obliterated, formed itself distinctly in the consciousness of some gifted individuals, and philosophy began. Philosophy in its purest form, as taught by Socrates and Plato, presented again the lost idea of pure Theism. But the spirituality which enabled them to see the truth, lifted them so far above the common people, that they could affect only a few. And what was most disheartening, that same degradation which originally lost to man the truth, now prevented him from receiving it. Thus it was that by a binding of the Reason to the wheels of Passion, and discursing through the world with the Understanding at the beck of the Sense, the many forms of religion became. "ULTIMATE SCIENTIFIC IDEAS." On a former page we have already attempted a positive answer to the question, "What are Space and Time," with which Mr. Spencer opens this chapter. It was there found that, in general terms, they are _a priori_ conditions of created being; and, moreover, that they possess characteristics suitable to what they condition, just as the _a priori_ conditions of the spiritual person possess characteristics suitable to what they condition. It was further found that this general law is, from the necessity of the case, realized both within the mind and without it; that it is, must be, the form of thought for the perceiving subject, corresponding to the condition of existence for the perceived object. It also appeared that the Universe as object, and the Sense and Understanding as faculties in the subject, thus corresponded; and further, that these faculties could never transcend and comprehend Space and Time, because these were the very conditions of their being; moreover, that by them all spaces and times must be considered with reference to the Universe, and apart from it could not be examined by them at all. Yet it was further found that the Universe might in the presence of the Reason be abstracted; and that, then, pure Space and Time still remained as pure _a priori_ conditions, the one as _room_, the other as _opportunity_, for the coming of created being. Space and Time being such conditions, _and nothing more_, are entities only in the same sense that the multiplication table and the moral law are entities. They are _conditions_ suited to what they condition. In the light of this result let us examine Mr. Spencer's teachings respecting them.