204 THE REV. J. H. BERNARD, D.D., ON THE 



The education of this world is full of the overruling Providence 

 of God in the history of nations. The east wind which drove back 

 the waters of the Red Sea is paralleled by the great wind which 

 dispersed the Spanish Armada. But it is in the private history 

 of our own lives that we realise most fully the workings of 

 Providence — how we were led by ways we knew not to ends we 

 dreamt not of. If a man cannot discover the traces of God's 

 designs in the ordering of his own life, then God must for ever 

 remain a hidden God to him. 



Professor H. Langhorne Orchard, M.A., B.Sc. — I think the 

 remark of the last speaker that design is traceable not only in 

 creation but also in Providence, is of very great importance indeed. 

 There is a remark made on page 6 of this Paper which appears to 

 me to go to the very root of the matter. " If we are conscious of 

 succession we ourselves do not change, we are permanent. That 

 which is conscious of any series of events cannot itself be part of 

 the series." In the same way, I suppose, it would be fair to add 

 that that which is conscious of matter cannot itself be material. 

 If this argument be allowed (and it certainly appears to be irre- 

 sistible) it does away, of course, with Matei'ialisni at a stroke. 



I should like to make one or two observations on Kant's argu- 

 ment and those remarks w r hich Professor Bernard quoted from 

 Hume. Kant's argument is that " the power at the basis of 

 Nature is utterly beyond definition or comprehension ; and thus 

 we are going beyond our legitimate province if we venture to 

 ascribe to it a mode of operation with which we are only conversant 

 in the case of being subject to the conditions of space and time." 

 I think it is tolerably obvious here that Kant assumes a thing which 

 he ought to prove. Is it so, that " we are only conversant with it 

 in the case of being subject to the conditions of space and time"? 

 That is a petitio principii. It is surprising that a mind of such 

 extraordinary philosophical power as that of Kant should use so 

 very inconclusive an argument. The reasoning from adaptation of 

 means to ends, to the purposes of such adaptation, has nothing 

 whatever to do, I submit, with being distinct from Nature or being 

 part of it — with transcending nature or not transcending it. IT 

 has brought into this argument what is altogether irrelevant f« ' ae 

 point of the argument. Hume's argument that we must no., infer 

 that a taper and the sun are in any respect of the same character 

 appeal's really to refute itself. Surely if a taper gives light aud 



