

ego, which as phenomenal can pass away (at death). But there remains the ego as a pure thinking essence, free from space and time, a spaceless and timeless pure thinking spirit."*

Through his doctrine of the correlation of the mundus sensibilis and the mundus intelligibilis and the unity of experience which it suggests, Kant was naturally led to differentiate between the sense consciousness-in-general and the psychological consciousness or individual reflection of the consciousness-in-general in individual experience. Ernest Bax in his preface to the Prolegomena mentions this as Kant's greatest service. However that may be, it affords an excellent illustration of how the mortal or human mind-the sense-mind, so to speakseeks to counterfeit the unity, or oneness of divine mind or, as Kant puts it, the practical Reason; and, at the same time, it offers a helpful theory on which to work out of our false sense of the reality of matter. That which Kant refers to "the unity of experience" and "the progressive possibility of experience,' John Stuart Mill utilizes under the expression "Permanent Possibility of Sensations" as his definition of matter. "Matter," he says, "then, may be defined a Permanent Possibility of Sensation. If I am asked whether I believe in matter, I ask whether the questioner accepts this definition of it. If he does, I believe in matter: and so do all Berkeleians. In any other sense than this, I do not." Now, to reduce a thing to a mere possibility, however permanent the possibility, certainly robs it of every quality as a material substance; furthermore, a sensation being a mental state, a possibility of sensations can be nothing more than a possibility of mental states. Moreover, under the magic of Mill's discriminating thought, this Permanent Possibility of Sensation is further resolved into merely a belief of a permanent possibility of sensation; and with this *Paulsen's Kant, p. 185.

+Exam. of Sir Wm. Ham. Phil., I., 243.

belief as a background or substratum the human mind, according to Mill, constructs its external or material world.

This consciousness-in-general means that universal empirical (mortal-mind) consciousness, or perhaps it would be more correct to say possibility of consciousness, which embraces in potentiality all sensations, or rather, all sense experience, which, under any conceivable condition of normality, is possible to the human race, excluding such modifications of experience as may be due to the peculiar organism of the individual. Sense phenomena have not actuality except as they are perceived in some individual consciousness; but although they may not be actually present at some particular moment in the consciousness of any individual, they nevertheless continue, not as phenomena, but as a possibility of becoming phenomena according to the laws of connected, universal, empirical experience. When, therefore, Christian Science teaches that the objects of material nature exist in mind only, it does not mean that they are dependent upon this or that individual subjectively for existence, but that they exist, in belief, as a continuing potentiality in universal mortal mind, subject to be actualized in individual experience whenever a normal occasion for such actualization shall arise. Which means nothing more than that mortal mind claims to imitate the processes of divine Mind.

These views should help to relieve our thought of the crude notions of workmanship which in the early period of our development we are apt to associate with the idea of creation. We think of God as making things like a human artificer, and even as going outside of Himself for material out of which to make His wares. But as our minds develop under the discipline of reflective thought, we begin to realize that creation could not be a less excellent act than the Father's Self-realization, the realization of His own Self-sufficient nature and identity.

One finds rest in the thought that creation is simply the Good realizing or expressing His blessedness, giving objectivity to His ideals in images, ideas, or living forms of beauty. The highest of these ideas is of course God's act of Self-consciousness, God's thought, idea, or consciousness of Himself, which is individual in as much as it expresses God's consciousness of His own individuality, which is compound in as much as it embraces all other ideas, or the whole creative thought, and which, being the expressed image, ideal or likeness of

God Himself, is, therefore, Man. Thus, the reflective or conceptual activity and identity of Mind (God's conception of Himself) is the image and likeness of His originative or creative activity; ‘and God is All-in-All, both noumenon and phenomena. As Mrs. Eddy says in the Christian Science text-book, Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures, pages 114-10: "In Science, Mind is is one, including noumenon and phenomena, God and His thoughts." L. H. JONES.

Louisville, Ky.

in former times, has not been regarded as a science for much more than one hundred years. A wise man named Smith stated its laws in the latter part of the last century.

This science assumes that there is enough work in this world for every man and woman; that they can always find this work near at hand; that there will always be enough products of human labor-food, shelter and clothing to go round-and never too few or too many; for a mysterious thing called "Supply and Demand" attends to all that. This science assumes that there will never be too few or too many laborers in one kind of work; because if there are too few, the products of that work will become scarce and dear, and the wages high, and other laborers will come in; if there are too many, the products of the work will become plentiful and cheap, the wages low, and laborers will go into some other occupation where there is greater demand-that another mysterious thing

care of all that.

That science tells us that competition in each industry, and between the various industries, will keep the price of products reasonable and the profits of the various industries uniform and equitable, giving each man a fair chance in the struggle for life.

The scheme of this beautiful science, when they had worked out all its mysterious details, capital, wages, profit, rent, interest, etc.,-they called by an elegant French name, laissez faire-the philosophy of "let-alone" or "let-go." They asserted that it had been in operation for two or three thousand years, and that it was the only science that would afford liberty and happiness to humanity.

There is a great deal of wisdom in this splendid and elaborate science. There is a great deal of truth that has not been entirely escaped by its mysterious doctrines. The study of these doctrines has brought a great deal of

knowledge as well as a great deal of insanity into this world. There must always be some insanity in anything which is respectable. This science is respectable, but it is not fascinating.

