culties, so that we
can speak of our understanding, our affections, our powers of perception
and sensation, as parts of ourselves, yet is centred in one faculty
which we call the will. 'If there be aught spiritual in man,' says
Coleridge, 'the will must be such. If there be a will, there must be a
spirituality in man.' The will is the man. It is the will that makes us
responsible beings. It is for the action of our will, or the consent of
our will, that we come to be called in question. It is by the will that
we assert ourselves amidst the existences around us; and as the will is
the man in relation to phenomena, so on the other side the will is the
one and only force among the forces of this world which takes cognizance
of principles and is capable of acting in pursuit of an aim not to be
found among phenomena at all. The will is not the whole spiritual
faculty. Besides the power of willing we have the power of recognising
spiritual truth. And this power or faculty we commonly call the
conscience. But the conscience is not a force. It has no power of acting
except through the will. It receives and transmits the voice from the
spiritual world, and the will is responsible so far as the conscience
enlightens it. It is the will whereby the man takes his place in the
world of phenomena.

It is then to the man, thus capable of appreciating a law superior in
its nature to all phenomena and bearing within himself the conviction of
a personal identity underlying all the changes that may be encountered
and endured, that is revealed from within the command to live for a
moral purpose and believe in the ultimate supremacy of the moral over
the physical. The voice within gives this command in two forms; it
commands our duty and it commands our faith. The voice gives no proof,
appeals to no evidence, but speaks as having a right to command, and
requires our obedience by virtue of its own inherent superiority.

Its first command we call duty. The voice within awakes a peculiar
sentiment which, except towards its command, is never felt in our souls,
the sentiment of reverence. And it commands the pursuit of that,
whatever it may be, to which this sentiment of reverence attaches. This
is the positive test by which we are to know what is ever to be our
highest aim. And along with this there is a negative test by which we
are perpetually to correct the other, namely, the test of universality.
The moral law in its own nature admits of no