human life, and even of inanimate life, in order to be in a position to judge 
adequately of conduct, and, if so, it would seem a very rash thing to condemn 
beforehand an irregular experiment of the kind referred to. That is the way in 
which the matter strikes me ; but I should all the more like to know what 
Mr. Spencer himself would say upon the subject. Mr. Herbert Spencer ad mita 
however, that he is obliged to give up his primary principle and to fall back 
on the simple elements of equity, and if any practice of the kind in ques- 
tion could be shown to involve injustice to another, he would perha|*<say that 
it is thereby condemned at once. But my point is, that so far as he say* 
this, he gives up his general principle.* 
Professor Stanley Leathes, D.D. — I have been called upon to nay 
something, but I am not really competent to speak on the subject of the 
paper before us, because I have not read Mr. Herbert Spencer's work on the 
Data of Ethics. I have only gathered, very vaguely, some notion of it from 
other treatises ; but it seems to me that the question of Ethics has really 
been solved ages ago by the Mosaic law. I think when one endeavours 
to probe to the bottom the reason why the Ten Commandments were given, 
the only reason that can be found is that they are in accordance with the 
constitution of nature. Take them one by one, and this seems to be the only 
ultimate reason that can be discovered for those law s being given, or for their 
existing in themselves, or for their being commonly recognised, and therefore 
I think that the Mosaic law* guides us to a very important result in these 
questions, because it is virtually based upon two grand principles, one being 
the revelation of God ; and the other, what is good for man in his social rela- 
tions. So that the Mosaic law virtually propounds the connection between 
religion and morality. Now, in the present day, it is constantly endeavoured 
to sever this connection between religion and morality, and to say that we 
want no religion if we only have morality. I think that that is just 
one of the questions that can only be tried by experiment, t and I 
think that we can come to no conclusion but that we cannot have 
morality unless we also have religion. (Hear, hear.) This religion, according 
to the Mosaic law, is involved in the assertion,— “ I am the Lord thy God.” 
Everything turns on that ; that is the foundation of the whole moral code as 
it is afterwards given. First of all, we have the revelation of the person of 
God, and the fact that He claims to stand in a particular relation to every 
human being ; while, in consequence of the relationship in which every 
human being stands to the God who thus reveals Himself, we have the fact 
of our constitution ; for, if God thus reveals Himself to us, it is solely because 
we are His creatures, and He has given to our nature the power of recog- 
* Mr. Herbert Spencer was unable to attend the meeting, and has in- 
formed the Council that he will hike an opportunity of replying to his 
critics ; the question alluded to by Mr. Flavel Cook was amongst those 
placed before him. — Ed. 
t As in France in 1793. — Ed. 
