187 
poraneously with the experience. There would hardly show a ’fore and 
after— an antecedent and a posterior, in the case. The child has that con- 
fidence which the paper declared to be anterior to experience, only m that 
sense in which Dr. Rigg himself, as I understand him, maintains that it 
could not be only the result of experience, but must be something more. 
If my memory does not entirely mislead me, Dr. Rigg seemed to admit 
that it was absurd to imagine a child trusting a parent only in consequence 
of a series of experiences. . 
Dr. Rigg.- On the contrary, I argued that it had trust and faith in con- 
sequence of a series of experiences, and I would say that the intuitive part 
there, is simply a belief in the continuity or uniformity of cause and effect, 
and their relation to each other. 
Dr. Irons. — The uniformity of cause and effect is not a phrase which 
occurs in the paper, and a child would hardly trust his parent on that 
ground. 
Dr. Rigg.— No, but that is how I should have explained it. 
Dr. Irons.— Well, I do not want to force any phrase, but only to do 
justice to the paper ; and I must express my surprise that a paper 
which is, if indirectly, brimful of intuition, should be charged, as I under 
stood, with having nothing of it. But why not deal with the paper 
according as the author treats the subject l The author has to do with 
the allegation of unbelief as put forward by Professor Clifford— I hope Pro- 
fessor Clifford is here to-night — and that allegation is, that every man must 
prove everything for himself. Now, I find it hard to conceive that any 
one is serious in maintaining such a view as this. Unbelief is to change 
into belief, in every instance, only after the careful examination of evi- 
dences ! Why, not one in ten thousand could comply with such condi- 
tions ; it would be absolutely impossible. You would have a world in 
which the whole population would be doubters and unbelievers if you could 
procure faith in no other way than this. Now, instead of finding fault with 
that theory of authority here drawn out in at least some detail by Professor 
Wace to meet unbelief, would it not have been more to the point to show 
how the infidel should be met in this matter, and how on other grounds 
we should answer men who expect no one to believe except on scientific 
grounds ? I am as convinced as Dr. Rigg or Dr. Angus can be that 
our Religion is not a matter of guess : it is a certainty. It stands 
not in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God. I am quite 
as sure it is knowledge. Apostle after apostle significantly speaks of it as 
beino- a “knowledge of the truth.” In reference to this, it is not to be 
denied that there are some passages in the paper before us which nee 
to be brought out and greatly enlarged on ; but surely the points them- 
selves desired by Dr. Rigg are there, though no doubt they are somewhat 
latent in certain places. One thing which may be said against the paper 
is that it makes too little of the eyo-the man himself is not sufficiently 
brought out as a being responsible ab initio. Man must be regarded as a 
