vfx : «эв LETTER TO MISS F. P. COBBE br'R of . ASA SSASAS SSMMSMSMSMMTMSAASAASAASAASAAAS = =صصية يق - = _____ ੋ=_... To T' and love far higher than our intelligence, purity and love but they do not lead us to the idea of the Absolutely Perfect Being. For that idea we must seek other sources than those three faculties. I think those sources are the intuitions of reason and judgment, Matter is not an object of sensuous perception nor is mind that of consci ousness. By sensuous perception we know only the qualities of matter and not matter itself. By consciousness, we know only the qualities of mind and not mind itself. It is by an opera. tion of reason that we know matter and mind, but that is an operation of reason in its intuitive form. As we know mind and matter by intuition of reason, we know the Perfect Being, the eternal ground of all existences, upon whom matter and mind depend, by intuition of reason also, but the in tuition of reason cannot give us an enlightened idea of absolute perfection. It only gives us a vague idea of the Terfect Being. It only enables us to know that the imperfect depends absolutely upon the Absolutely Perfect. But what is absolute perfection itself it does not enable us to know. For an enlightened idea of the Absolutely Per- fect Being, we are indebted to the intuition of judgment which lets us know what qualities are nobler than others. It is by the intuition of judgment we perceive that one idea of absolute perfection is nobler than another until we arrive at the highest idea of }od. From the intuitions of judgment also, we derive our notions of right and wrong. In this vicw of the question, conscience merges into the faculty of intuitive judgment, the feel. ings of moral approbation and disapprobation accompanying each act of such judgment being distinct from the latter. Congcience in its usual ac
ceptation more properly means these feelings than the judgment above alluded to * * * * * You seem to think that the ideas of God, given by the will, the conscience and the affections, are of an intuitive character but strictly considering they are not so. The Being who has given us will must have will—the Being who has given us ideas of moral purity must himself be pure—the Being who has given us love must himself have love—are all inferences and not intui. tions. They are correct inferences no doubt but not intuitions. 喝 You say in one place of your pre face: “Because we rejoice in these relics of ancient piety and delight to use them as often as they suggest themselves, as the genuine oxpressions of our feelings and love to link ourselves by their employment to the great chain of pious souls, stretching through the past, it does not therefore | follow that we can confine ourselves | within their limits or find in them as a whole the free channel wherein our This is a According to this principle, old and new clements should both be united in Theistic services and prayerbooks. The retention of the old element aids the diffusion of Theism anong the mass of man kind who has a tender fondness for the past. The acknowledgement of the merits of Christ in some of the prayers in your book, besides sounding very graceful as cypressions of gratitude in the mouths of European Theists who have conscientiously greater admiration for Christ than we, Hindu Theists, have, links the past with the present, and aids the diflusion mentioned above. I am very glad to mark the sacred regard and the affec tionate tenderness with which you have faith can flow unbrokenly.” very sound principle.
