one cannot progress, but the other will be thereby developed. Society is a want in the sensory, and an imperative in the spirituality; and has its right to be, and its claim to govern itself, in the very constitution which God has given to human nature. This inner energy of social being will collect the race into communities, and bring out from each its inherent sovereignty, modified in its form of governmental working, by the circumstances, but in all, legislating, and judicially investigating, and penally executing, as God's “minister for good, and a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. If you could abolish all forms of human government to-day, and scatter the population of the nations over the earth, this inner working of the human spirit would begin to-morrow to bring together again the scattered fragments, and reconstruct civil and criminal codes of law, and bring their authority to bear upon the human conscience from the irrepressible public conviction of its rightful sovereignty. The impulses of humanity force it into communities, and the imperatives of the rational forbid that it should be the mere herding together of the animal, but oblige society to take on the regulated responsibilities of the spiritual,

The rational in humanity will also work out its forms of beauty and of taste in the fine arts; and the pure ideals of the reason will be made to appeal to the susceptibilities of the sense, in works of fiction, poetry, and song; and spirit speak to spirit in the chiselled expression of the marble, and the glowing thought and feeling upon the canvas.

But more especially in the direct line of spiritual operation, through the moral and religious promptings of the force within, will humanity be moved through all its generations. There are convictions and imperatives stirring ever within the deep places of the spiritual, that will not permit the action to be wholly engrossed in the wants, nor quieted in the restings, of the animal. The sense may be constantly clamorous and insatiable, and the spirit may be often absorbed in the animal gratification, or stupefied in the surfeiting of sensuality; but human nature cannot so far sink itself into the brutal, and bury its better powers so deep, that their working shall not come up into the consciousness. The hour of reflection ever cometh, and with it the sharp conviction of guilt, and all the delights of sense lose their power to charm. The work of inward warning and reproof, of scourging with shame and remorse, will be done, for the workman is within us, and his hand cannot be stayed. The spirit needs nothing but to awake in the consciousness of imperatives which never cease their pressure, and its power must at once go out upon the sense, to curb in subjection every unruly appetite, or be turned in upon itself, inflicting the terrible retributions which the consciousness of its own guilt demands.

The force of the spiritual must, thus, from the very constitution of humanity, urge the action onward to much higher stations. Systems of religion, true or false, must be built to meet the demands of such convictions, and calm and soothe the anxieties inseparable from such anticipations; and such religious creeds and forms of worship will bind themselves upon their votaries, through all the strong feelings of religious hope and fear, of spiritual love and veneration. Whether, then, the animal be subjected to the rational, or the rational be degraded as the slave of the aniinal; whether the sense concur or collide with the spirit, this spiritual force will work through all ranks and ages of the human family, and move the race to action, and build its altars and temples in every land, and prostrate humanity before its God, whom, in some worthy or unworthy manner, it must adore.

Thus is it clear, that human nature cannot lie stagnant and motionless. There are fires within which cannot be quenched; forces which cannot be repressed. Society will be in motion before the impulse of its own inner energy. In some of its various partitions, it may be as the rock detached from the summit of the mountain, to be dashed in fragments at its base; or, as the foaming torrent, to precipitate itself beyond its successive obstacles, till it find its level bottom and embracing banks, amid the flowers and herbage of the quiet vale below.

The third inquiry is for the law that must guide this movement, and make it to be an assured march of social progress towards its consummation.

The question which here presents itself, is far more complicated than those which have been considered, and will demand a more careful and protracted investigation. We may not find a law which holds its complete control over every movement, and bringing the race through its successive conflicts right onward to its promised possession. Conflicting ends and interests perpetually inter-work in this movement; and the progress is from side to side through wide extremes, as the ship beats into port against wind and tide; yea, at times it is apparently retrograde, as the stream sets back upon itself, that it may accumulate force to demolish, or elevate itself to overleap, its obstacles. The need for humanity is, the attainment of the precise point of balanced and harmonized action in all its inner forces; and this point it must be seeking, and towards it the movement must be tending, if indeed it is ever to attain its consummation. If, then, we may find from what point, and under what direction, all the inner forces of humanity may go forth in unimpeded and harmonious action, and in the attainment of which no further struggles and conflicts will be demanded, than just to maintain itself in that position, and flow on in an even and perpetual stream ever after, augmenting from its own growth, and progressing in its own regulated current; then in

that may we see its consummation, and from that determine the law by which it is to bring itself over all obstacles, and recover itself from all one-sided movements. This, therefore, is the remaining, though most difficult, part of our undertaking; but wbich, what has been already attained may furnish us with the means for accomplishing. Let us, then, take the complete conception of humanity as both animal and rational, with all the inherent forces and ends which are contained in both, and see if we may find a point in which shall be given the idea of their conjoined harmonious operation.

The sensory finds its end in the gratification of its. desires. It never goes beyond itself, but is at rest whenever its cravings are satisfied. It has its many susceptibilities, and some desires may become inordinate, some may conflict with others, and gratification may thus often be indulged to its own damage. The point of harmony in the individual sensory is, then, manifestly this—to restrain and regulate all gratification for the attainment of the greatest sum-total. The highest aggregate of happiness for its whole existence, is the regulative principle of the sensory. Its rule, in an understanding, judging according to its end of action, is prudence. And that a sensory should guide itself prudently, it will be necessary to give to it a generic susceptibility in self-love, which shall check and control, in its greater intensity, all partial gratification. The whole organism is, in this way, pathologically governed to the full extent that the judgment in the understanding shall reach. If the judgment is correct, the animal action controlled by self-love, must be according to the promptings of prudence.

