is is the message of the ethical Church.

But to return to the teaching of the philosopher of ethics, I must remind
my readers again that I am unable to do more than sketch the outlines of
the great ethical system which he gave to the world. More than that will
not be needed for the moment. But before undertaking even a synoptical
account of the transcendental ethic, I think it advisable to remark that
Kant's title to philosophical immortality rests upon his constructive
work as an ethicist, and not on his critical work as a speculative
thinker. It is well known that the two philosophies of Kant are not
_prima facie_ harmonious, that he finds himself compelled to deny as a
critic that of which he is most certain as a moralist. Thus the great
facts of theism, immortality and the autonomy or freedom of the will, he
professes himself unable to know save as revelations of the moral order.
His mind, or pure reason, can know nothing of them; it is his will or
practical reason which discerns them as plain deductions from the
overwhelming fact of the moral law. This fact has led some critics to
describe Kant as a sceptic. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We
might almost quote of him what Browning wrote of Voltaire:--

Crowned by prose and verse, and wielding
with wit's bauble learning's rod,
He at least believes in soul and is very sure of God.

No one more so; yet as a thinker he professed himself unable to
_demonstrate_ these high truths. In that sense Kant's famous _Critique
of the Pure Reason_ may be described as the forerunner of the systematic
agnosticism which is set forth in the _First Principles_ of Mr. Spencer.
But there is this immense difference, that Kant was convinced of the
reality of that which the mind of man could not demonstrate. The great
facts were existent indeed, but he was powerless to reach them with the
instruments at his command. In consequence, he laid it down as a
principle that man must ever act as though it were actually demonstrated
that we were free, our innermost being imperishable, and a supreme judge
and dispenser of justice to administer the moral laws which are the guide
of life. It would be out of place to state the arguments whereby Kant
justified his belief in a controlling mind in the universe and in the
spiritual nature of man, while avowing his inability to demonstrate those
truths. It must suffice to state here that the truths which lie at the
foun