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written the paper with a view to make good these initial statements, but my 
objection is, that any one getting hold of the paper and looking merely at 
the opening sentences might be tempted to say, “ The author assumes the 
whole thing in advance,” and then throw the paper down. I think the 
case would have been stronger if the paper did not assume at the very 
outset, the thing which was going to be proved. Then in his third paragraph 
Mr. Pattison says : — 
“ If all phenomena are limited by law, then they cannot have been self- 
originated, nor are they self-governed.” 
But one of those to whom we stand opposed might well ask, “ How do you 
know that ? ” I think it important for us to remember that it has been the 
just pride of this Institute, that we do not meet here to talk as if we had 
nothing but the Bible at our back, but to talk as men who, having the Bible 
Truth at our back, can argue on grounds that other men use against us in 
their speeches. What we have to cope with is a condition of mind which is 
just the very opposite of this — which declares on the one hand that all 
phenomena are limited by law, and yet on the other hand, that all phenomena 
are self-organized. There is a passage in Mr. Pattison’s seventh paragraph 
about which I wish to ask him a question. He there says : — 
“ Recent geological research has disproved uniformitarianism, and recent 
biology has disowned Darwinism.” 
These words “ disproved ” and “ disowned ” are judiciously used, but I want 
to know if Mr. Pattison refers in relation to biology to the recent experi- 
ments with regard to the Badaria ; and, with regard to uniformitarianism, 
whether he refers to anything since the death of Sir Charles Lyell. I may 
mention that Sir Charles Lyell himself made a very damaging admission 
against his own theory of uniformitarianism, when he said that no lapse of 
ages would ever suffice to scoop out the bed of the Thames. Then I come 
to a passage at the commencement of the 20th paragraph, where Mr. 
Pattison says : — “ Atoms are limited by law.” When I find Professor Clerk 
Maxwell and Sir John Herschel declaring that the primary molecules are 
manufactured articles, I think that, considering that you cannot have a 
manufactured article that has not been made on a plan and for a purpose, it 
is unnecessary to say another word on this part of the subject, when these 
men, masters of their own special departments in science, tell you a fact li ke 
this. (Hear, hear.) In the 33rd and 35th paragraphs we have two or 
three important passages. Mr. Pattison says : — 
“ At present our powers of investigation are completely baffled by life ” 
(par. 33). 
“ There can be no modification equal to a total change at one bound, and 
intermediate steps there are none ” (par. 33). 
“ The process may be arrested and held in suspense by conditions cither 
natural or artificial, but, these being removed, the tendency towards the 
