339 
Mr. Row. — I think what I have said has been misunderstood. My general 
impression of the passage I referred to was that it might lead to such 
theories as are laid down in Buckle’s History of Civilization. I agree 
with Dr. Irons, that there are a number of social forces which are within the 
region of moral law, but the general theory laid down by Buckle is one 
which I absolutely dispute. He lays down that human will and man’s 
moral nature are as necessary in their action as the forces of the physical 
universe. The passage might be supposed to lend a certain degree of sanction 
to very wide principles, on which a great amount of the unbelief of the 
present day is erected. I do not suppose the author means to support this 
view, but I think he is somewhat ambiguous, and that he might be supposed 
to lend the sanction of his name to some of the general principles laid down 
by Buckle. Buckle lays down, for instance, that marriages are as necessary 
as the physical laws of nature, because, having regard to a set of averages, 
their variation in numbers nearly approximates to the variations in the price 
of corn. To make his argument of the smallest value they ought perfectly 
to coincide. 
Rev. 0. L. Engstrom. — I do not wish to put myself prominently 
forward with regard to this most admirable paper, but with respect to 
the question as to the agreement between science and religion, it has struck 
me that we may find in science most valuable suggestions as to the non- 
necessity of endeavouring to make the two spheres evidently fit together. I 
will take, as an illustration, the scientific instrument known as the stereo- 
scope. You will have noticed that in using this instrument there is gene- 
rally, just for a moment or two, a difficulty in getting the focus of each eye 
so adjusted as to make the two pictures form one perfect image. It is not 
unreasonable to suppose that the mind has a si m ilar difficulty in regard to 
questions such as we have had put before us, and that thus it may be that two 
conceptions may be made to form, as in natural objects, one complete image, 
when properly focussed. It seems to me that science and religion bring 
these questions before the mind (as physical objects are seen by the eye) 
from different points of vision, and that the difficulty we often have in making 
some particular point of the Bible agree with some particular point in science, 
is onlylike the difficulty we find in focussing the two pictures in the stereoscope. 
And yet we know that it is because there are two distinct pictures 
in the stereoscope -that we are enabled to see one solid image. There 
was a remarkable article in the Quarterly or Edinburgh some years ago — 
an article which drew attention to the way in which the vision is corrected 
by mental impressions. It was pointed out that if you look at a man when a 
hundred yards off, the impression on the mind is that he looks nearly 
as large as when standing only ten yards oil'. This is a matter of 
which any one present can judge of the next time he goes into the 
street. The explanation of it is that the mind is continually correcting 
the impressions of the senses. This probably runs through the whole 
of our impressions. We may fancy that we are guided in some matters 
VOL. XII. 2 A 
