76 EEV. A. R. WHATELY^ D.D.^ ON CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY. 



be a witness to the struggle of the spiritual nature to express itself 

 to itself; and it is just in that aspect — as truly concrete and 

 empirical as it is metaphysical — that I claim its right to primary 

 consideration. 



Archdeacon Potter quite misunderstands my position. The 

 " assumption " with which Christian Philosophy, as I understand it, 

 must start, is simply an experiential datum, and all philosophy 

 professedly starts from such. As to particular doctrines, the 

 Christian Philosophy will only accept these at first for examination ; 

 though it knows that they have some truth because they are at least 

 an attempt to express that central experience which is the Christian 

 philosopher's point cVappui. To co-ordinate Christianity with 

 ordinary sciences would be to beg the question of its fundamental 

 position in experience. Of course I quite agree that the very 

 nature and meaning of intuition must be fixed ; the case of the 

 lady mentioned does not touch me. I cannot now go into this 

 question, but am quite prepared to meet it, and indeed have dealt 

 with it in print. 



But I am particularly surprised at the Archdeacon's misunder- 

 standing of my attitude on the subject of Indeterminism. If I had 

 made Christian Philosophy " start by siding with Indeterminism," 

 I should have been flying in the face of my most fundamental 

 principles. Long reflection on the subject has indeed resulted, for 

 me, in a most emphatic rejection of Determinism ; but my opinion 

 is that Christian Philosophy would lead us to a standpoint from 

 which the wrong assumptions underlying Determinism would be 

 revealed ; a very different thing from the fallacious procedure of 

 building on a preliminary rejection of it. 



A cordial vote of thanks to the lecturer for his thoughtful paper 

 was carried unanimously. 