But the sensory in humanity is in social action ; and there may be the gratification in one to the injury of others. The point of harmonized action here, manifestly again, is this—the action of each one for the greatest aggregate of happiness in all; or, as the utilitarian form of expression is, “the greatest good of the greatest number." In proportion as an understanding, judging according to the sense in humanity universally, shall be able to determine such line of action, it will give the rule of benevolence; or, inasmuch as benevolence is here quite an equivocal term, we will call it the rule of kindness-viz., the greatest happiness of his kind. Put within the sensory a susceptibility to kindness, and make its intensity controlling over all other susceptibilities, and there will be a pathological force to guide the sense to the greatest happiness of each, and of the whole. It will then be prudent to each that they be kind to all. And, now, were humanity all animal, here would be its perfection of action. You could not put within it a higher impulse than that it should make itself the most happy, when it was making others the most happy.

But humanity is also spiritual ; and as rational spirit, the end is

to act rationally; or, as the same thing in our former method of expression, to act according to its own excellency. The force here will be no pathological impulse, but solely a rational imperative. The rule for the spirit will be the moral law in its own conscience. This followed, and it must ever guide its action aright in all social relations. It is reasonable—i. e. it is according to its own inner law—to implicitly obey the will of God, the absolute spirit, whenever and however made known; and it is reasonable to defer to other spirits, just in proportion to their rational dignity and excellency. God consults his own excellency, as his glory, in governing; all spirits, in their rationality, consulting the imperatives of their own consciousness of what is worthy of themselves, both in obedience to God and in communion with each other, and thus the whole system is throughout, holy.

We have thus, the points of harmonious action in the two elementary compounds of humanity, separately. The animal in the sense, will act for its highest end, when controlled by the rule of kindness; the rational in the spirit, will act for its highest end when it obeys the law of holiness. And now comes the last step, to attain the point of harmonious action when the sense and the spirit, with their laws, are combined in unity in human nature.

This point of harmonious action can possibly be none other than this—that the animal be wholly the servant of the spiritual. The sense may never elevate its end in competition with, much less in opposition to, the end of the spirit. It is ever “to gird itself," and first serve the rational," and afterwards it may eat and drink.” The sensory has no freedom, and hence can have no rights. It is cared for in this, that it is put in subjection to a master who has a conscience, and is bound by the imperative of what is due to himself, when to indulge and when to deny the sensory. It may not be what the sense craves; it must be what the conscience claims. If the sense, in any case, is alone concerned, gratify it just as you would any other animal. Apply the rule of prudence to it in its individual action, and that of kindness in its associate action, just as you would to the horse or the ox, and compel it neither to hurt itself nor others. In such a rational control of the sense, prudence and kindness become virtues ; they are the product of the free spirit, and not the pathological impulse of the sensory. The great law of the spirit in this connexion is; “ keep under the body and bring it into subjection;" “ be temperate," " be kindly affectioned one to another.” But, if the claims of the spirit, either in its social relations to other spirits, or in its religious relation to God, demand the sacrifice of the sense-make it; make it promptly and completely, even to the crushing of its very being beneath the spiritual imperative, and go down to death, in the integrity of your conscience.

Always subject your happiness, even in its annihilation, to your holiness.

Here is the consummation of humanity. Society cannot rest from its internal chafings, collisions, and frequent bloody conflicts, except as it has attained this complete moral control of the spiritual over the sensual. Both are, and evermore to be, in humanity; and they cannot dwell together in peace, and the stream of social relations run on in its blissful tranquillity, until such rightful supremacy and righteous subjection are secured. Humanity may try many expedients, and pass through many extremes in its onesided reformations; but it may move freely in its bliss under this law only. Struggle otherwise as it may for its desired quietness, its own inner nature will fight up against the attempt, and make it to be vain.

And now, just here, is an insuperable difficulty interposed. Humanity has fallen from rectitude, and is ruined in its depravity. The spirit has sold itself as the bond-slave to the flesh. It has renounced the law of holiness, and debased its own immortal energies to the pursuit of happiness as its end. This is the declaration of God's word; “lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.” This is the voice of all past history. The testimony is given, both amid the scenes of low and gross sensuality, and in the prouder walks of a more refined sensualism. The spirit is as truly in bondage to the sense, in that self-conceit and vain glory which is proud of birth, or fortune, or station, or strength, or talent, or beauty; and that self-righteousness which vaunts its charities, and tithes, and fastings; and that superstition which parades its beads, pictures and relics, its vestments and titles; as in the avarice which hoards and starves, or in the voluptuousness which squanders and riots. The depravity is universal in which the sense, in some form, from being the servant has become the tyrant.

And here, it might be a conclusion from the fact and the nature of depravity, that it would be vain to expect the human race to effect their own deliverance. This bondage of the spirit is by its own consent. The sense, it is true, has acquired no right to dominion from the surrender of the spirit to it; nor has the spirit at all annihilated the perpetual imperative that it should reässert its dignity, and reclaim its authority, and put the sense back in its place of legitimate service at the footstool ; but both the arrogance of the servant in his usurpation, and the baseness of the master in his submission, forbid the hope that the human family will ever of itself recover its lost nobility, and regain its primitive order and harmony. The pressure of the obligation and the charge of guilt provokes, irritates, and inflames the spirit in its degradation, but does not reclaim and restore. All the past history of the race confirms the conviction of this hopeless degeneracy. There has been ceaseless commotion, turmoil, and heaving to and fro, but