primitive barbaric condition, and form for themselves a State, that conflict has been, so far, overcome, and a certain unity of interest, which expresses itself in Religion, in Law, Morality, Government, has been established. The State then, with its laws and institutions, its government and morality, is that form of reality in which the individual has and enjoys his freedom. It is the actually existing realised moral life; for it is the unity of the universal essential will with that of the individual. The individual, living in this unity, has a moral life, possesses a value, that consists in this substantiality alone. It is the very object of the State that what is essential, what is in harmony with the great purpose of the world, in the practical activity of men, should be duly recognised, that it should have a manifest existence and be able to maintain its position. In the history of the world only those peoples can come under our notice which form a State. For it must be understood that the State alone is the realisation of freedom, i.e., of the absolute final aim which determines the course of History. It must further be understood that all the worth which the individual possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State. For his spiritual reality consists in this, that his highest life, which is one with the aim of the world, possesses for him, not a merely abstract empty existence, but a real outward existence in the world. It is only in the full knowledge of this existing real life that he becomes fully free, fully conscious. It is only through this real existence. that he becomes a partaker of morality, of a just and moral social life. The State is the divine idea as it exists on earth. We have in it, therefore, the object of history in a more definite shape than before: that in which freedom obtains real existence. For law is the reality of conscious life, volition in its true form. Only that will which obeys law is free; for, in obeying law, it obeys that which expresses its own nature and aim, and so is free. Law has necessary existence as being the reality and substance of things, the conscious expression of the divine purpose; and we are free in recognising it as law and following it as the substance of our own being. The divine will and the will of the individual are then reconciled, and present one identical, homogeneous whole.

The State then is the manifestation of human will and its freedom. It is to the State therefore that change in the aspect of history indissolubly attaches itself; and the successive stages by which spiritual freedom, the end, is realised,

manifest themselves in history as distinct political principles, distinct forms of State-life.

We have thus far established two elemental considerations: first, the idea of freedom as the absolute and final aim; second, the means for realising it, i.e., the subjective side of knowledge and will with its life, movement and activity. We then recognised the State as the moral whole and reality of freedom, and consequently as the objective unity of these two elements. The State is, therefore, the basis and centre of the other and concrete elements of the life of a people, of Art, of Law, of Morals, of Religion, of Science. All the activity of Spirit has only this object, the becoming conscious of this union, i.e., of its own freedom. Among the forms of this conscious union, Religion occupies the highest place. Religion is, in a special sense, that form in which man expresses his oneness with God; but all manifestations of life, in so far as they are realisations of freedom, also show forth this unity. In Religion, spirit, rising above the limitations of mere secular existence, becomes conscious of the absolute Spirit, and in this consciousness of the self-existent being renounces its merely individual interest. With this self-renunciation, whose aim is to obtain freedom, true life begins. I have said that Morality is the identity of the individual will with the will of God. Now the mind must give itself an express consciousness of this identity; and the focus of this knowledge is Religion. Art and Science, when truly seen, are only various aspects and forms of the same substantial being. Religion is the form in which a nation gives itself the definition of what it regards as the true, that which it regards as the explanation of existence. The conception of God, therefore, constitutes the general basis of a people's character. In this aspect Religion stands in the closest connexion with the political principle. All religions

realise, in a more or less complete degree, the relation between the divine purpose and human life, the principle of freedom. But full freedom can exist only where the individual is recognised as having his positive and real existence in the universal aim; where the actions of the individual are sanctioned not by the will of another individual, nor by any compact or arrangement between individuals, but by Religion, by the very constitution of existence. This means that the practical work of the individual has not in itself that absolute validity, that absolute claim to recognition, to which even kings and governors must bow, except in so far as the principle that pervades it receives absolute validity; which it cannot have unless it is recognised as the definite manifesta

tion, the phenomenal existence, of that divine spirit which constitutes freedom. The State is thus always more than a mere collection of individuals; because it is the realisation of that freedom to which the individual must conform himself in order to become free. It is this that explains the saying that the State is based on Religion. The form of Religion decides the form of the State and its constitution. The latter actually originated in the particular religion adopted by the nation; so that, in fact, the Chinese, the Hindoo, the Persian, the Egyptian, the Athenian and the Roman States were possible only in connexion with the peculiar form of religion existing among these peoples; just as a Catholic State has a spirit and a constitution different from that of a Protestant one. I may illustrate this remark by noticing the folly of pretending to invent and carry out political institutions independently of religion. The history of France during the present century furnishes an example. That country is Catholic, and the Catholic confession, although sharing the Christian name with the Protestant, does not concede to the State an inherent justice and morality, a right independent of the will of any individual or class of individuals, a concession which, in the Protestant principle, is fundamental. Roman Catholicism and constitutional government are absolutely incompatible; and the attempt to build up a constitution uninfluenced by any religion, as France will be forced to do, so long as it remains Catholic, can produce only an absolute unrest. A political revolution can obtain stability only if it is the result of a religious reformation, of a distinct advance in the conception of freedom.

