It is hardly possible to concede too wide a field to biological research, if we keep well to the front the fact, that man is a spiritual being whose material organs act in obedience to spiritual suggestion; that, for example, as the hand writes, so the brain thinks, in obedience to suggestions. Is the suggestion self originated? Probably not; it would appear that, as the material life is sustained upon its appropriate food from without, so the immaterial life is sustained upon _its_ food,--ideas or suggestions spiritually conveyed. May the words “idea” and “suggestion” be used as synonymous terms? Only in so far as that ideas convey suggestions to be effected in acts. What part does the man himself play in the reception of this immaterial food? It is as though one stood on the threshold to admit or reject the viands which should sustain the family. Is this free-will in the reception or rejection of ideas the limit of man’s responsibility in the conduct of his life? Probably it is; for an idea once received must run its course, unless it be superseded by another idea, in the reception of which volition is again exercised. How do ideas originate? They appear to be spiritual emanations from spiritual beings; thus, one man conveys to another the idea which is a very part of himself. Is the intervention of a bodily presence necessary for the transmission of an idea? By no means; ideas may be conveyed through picture or printed page; absent friends would appear to communicate ideas without the intervention of means; natural objects convey ideas, but, perhaps, the initial idea in this case may always be traced to another mind. Then the spiritual sustenance of ideas is derived directly or indirectly from other human beings? No; and here is the great recognition which the educator is called upon to make. God, the Holy Spirit, is Himself the supreme Educator of mankind. How? He openeth man’s ear morning by morning, to hear so much of the best as the man is able to bear. Are the ideas suggested by the Holy Spirit confined to the sphere of the religious life? No; Coleridge, speaking of Columbus and the discovery of America, ascribes the origin of great inventions and discoveries to the fact that “certain ideas of the natural world are presented to minds, already prepared to receive them, by a higher Power than Nature herself.” Is there any teaching in the Bible to support this view? Yes; very much. Isaiah, for example, says that the ploughman knows how to carry on the successive operations of husbandry, “for his God doth instruct him and doth teach him.” Are all ideas which have a purely spiritual origin ideas of good? Unhappily, no; it is the sad experience of mankind that suggestions of evil also are spiritually conveyed. What is the part of the man? To choose the good and refuse the evil.