286 
for the right ; we are bound to acknowledge the necessity for an appeal to 
that Power of whose aid we feel, as poor human creatures, we stand in need. 
On page 268 the author travels over the same ground to that which I have 
traversed in a paper read before this Institute, namely, that we are not to 
look upon God as a mere abstraction of the human intellect, or a creation of 
our own minds, but as a concrete Being, the source of all life, a Being outside 
and beyond ourselves, who has created us, and who brought the whole world 
into existence. There is another point, also, which seems worthy of 
notice, and that is on page 283, where the author states that the God 
“who has so made and ordered all our bodily members as to suit the con- 
ditions in which He has placed us, cannot have given higher faculties than 
sensation and intellect, to leave them without a possibility of exercise, by 
failing to respond to the faculty which He has given for no other purpose but 
as a means of access to Himself, and the attainment of knowledge concern- 
ing His modes of operation in cases which supply no other data from which 
to start our cogitations.” This is a point that has always struck me as being 
one of very great force. In the physical world we see a marvellous 
adaptability of means to ends. In whatever department of physical science 
we pursue our studies we find this remarkable evidence of purpose and 
design. And yet there are those who tell us that all the higher strivings 
of our nature which lead us to devotion to God, which bring forth 
prayer and a sense of dependence, and which lie at the bottom of all 
religion, are produced in us without an object; that the mere physical 
faculties have a distinct and definite purpose, but that those which are 
highest of all have been brought into existence for no reason whatever. It 
seems to me that nothing can be more self-condemnatory than a notion such 
as this,—that all that is worthiest and best in human nature was given to us 
without a purpose, but that all the lowest, the meanest, and the most com- 
monplace of our faculties have been bestowed upon us for special and definite 
objects. I agree, however, with a remark I heard made the other day at a 
meeting at Cambridge by the Right Hon. W. E. Forster, who said he 
always felt when he got up to speak as if he were in the House of Commons, 
and that, whether he had an antagonist or not, he was obliged to think he 
had one. Like Mr. Forster, I also fancy that I can get on best when I 
have an antagonist; but in the present instance I cannot term Mr. 
Blencowe an antagonist, because he is in perfect sympathy with myself, 
and, this being so, the best thing I can do is to finish what I had to say, 
and resume my seat. (Applause.) 
Mr. W. P. James, F'.L.8.—I have much the same feeling with regard to 
this paper as has been expressed by Mr. Lias, namely, that I agree so entirely 
with it that it is scarcely possible to say anything that is not in the shape 
of praise. Perhaps the title may be open to criticism, because it hardly 
does it justice. It is rather a branch of the theistic argument in 
general than a mere discourse on ‘‘Human Responsibility.” It seems 
to me to take a much wider field than that indicated by the title, 
and to deal with the proof of theism from the point of view of man’s 