Only in connexion then with a particular religion can a particular constitution exist. From the fact that in Religion all distinction of person disappears, that in it all men become one, it follows that each particular nation having, for the basis of its life, its own conception of the divine, is to be treated as only one individual in the process of universal history. For that history is the exhibition of the divine. absolute development of spirit in its highest forms, that gradation by which it reaches the perfect life in God. The forms which these gradations assume are the characteristic "National Spirits" of history, the peculiar tenor of their moral life, their government, their art, religion and science. To realise these grades is the boundless impulse of conscious life-the goal of its irresistible urging.

One word, in conclusion, in reference to the course of the world's history. Each people that is forming itself into a

376 J. M. MACDONALD: THE SCIENCE OF HISTORY.

State does so on the basis of religion, on the basis of its own conception of the relation between the world and the divine, between the life of the individual and that universal life, which is its presupposition and aim. It is its religion that forms the distinctive characteristic of a people. It is this alone which takes the lead in all the deeds and tendencies of that people, and which is occupied in realising itself, in making its real life correspond with its idea of the divine. This harmony each people is destined to accomplish for itself; but its accomplishment is at the same time its dissolution as a historical people, and the rise of a new religion, another world-historical people, another epoch of universal history. This transition and connexion leads us to the idea and connexion of the whole, the idea of the world's history as such. To comprehend the thought involved in this transition, the study of history itself is necessary. The fundamental necessity of the transition lies in the fact that national activity ceases when the religion which it embodies reaches its full realisation in life, when the object of all its endeavours is accomplished. When this is reached the activity displayed by the spirit of the people is no longer needed; it has its desire; and the bond of union, which implies combined exertion for some object not fully realised, disappears. The contradiction between its inner aim and life and its actual being is removed; and what had been its aim becomes, as it were, the property of the individual. Enriched by this spiritthe final result of the labours of the nation-the individual assumes an attitude of superiority, of criticism, towards the laws and institutions by which the national endeavours had been guided; and private interest becomes predominant. In order that a truly universal interest may again arise, a principle of a new order, a new national spirit, must show itself. This is the soul, the essential consideration in the scientific comprehension of History.

The conclusion of the whole matter is this, that the History of the World aims at the realisation of a complete harmony between man and God, the realisation, through a painful process of self-conflict and self-conquest, of that freedom, which is the same in spirit as the love taught by Christ, the realisation of a State in which the interest of each will be the interest of all, and the interest of all the interest of each; and it is in the light of this aim that all progress in history must be interpreted. The true believer

in the ultimate complete realisation of a kingdom of Christ on this earth does not confine his vision to the future, but recognises the development in the past and the essential worth of the present.

IV. SPACE AND TOUCH, II.1

By Dr. EDMUND MONTGOMERY.

V.

WHETHER geometrical truths rest on experience conveyed through the ordinary sensory channels, or whether they originate transcendentally through purely mental processes or through an intuitive recognition of eternal relations-are questions that have been much discussed of late. Indeed

it is not difficult to apprehend that the validity of Experientialism on the one side, and of Transcendentalism on the other, is strictly dependent on the decision here arrived at. If it can be shown that geometrical constructions-through complications of which all spatial forms whatever are producible-may be mentally fashioned without the aid of immediate or remembered sensorial impressions, then extreme Transcendentalism has an easy task. For the secondary qualities of so-called things-their touch, colour, sound, taste and smell-have long been recognised as truly mental possessions; which renders it impossible for them to constitute at the same time properties of extra-mental existents. Now, if the spatial forms, in which these secondary qualities naturally seem to inhere, are themselves spontaneous products of the mind, it is obvious that the whole object with all its qualities, primary and secondary, must be mentally originated. And if the whole make-up of spatial objects is thus originated, then their changes are of necessity likewise operated by purely mental functions.

Thus would mind, even such mind as we have, be established as creator of all the universe we perceive-that is, if mind were really competent, by its own spontaneous powers, to construct spatial forms. A geometry produced transcendentally by mental synthesis implies the fashioning and endowment of the entire content of consciousness by the same agency and from the same source.

Though it must be admitted that all perception, and therewith everything in perceptual appearance, is truly mental, our practical sense strenuously opposes the conclusion that such mental appearances are transcendentally effected, that

1 Continued from MIND XXXVIII.