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whether I rightly apprehend him as stating that activity in man, and in all 

 spiritual beings, is from above ? 



Mr. Gorman. — Yes. No created being has life in itself. The Deity 

 alone has life in Himself. Man, for example, is merely an organized 

 receptacle of life. 



Mr. Graham. — If the assertion be that the power of activity comes 

 from above, I accept the statement ; but if it be meant that the activity 

 itself comes fpom above, then all human actions must be good ones. 



INIr. Gorman. — ]May I explain ? When the divine influx descends 

 into our minds, it flows into an organ or receptacle of life, the soul, Avhich is 

 by nature in a state of evil. The inflowing life becomes modified, according 

 to the nature and character of the recipient. The evil is not in the inflowing 

 life, but in the already perverted will and understanding which receive it. 

 Thus, it is the same life that flows into man and angel ; but it is modified 

 according to the form and state of the recipient. In like manner, in the 

 natural world, the heat and light of one and the same sun flow into a 

 grain of wheat and into the seed of the deadly nightshade, and, owing to the 

 difl'erence of the recipient form, there results, in the one case what con- 

 tributes to sustain life ; in the other, a narcotic poison. 



The Chairman. — We are going a little too far from the subject of the 

 paper. 



Mr. Graham. — I think we are nearly agreed. Having made these 

 observations, I deem it right to say that I am exceedingly thankful to the 

 author of this paper for the way in which he has brought the subject before 

 us. I regard it as a very able paper ; but could wish the author had 

 entered more into the moral aspect of the question, because I think that that 

 is the most important aspect in which we can view it, and I think also that 

 the generality of reflecting peo^Dle, and more especially those who believe 

 that the subjects of morality and righteousness are the highest we can keep 

 before our mmds, would be greatly interested to find the question treated 

 from this point of view. 



Mr. Phipps. — Although a stranger, I may perhaps be permitted to observe 

 that to me one of the most interesting parts of the paper we have heard is 

 that which speaks of the permanency and non-permanency of motion. It 

 is an old argument that motion of heavy niatter once established must needs 

 go on for ever, because although it may communicate motion to something 

 else, and that something else may do the same thing to another something, 

 the motion that is communicated must go on for ever. I should like to know 

 whether the author of the paper conceives that the objection to the per- 

 manency of motion, when once established, is the difficulty of saying what 

 infinite space is filled Avith. I gathered that the difficulty arose from the 

 ignorance in which we are upon this subject, some saying that space is filled 

 with a fine ether, while others conceive it to be a vacuum. 



The Chairman. — The real difficulty of dealing with this paper is that it 

 involves important principles of Physical and Metaphysical Science, of a high 