Political economy is believed in implicitly by a great many English and American college professors. That settles its social status. Inside of some of these institutions called universities, where they teach theology, astronomy and dead languages, it is perfectly satisfactory. The professors get five thousand dollars a year; the students are the sons and daughters of comfortable families, where supply and demand are always equal, and laissez faire works like a charm.

Independently of these facts, Mr. Smith's theory of political economy, invented before the discovery of steampower and electricity, is fit to be the monument of the genius of any man. It was a great thing to do in his time. I speak of it reverently.

But this theory called laissez faire, placed in practice on American soil consecrated a century ago to equal rights, has created in that century a vast result of human inequality. It has distorted the just conditions of social life. It has estranged classes of citizens. It has placed the wages of toil in the hands of idleness. It has It has made Cunning a prince and Honesty a pauper. It has made Industry a slave a slave to feed Indolence as a parasite. It has written despair over the doorways of millions of homes. It has dwarfed Childhood with premature toil. It has filled the breast of Labor with discontent, and the streets of cities with the tramp of soldiers in times of peace. It has placed manufacture under the surveillance and protection of hired detectives -the Pinkertons and the police. It has laid the dead hand of debt on the ploughman, and pawned the lands of the West to the princes of the East. It has given to millionaire gamblers and railroad monarchs the power to lay an embargo on the wheat fields of the prairies, and

"with a stroke of a pen to make famine crouch in the streets of our cities." It has made tender women toil for the pittance of beggars, or flee to prostitution for bread. It has made the anarchist and the tramp. It has handed over to merciless corporations the gigantic industries of the nation, to unseat the will and debauch the conscience of the nation itself. It has enfeebled the sense of national honor. It has made pillage for private greed of the resources of a mighty and generous people. It has kidnapped for monopoly the government of the United States.

So much for laissez faire in unrestricted play on American soil for a century! It has shown this nation, which began in liberty a century ago, of the power of volition-the Delilah to the American giant. In the streets of our cities, on election days, the vote of an American sovereign is bought for a barrel of flour, because bread has become more precious than the ballot. In twenty states of this Union we innocently ask which is the railroad's candidate for Congress That settles the question.

Every American industry passes rapidly into the hands of monopoly. The millions that are made pass to the pockets of the few, the Jack Sheppards and Dick Turpins of American society. These are the gentlemen in the United States Senate, who sit like kings at the head of syndicates, give feasts like Lucullus, purchase admiration of a grateful people by flinging back to them in charities a fragment of the spoils of which they have robbed them, and lie in marble mausoleums costng a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, when they are dead. We do not envy them, living or dead. They, too, are the victims of the industrial morals of their time. of their time. But we do say that no dead American has right to lie under a grave-stone worth a hundred and fifty thousand dollars while a live American woman is starving in a garret.

The wealth of this world belongs to the quick and not to the dead. Civilization

is not rich enough to furnish mausoleums for dead capitalists, or yachts for live ones. Its industries should be devoted to producing the necessities of life as long as one needy human being exists.

So much for eighteenth century political economy in twentieth century civilization. So much for the science of an age of dreams in an age of steam. So much for the results of the philosophy of Adam Smith in the New Republic.

But how about it considered theoretically? What can be said for its intelligence? It has not been a success in practice, yet it may be wise in theory.

But let us see! This science is the alleged science of supply and demand. We are told that this principle will regulate and adjust the conditions of human labor. But for more than half a century the most remarkable and persistent feature of our modern industrial order has been the war between capital and labor-between employer and employed. Ugly things called strikes and lock-outs cover every civilized land. Scarcely a month passes but shops and mills close industries cease, and thousands and hundreds of thousands of workingmen turn to idleness in the streets The sensitive ear of humanity is assailed with the clangor of human rage and suffering. The man with the purse is testing the supply of labor to purchase it at the most beggarly price. The man with a tin bucket is testing capital to get a larger share of profit.

The United States government, through its department of labor, has looked into this matter. It finds that ten millions of days' abor are lost through this conflict to the productive force of this country in a single year. I has found that the loss to the country in the same time by this cause is $300,000,000 enough to support the fearful drain of another war at nearly a million a day. This is scientific economy with a vengeance. This is the laissez faire of the college professors at full play.

There is another feature of this sci

entific economy. Under it a man or a set of men with a bank account sets up food or a manufactory of products o clothing or soap or pills or iron nails. Other men and other companies set up other manufactories of these goods in other parts of the country. These establishments know nothing accurately of the conditions of the supply or demand in these products. There is no understanding between them. There cannot be by the nature of the case; this is competition. They know nothing accurately of the ability or intentions of each other in regard to production. So they manufacture goods at full steam, launch them by all cunning ways on the great unknown sea of demand, the market; and each tries to steal the trade and crush the business of his rivals; for this is the Christian principle of modern competition.

Some day, early in the morning, it is found that here are more soap, and starch and shoes and sugar and suspenders and cotton goods, and iron nails, than anybody or everybody will buy. Pills have become, so to speak, a "drug in the market." Factories suspend or close. Workmen are turned into the streets. Without wages they cannot buy these goods or other goods. They want them, but cannot buy them. This the professors of Mr. Smith's political economy call "Over-production." Then other manufactories suspend. There is a crash-universal poverty and misery. But the professors are prepared for this also. They give it a scientific name. They call it an "Industrial Depression. That vindicates their science.

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But this system without organic unity or coördination is the scientific scheme of political economy in the first quarter of the twentieth century among civilized peoples.

Let us suppose that a visitor from another world should come to this planet in one of these periods of industrial depression. He would pass over the land and see the prairies waving with