o1l4 ARCHDEACON B. POTTER, M.A., ON 
rejected Him, ‘Ye are of your father, the devil.” Are we to 
suppose then that some men have had a devilish pre-existence, and 
others a divine? ‘These expressions surely were used to indicate 
character and not pre-existence ; and the proof of our immortality 
lies in our nature and not in any such hypothetical pre-existence. 
Referring to the subject of punishment, he says that many crimi- 
nals “‘ cannot resist acting as they do.” I remember my old theological 
tutor dealing with that plea said that any man brought before a 
magistrate who should plead it might with equal force be answered 
by the magistrate, “I cannot resist punishing you, take six weeks’ 
imprisonment.” It is answering a fool according to his folly. 
Then with regard to the advice given at the close of the paper to 
“avoid remorse,” if he had said “avoid the occasion for remorse,” 
the advice would have been sound. But remorse is the penalty 
inflicted by the Moral Governor of the Universe upon wilful and 
irremediable wrong doing, and to tell us to avoid remorse is 
advising us to do what is impossible, and to fly in the face of our 
Creator. 
COMMUNICATIONS. 
Professor J. KIRKPATRICK (Edinburgh University) writes :— 
Although an old student of philosophy, I fear I am not at all 
competent to grapple with the old problem of Determinism versus 
Free Will. I shall therefore not presume to criticise Archdeacon 
Potter’s very able address, except in a few very slight particulars. 
On p. 299.“ He will probably so act” does not seem to me very 
clear. ‘Free will” in this case appears to be used synonymously 
with animal propensities or evil passions—the free will of an animal, 
but surely not the free will of a man, however savage ? 
A somewhat similar remark applies to a passage at the foot of 
p. 300. An absolutely ungoverned will is surely not to be found in 
human beings, except where a taint of hereditary insanity, or 
preternatural craving for drink, or abnormal animal passions, 
reduces them to the level or below the level of the lower animals. 
There is therefore little probability of trust being reposed in such 
persons by the statesman or the general. 
I venture to think that a first step toward a solution of the 
problem (if problem it be) would be to define ‘‘ Determinism” and 
* Free will.” 
