almost miraculous, force pervading the universe, called Electricity; this is now one of the widest of general terms in the vocabulary of physical science, and arrived at, like {58} all other such terms, by the carefully weighed steps of a long induction. Certain phenomena of attraction are first observed, in reference to amber, wax, and other bodies, when rubbed, free from the influence of humidity; the same phenomena are then observed in other bodies, and accompanied with the emission of sparks of light and tiny explosions; by an ingeniously contrived apparatus the force which causes these sparks and these explosions is accumulated, and the effects produced by this higher potency of the same force become of course more noticeable, and some of these experiments lead a thinking man irresistibly to the notion that what we call electricity, as elicited by us from our electrical machines, is only a sort of mimic thunder and lightning, as crackers with which boys play on the Queen’s birthday are in principle the same as big cannons and Lancaster guns. This idea, once entertained, is tested in many different ways, till the conclusion is certainly arrived at that electricity and lightning are identical. By and by other forces, such as magnetism and galvanism, being considered more carefully, and compared with the electricity of the electric machines, are found to possess many points of resemblance, and are in time concluded to be fundamentally the same; and now our general term electricity is widened into a cosmical power, which if we fail to define, the failure will arise not from building on partial facts, but because our generalization has clearly mounted so high into the domain of the Infinite that the finite understanding staggers, and perhaps is doomed for ever to stagger, at the attempt to hold it in firm grasp. Thus the progress of physical science is a continual process of the giving up of inadequate {59} general terms, and supplying them by something either exactly adequate, or approximating to adequacy, as high as the human intellect can hope to ascend. Now to this process the discovery of the true significance of general terms in morals forms an exact parallel. Suppose, for instance, a young Englishman emerging out of the merely physical delights of cricket and boat-racing, and beginning to occupy himself seriously with some of the great social questions of the day. To him morality first presents itself, not in the form of logical analysis, the characteristic engine of Socrates, but in the concrete form of the Christian Church. He starts therefore with an idea of ethical science as a part of Christianity, and of Christianity as he knows it, formulated in certain articles of belief, represented dramatically in certain liturgic services, and held together by a certain hierarchy of office-bearers. In this condition it is not to be expected that the idea either of Morals, or of Church, or of Religion, or of