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theory of the interposition of God. The Creator is able to anticipate 
certain points at which there will be apparent breaches, and in the form 
of the Second Person of the Trinity, He comes in and performs acts which 
are not really breaches of continuity, but which appear to be so. I do not 
know if I have grasped the meaning of the authors, but that is the only 
explanation I can arrive at as to their theory, when applied to miracles. It 
appears to me that there is another attempt to join the three Persons of the 
Trinity in their action, which results in bringing in things which are totally 
incongruous, namely, where the several functions of the Trinity are made 
to represent different phenomena of matter and energy. There is one point 
which I should particularly like to bring before the attention of the meeting, 
and that is with reference to the disposition of energy. The theory of the 
book is, that the whole visible universe, matter, aether, and all, must 
come to an end. There is a constant change from one kind of energy to 
another — kinetic and potential — but there is also a loss of energy which is 
laid on the shelf and cannot be used again. Now the writers of “ The Unseen 
Universe” have taken up some experiments by Clark Maxwell, and they 
suggest the possibility of energy being renewed after it is apparently dead. 
I should liked to have had this discussed from a scientific point of view, 
because they do not appear to me to have proved their case. They represent 
Clark Maxwell, with reference to energy in atoms, setting to work by means 
of imaginary “ demons ” opening and shutting little doors in a firm partition 
whereby the atoms are compelled to work. But I object that these “ demons’’ 
are actual external forces, for I maintain that the authors of the book, so far 
as their own theory leads them, must arrive at absolute deadness of energy, 
and I think the immortality they promise is nothing but annihilation. There 
was one point on which Dr. Irons was not altogether satisfactory to me. He 
objected to the Creator being put off for so many universes, on the sentimental 
ground that the Christian would never know his Father. Now, if you 
arrive at an unconditioned universe you arrive at intellectual deadness. To 
say that a Christian is to arrive at that, and is to go no further, is to offer 
him nothing better than Buddha’s annihilation, but the authors of “The 
Unseen Universe ” do offer at least a perpetual eternity of conditioned 
universes one above another, and I cannot myself imagine a more entire 
fulfilment of all the desires of Christians than that of perpetual growth from 
one state or condition to another and higher state. (Cheers.) 
Rev. Dr. Bigg. — I have listened with great pleasure and satisfaction to 
the remarks made by the gentleman who addressed us last. One cannot help 
feeling, in reading the book entitled “ The Unseen Universe,” that we have 
in it a singular reproduction of very ancient theories and terms — that, in 
fact, it is a form of Platonism reproduced. You have the ideal world in- 
visible, but from which the whole visible world has come forth into concrete 
form and existence, and that ideal world is the abode of the originals of all 
things is the fountain and cause of all things — is the kingdom and realm of 
all that is good and beautiful — and holy and eternal. Therefore, I say, we 
