ness in each man that his neighbor is his brother. In the teachings of Jesus this latter insight follows from the sense of common sonship that Jesus wants to give to men. But, apart from the theology, the belief in the brotherhood of men, in case it can be made clear and definite, may have just the relation to the idea of duty that Jesus, in his theological ethics, wished the idea of the common sonship to have.

But it is our present purpose to see how doubt follows the track of the moral idealists. And to carry out even here this purpose, it is very important to note that however much the morality of Jesus seems to rest upon his theology, and did, for him, rest upon that theology, for us that basis would be of itself insufficient, even if we could unhesitatingly accept the theology. For the skeptical question might arise in the inquiries of the philosopher, to whom all questions are allowed, Why is it evident that one ought to return the Father's love? Granting the fact of this love, how does it establish the ideal? And this question, easy as seems the answer of it to a believer, is just the question that the "almost persuaded" of all times have been disposed to ask. Any particular individual may believe in the theology of Jesus, and yet fail to feel the force of the moral doctrine. Why does this love constrain me? he may say. In fact the church has always found it necessary to construct for itself a process, or even a series of processes, through which the unbeliever must go, in order to reach the point of development where he could begin to feel the constraining force of the divine love. It has been recognized as a fact that the unregenerate could believe and even tremble and yet remain unregenerate. The saving faith was seen to be not identical with the mere belief in God as Father. For the saving faith, divine grace was necessary, adding to the unregenerate recognition of the bare truth the devotion of the loving child of God. And therefore the church has never been content with the doctrine of Jesus in its undeveloped simplicity.

But if all this is so, then for us the morality of Jesus, considered as morality, is founded, not on the theological theory alone, but also on a peculiar insight that each man is to have into the duty of returning the divine love. That the divine love is real, gives a basis for all duty in case and only in case one first sees that it is one's duty to return the divine love. And wherein is this insight as such any clearer than the direct insight into the duty of loving one's neighbor? If a man loves not his brother whom he has seen, how shall he love God whom he has not seen? Is not the duty of gratitude first evident, if at all, in man's relations to his fellows? Is not love given first as a duty to one's companions, and only secondarily as a duty to God, and then only in case one believes in God? In other words, are we not here, as in the discussion with the realist at the outset, led to the view that not a physical doctrine, nor yet even the sublimest metaphysical doctrine, as such, but only an ethical doctrine, can be at the base of a system of ethics? The doctrine that God loves us is a foundation for duty only by virtue of the recognition of one yet more fundamental moral principle, the doc

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trine that unearned love ought to be gratefully re: turned. And for this principle theology as such gives no foundation. But on the other hand, upon what should the ideal principle itself be founded? Why is unearned love to be gratefully returned? Is this principle founded once more on some doctrine of the constitution of human nature? The same objection would again appear. A physical fact is no ideal. So, then, this insight is just an insight, the acceptance of an ideal wholly for its own sake? But then returns the old objection. What is such an unfounded ideal but the individual caprice of somebody? Let the faithful be never so devoted; still there are the unregenerate, who are somehow to be convinced of a truth that they do not recognize. And how are they convinced, if at all? Not by showing them the facts, which they have already known without conviction; but by arousing in them a new feeling, namely, gratitude. Thus the Christian ideal seems to have for its sole theoretical foundation the physical fact that man often feels gratitude. It is true that no one can accuse Jesus of expressly giving this or any other theoretical foundation to his doctrine. He was necessarily wholly free from the theoretical aim in his dealings with the people. But for us now the point is the theoretical point. If the foundation of Christian ethics as popularly understood be not the physical fact of the Father's love, then is it not just the physical fact of the frequent existence of gratitude? And is either of these a satisfactory foundation for an ethical theory as such? Nay, if Christian ethics be the highest from the practical point of view, still must we not dig much deeper to find the theoretical foundation on which this glorious structure rests?

III.

We have been seeking to illustrate our fundamental difficulty in ethics, - one that is too frequently concealed by rhetorical devices. The uncertainty here illustrated results from the difficulty of giving any reason for the choice of a moral ideal. Single acts are judged by the ideal; but who shall judge the judge himself? Some one, as Plato, or some Stoic, or Jesus, gives us a moral ideal. If we are of his followers, the personal influence of the Master is enough. Then we say: "I take this to be my guide," and our moral doctrine is founded. But if we are not of the faithful, then we ask for proof. The doctrine says: "Behold the perfect Life, or the eternal Ideas, or the course of Nature, or the will of God, or the love of the Father. To look on those realities is to understand our ideal. If you remember those truths, you will hesitate not to do as we say." But still the doubter may be unwilling to submit. He may say to Plato: "The tyrant is easy to find who will laugh at you when you talk of the peace of philosophic contemplation, who will insist that his life of conflict and of danger is fuller and sweeter in its lurid contrasts and in its ecstasies of sensuous bliss, than are all your pale, stupid joys of blank contemplation. And if the tyrant says so, who shall decide against him? Has not many a man turned with eagerness from the dull life of the thinker, once for a while endured, to the richer joys and sorrows of the man of the world? Have not such men actually held the pleasures of life, however dearly bought, to be better than the superhuman calm of your philosophic ideal?" Even so to the Stoic, the objector may say : "Granted that your eternal Reason does pervade all things and is our common Father, why should that cause me, who am one of his creatures, to do otherwise than I like? Who can escape from his presence? Even if I live irrationally, am I not still part of the Universal Reason? The bare fact that there is an Eternal Wisdom does not make clear to me that I must needs be very wise. My destiny may be the destiny of a being made solely to enjoy himself.". And, to the Christian doctrine, the skeptic may oppose the objection that if the truth does not at once spiritually convert all who know it, the proof is still lacking that the Christian Ideal actually appeals to all possible natures. "If I feel not the love of God," the objector will say, "how prove to me that I ought to feel it?" Or, as human nature so often questions: "Why must I be loving and unselfish?"

Now, the simple, practical way of dealing with all such objectors is to anathematize them at once. Of course, from the point of view of any assumed ideal, the anathema may be well founded. "If you do not as I command," so says any moral ideal, "I condemn you as an evil-doer." "He that believeth not shall be damned." But anathemas are not arguments. To resort to them is to give up theoretic ethics. We who are considering, not whom we shall